Bad experience with Aura HD

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I understand that people love whatever device they bought, but this "blame the customer" is akin to going by a Kobo service rep's book.

Blaming someone for leaving the reader in the sun a bit much -- these things are sold over tablets for reading in the sun.

Kobo's built is definitely not as good as a Kindle DX. The Kobo squeaks and flexes noticeably at minimal pressure, while the Kindle DX does not. I have had a number of readers over the years, the Kobos are the only ones to break.

Plus, Kobos customer service is at a level I'd expect from a Chinese manufacturer of $30 readers. Nowhere near the level of service provided by Amazon.

Wait until you have to deal with them....

My H2O will be a year old come this Thanksgiving. It does not squeak or flex. It works very well. Personally, I would never leave a Reader in a car. The heat in the car from the sun can reach well over 100 degrees F. Readers are not designed for such extreme temperatures.

Would you put a regular drinking glass in the microwave and boil water in it for a few hours? In the car, you are submitting the glass substrate to 100+ temperatures.

[filmo]

Only one company makes all of the eink screens for Sony, Kindle and Kobo. They all are just as easily broken. Amazon might have more liberal return policy.

[compurandom]

I've owned maybe 7-8 e-readers over the years. Only my first and current ones are not broken. My first one was a Rocket Book which was a heavy thick brick. I used for years until it became obsolete and I couldn't even transfer data to it with current operating systems.

I had a sony, which got its screen cracked. I had a nook; dropped it a few times and then the battery stopped charging. Amazingly the screen didn't crack. Bought another nook, this time with accidental damage insurance, which I used twice for cracked screens before that expired. I think I'm on my third Kobo; each time I've replaced the Kobo, I've upgraded to a larger screen.

I'd never ever leave any electronic device I cared about in a car, especially if it had a rechargeable battery or a touch screen. Four hours in the sun is likely to not only damage the screen, but kill the battery so it won't charge ever again.

If I had taken an Aura HD to the beach, I'd have kept it with me, either in a Ziploc bag, or in a Pelican case.

[susie_toronto]

OK, maybe it is my fault to leave it in my car. Just want to remind you to take extra care of your Kobo, they are more fragile than you think. And kobo customer is the last thing you want to deal. Nothing worse than that.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Blaming someone for leaving the reader in the sun a bit much -- these things are sold over tablets for reading in the sun.

Reading in the sun, in temperatures humans can easily handle, is completely different from leaving your reader in the car for hours.

When JSWolf says internal temperatures can reach over 100F, what he meant was that temperatures can reach as high as 130 F (54 C) when it's nothing but warm (not hot) outside. If it's actually hot outside and the car is left for more than an hour, temps can spike as high as 160 F (71 C). It's pretty common knowledge to not leave electronic devices (or children or dogs) in parked cars.

[susie_toronto]

I left all my electronic devices in the car that day, phones, tablets. Kobo is the only one killed.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by susie_toronto

I left all my electronic devices in the car that day, phones, tablets. Kobo is the only one killed.

E-ink displays (all of them, not only Kobo) have much thinner glass than smartphones and tablets. You were still lucky, however. It's best not to do this with any of those devices.

e.g. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201678

[darryl]

There is a whole thread relating to this. One of my own posts to this thread is:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=65

I was lucky enough to have Kobo replace my broken H2O. However, I do strongly suspect that the H2O is more fragile than a Kindle and needs to be treated with greater care. More specifically, I suspect that the H2O is much more susceptible to flexing. I would never say don't buy an H2O. It is a beautiful reader. Just treat it with kid gloves. Put it in a reasonably rigid case and if you absolutely have to take it out be very careful to avoid flexing.

[frostschutz]

Reading in the sun isn't the same as leaving a device in a car in the sun. You get nasty temperatures in there. Some people bake cookies in their cars. Some people leave their dogs and children and they die within an half-hour. If you reached those temperatures while reading in the sun, you'd drop the reader because it'd be too hot to touch. Smartphones and tablets don't like such temperatures either.

eInk screens are fragile as eggshells. You can break a screen with the pressure of a single finger, it does not take much force at all. You can try this out yourself (if you have a device that is already broken beyond repair). So you should remember that these are touch-screens, which means feel-screens rather than press-screens. They don't handle pressure at all, and torsion is worse as no case protects against that.

Smartphone screens are not as fragile. They have glass but it's usually in the front and for some devices you can even replace the front glass at low cost, as its a separate entity unrelated to the display itself.

There are flexible, supposedly unbreakable eInk screens (on plastic instead of glass) but no mainstream device adopted them which suggests issues such as, high price? lower contrast? I don't know. Until this is resolved, breakage is a risk that comes with the technology.

I haven't broken any of my devices so far, but I bought several broken ones of eBay for spare parts and modding. If I manage to break my Kobo I will just buy a new one.

[howyoudoin]

I don't get the negative outlook on e-readers that "creak and flex". My Aura H2O does not creak and flex, but if it did I wouldn't consider it a negative. Flexing is a feature that could better enable the device to withstand falls to the ground by absorbing the impact. A "sturdy" device would just transfer the forces to the screen making it more likely to crack.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by darryl

There is a whole thread relating to this. One of my own posts to this thread is:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=65

I was lucky enough to have Kobo replace my broken H2O. However, I do strongly suspect that the H2O is more fragile than a Kindle and needs to be treated with greater care. More specifically, I suspect that the H2O is much more susceptible to flexing. I would never say don't buy an H2O. It is a beautiful reader. Just treat it with kid gloves. Put it in a reasonably rigid case and if you absolutely have to take it out be very careful to avoid flexing.

An H20 MAY be more fragile due to the fact that the substrate is larger than the Kindle's substrate.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

An H20 MAY be more fragile due to the fact that the substrate is larger.

*Information only: For the youngsters here, an LP is a Long-Playing Record. A record is something that is round, but larger than a CD.

* = From a McIntosh MA 7000 owner.

Quite an interesting hypothesis. The Aura HD, of course, like the H2O, has a 6.8 inch screen. Also, this may account for Amazon not so far releasing a larger Voyage or Paperwhite. If these larger devices are more fragile Amazon's "generous" attitude to replacements could prove rather costly.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by darryl

There is a whole thread relating to this. One of my own posts to this thread is:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...3&postcount=65

I was lucky enough to have Kobo replace my broken H2O. However, I do strongly suspect that the H2O is more fragile than a Kindle and needs to be treated with greater care. More specifically, I suspect that the H2O is much more susceptible to flexing. I would never say don't buy an H2O. It is a beautiful reader. Just treat it with kid gloves. Put it in a reasonably rigid case and if you absolutely have to take it out be very careful to avoid flexing.

That is just SO WRONG! The H2O is not more fragile than a 6" Kindle.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That is just SO WRONG! The H2O is not more fragile than a 6" Kindle.

You may be right. But based on my experience I'm not taking any chances. It's a great device, and I've got no hesitation recommending it. But I also recommend a good case and treating it very gently.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That is just SO WRONG! The H2O is not more fragile than a 6" Kindle.

I'm a very pleased Kobo and Kindle owner, so try to understand (for a moment) what I am suggesting as a possibility:

Isn't it conceivably possible that the larger a thin piece of glass may be, that this piece of glass MAY be more fragile and prone to breakage than a smaller piece of glass?