My Kobo Aura H2O review unit arrived

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't think we need a review of how responsive the IR touch is. IR has been out long enough and we already know it works well.

For me it works a lot better than capacitive touch. Capacitive screens don't like me.

[Barcey]

I'd like to know the important things.

1) If you spill a glass of wine on it do the pages keep turning and then you have to figure out your place in the book?

2) Can you read through whiskey spills?

3) How many rubber duckies does it take to float it?

4) Do the rubber duckies leave yellow marks on it?

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Barcey

I'd like to know the important things.

1) If you spill a glass of wine on it do the pages keep turning and then you have to figure out your place in the book?

2) Can you read through whiskey spills?

3) How many rubber duckies does it take to float it?

4) Do the rubber duckies leave yellow marks on it?

1, There's a setting to have the touchscreen ignore water droplets.

2, I'm not sure. The words kept getting blurry. Also, I kept falling over.

[PeterT]

I think you might need a co-tester for point #2. I'm sure someone would volunteer to handle the scotch side of the testing, while you focus on the reading side...

[arspr]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

For me it works a lot better than capacitive touch. Capacitive screens don't like me.

Yes, we need... Of course IR and capacitive are really known technologies but, as you can see here, doubleshuffle says something which goes against the a priori expected behaviour. Capacitive should be FAR better than IR as touch recognition technology in every single way but adding extra layers on top of the screen. Because of it every single smartphone uses it, not IR. And because of it, I do prefer IR in an e-ink eReader where touch operations are not really crucial but screen contrast is...

But nevertheless, JSWolf, if you carefully read my original post, I was speaking about IR vs IR comparison. I mean, how well does H2O IR work? As I said, I do have the feeling that my old Sony PRS-650 is quite better, (specially more accurate), than my Aura HD. More over, the Sony included pointer is nearly unusable against the Kobo Aura HD screen: it's just not recognized but quite seldom, it seems to be too thin...

So in fact, yes, IR performance can and must be reviewed IMO.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by ersott

Great.

Please, I'd like to see the kobo aura hd screen vs kobo aura h2o screen with light off on both devices.

Since I had good lighting this afternoon I tried to capture the difference.

i was wrong before; I can see the difference. The Carta screen is a much whiter screen. I'm not sure I caught the difference in the photos, though:

http://the-digital-reader.com/?attachment_id=72316

Just to show you how different the screens are, I clipped a bit of white screen from each of the devices in one photo. I don't think it exactly matches the shades of white, but it does show just how differently the two screens look.

See:

[robko]

Wow! That's like the difference going from the Glo to the HD (where it struck me every time I picked it up for the 1st month how white the HD was). Wasn't expecting that much difference. Thanks for even more good news on the H2O!

[ersott]

Thank you very much, nate.

The kobo aura h2o looks great!

[clarkent]

Crap, now I need to spend money I mean...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I think you might need a co-tester for point #2. I'm sure someone would volunteer to handle the scotch side of the testing, while you focus on the reading side...

I can do the Pina Colda tests no problem.

As for the screen, the new Carta screen does look nice.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I can do the Pina Colda tests no problem.

You already started, didn't you?

(Couldn't resist. )

[TechniSol]

Is the Bacardi and Pineapple testing position still unfilled? I work cheaply!

[Josieb1]

The new one looks lovely.

[arspr]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Since I had good lighting this afternoon I tried to capture the difference.

i was wrong before; I can see the difference. The Carta screen is a much whiter screen. I'm not sure I caught the difference in the photos, though:

http://the-digital-reader.com/?attachment_id=72316

Just to show you how different the screens are, I clipped a bit of white screen from each of the devices in one photo. I don't think it exactly matches the shades of white, but it does show just how differently the two screens look.

See:

I suppose that are a two crops combined from the very same photo with the devices side by side with an even illumination.

Good comparison but they seem somehow dark. And as there's no black to check against.

Some time ago I found somewhere in the web this pdf which is quite good for testing ghosting over page turns or black/white contrast. I upload it in case you find it useful.

A full side by side picture of the black and white stripes page in both devices would be great.

[Barty]

This is interesting. I have a kindle keyboard (pearl) and paper white 2 (carta, front light). With PW on lowest light setting (light cannot be turned off completely) the kindle keyboard has a lighter background and darker text by small but noticeable margin. PW has finer font because of higher resolution. I think the light layer and capacitive touch layer decrease contrast. Also, the paper white has browner tinted background while keyboard has note neutral if not slightly bluish gray,

If you have a paper white Nate, I'd like to hear comparison.