Aura HD Kobo Aura HD

[taming]

I can't answer your questions about characters per line or lines per page because I have no idea if we would be comparing the same thing.

I almost didn't order an Aura because I worried that the greater length would be problematic. I think the decision to mould the back in the way they did was really, really smart. It is very different than holding a 7 inch tablet. There are places where my very small hands just rest naturally. The point of balance (not sure if that is the right term) is slightly below the middle of the reader. That means that it is sightly heaver toward the bottom of the device. I think that contributes to the ease of holding it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I've seen JSWolf ask something about line spacing in one of the threads, but I can't find that one.... there are some things I wish to know. I've got a Kindle Paperwhite (just 4 months old), but the Kobo does have some nice options that I really like, such as more fonts, more size settings, and the font weight adjustment.

Some of my answers have been answered with photos. Go head over to the Kobo Rocks thread. I'm going to be posting a couple/few more samples so I can see how they look.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=211133

[chrisparker]

Originally Posted by taming

Check your screensaver setting choices, Chris. The covers seem to be stretched to fill the full screen. If you uncheck Full Screen, the image is smaller,but much nicer.

No, it's not that. I can imagine some covers are relatively low-res, but I'll check again tomorrow when I've used Calibre to recopy all the books across to the micro-SD card.

I think maybe it's the Aura creating the covers when it needs to use the covers in the epubs...

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by taming

The Aura user guide is now available on the website: http://www.kobo.com/userguides

Good to hear! I was over there yesterday hoping to download a guide and none to be found! I guess they can ignore the email I sent asking where I could download, LOL!

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by grooks

The Aura is 1440x1080 which makes it a 4:3 resolution.

Indeed. You're right, I just looked it up. I seem to have read or heard 1440x900 somewhere, or maybe I just remembered it wrong. So, the conclusion must be, says my second personality: you are an idiot.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some of my answers have been answered with photos. Go head over to the Kobo Rocks thread. I'm going to be posting a couple/few more samples so I can see how they look.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=211133

Thanks, going to check it out.

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I have a white bezelled Glo and would never have thought that there was a perceived lack of contrast problem. I am much more bothered by the general tackiness of black plastic, and the fingerprint magnet effect. Each to his own I guess.

It doesn't matter what you think, it's an objective fact about contrast and bezel colour in einik readers. I dislike the general tackiness of black plastic too, and I prefer a white bezel in general, but the perceived contrast is inferior in a device with a white bezel, I wasn't aware of that, but I figured as much by reading other people here who knew a few more things than I did, and explained why. I can't replicate their posts I am afraid, but someone might want to pick this up and do so, better than I did.

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by Jakkers

I've been interested in the Aura since it was announced, and have been following this thread carefully for news and updates - thanks everyone who has contributed. I finally tracked down a demo unit at an Indigo bookstore, and just made this account so I can give you my impressions.

First, the screen is really excellent. The extra .8 of an inch is noticeably bigger, in a very good way. It more closely matches the actual readable area of a trade paperback. The resolution increase is also noticeable, though less so. Putting the Aura next to a Glo, the text on the Aura was clearer and better defined (even at similar font size/sharpness/weight settings). The front-light is also very very nice - less blue-tinted than my Glo, and very even. The lowest setting appears to be very low indeed, lower than the lowest possible on the Glo, which should be nice for people who read in bed. The light settings are also measured in percent now, which is nice. The whole UI felt very zippy, significantly better than the Glo in that regard.

The back of the case is less extreme-feeling in the hand than you might expect from the new design. As described, holding it two-handed does give an impression of holding a real book. I share the complaints of others here and in several reviews, however, when it comes to the texture of the plastic used. Instead of the "soft" or "rubbery" plastic seen on the Glo and the PW, this plastic back is completely smooth. Although its a minor gripe, it makes the Aura feel cheaper. Furthermore, I don't know if this is unique to the demo unit I used, but when I squeezed the bezel against the back, there was some slight creaking. This again made the unit feel cheap, and made me question the build quality (can anyone with more experience with their own unit at home speak to this point?)

So its a bit of a mixed-bag. The screen is excellent in size, resolution, and lighting. The case housing the screen, however, leaves something to be desired. I'm still leaning towards upgrading my Glo to the Aura (the screen is, after all, the most important component of a reader), but I do wish the back wasn't so smooth and "plasticky" to the touch.

Excellent post, thanks for sharing.

[Mostly Math]

Originally Posted by taming

The Aura user guide is now available on the website: http://www.kobo.com/userguides

Nice, reading it now, it turns out you can archive your whole library at once (instead of book by book). That's handy.

S

[Breid]

Originally Posted by Fourl29

It doesn't matter what you think, it's an objective fact about contrast and bezel colour in einik readers. I dislike the general tackiness of black plastic too, and I prefer a white bezel in general, but the perceived contrast is inferior in a device with a white bezel, I wasn't aware of that, but I figured as much by reading other people here who knew a few more things than I did, and explained why. I can't replicate their posts I am afraid, but someone might want to pick this up and do so, better than I did.

I am sorry, but I think that is rather rude response. Everyone has their own opinion as to which colour bezel suits them best. So far I have 2 white Kobos, 1 black KPW and I have ordered the Onyx Aura, those are my personal choices. I would not presume to tell anyone that their colour preference does not matter because clearly it does. It is good to have choice, we all have different criteria, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but while I think you are entitled to express your personal preference, I do not think it appropriate for you to state that someone else's opinion does not matter. They may disagree with you but their opinion still matters and is equally as valid as yours or mine.

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by Fourl29

Excellent post, thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by Tzar

And that is because I have become wary of the never-ending stream of bugs in the Kobo software and I have much less patience than I used to towards this state of affairs. It's beyond me how they can solve some bugs but "create" new ones that weren't there at almost every release. When I read about this minimum light bug with release 2.5.0, I was flabbergasted: for God's sake, with the number of people that are reading at minimum level in dark because it's just too bright otherwise, how could something like this be missed during testing? For the first time, I decided to simply skip on an update. Seems like 2.5.1. has solved that issue so I may consider upgrading. But there are bugs that remain unsolved since ages: I still cannot get annotations to work properly (they get erased, some aren't recorded) and bookmarks keep behaving weirdly.

Although I prefer Kobo's philosophy (open format reader, not trying to keep you captive of their ecosystem, etc), these software issues are bothering me more and more and I'm at a point that when Amazon will get out something similar to the Aura HD, I may very well be tempted to look if the grass is greener on the other side...

After trying out a few eink devices, when I switched to a kpw, it was like when I 'd switched from windows to os x. I started actually using the device and enjoying it, instead of being constantly frustrated and debugging it. The difference is night and day. Plus with calibre it's easy to keep your library in mobi too (files are too small anyway) and makes the closed garden thing of the kindle really a non issue.

I like that I can buy from amazon, have them back everything up, access my annotations (which work like a charm) from everywhere, and get all the amazon perks in general and also be able to put in there whatever epub I want, via calibre's piece of cake epub to mobi.

And it feels great to have stable, bug free software to use. Even the browse is really neat, article mode works great. I wish they'd add a copy past thing system wide, a proper rss reader and a notepad, but at least for the last two there are work arounds.

I simply love my kpw, and it's not just that the screen is gorgeous, it's because the software has given me a very enjoyable bug free experience, where I could focus only on what I want to do, that is read and annotate.

Originally Posted by Breid

I am sorry, but I think that is rather rude response. Everyone has their own opinion as to which colour bezel suits them best. So far I have 2 white Kobos, 1 black KPW and I have ordered the Onyx Aura, those are my personal choices. I would not presume to tell anyone that their colour preference does not matter because clearly it does. It is good to have choice, we all have different criteria, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but while I think you are entitled to express your personal preference, I do not think it appropriate for you to state that someone else's opinion does not matter. They may disagree with you but their opinion still matters and is equally as valid as yours or mine.

It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact which type of bezel produces better perceived contrast for the text on the screen of the device. I too like white bezels more, so I am of the same opinion that I prefer them, I said as much. Perceived contrast though is indeed better with a dark bezel around the device as a matter of fact, what can we do about it, it just is. Even if someone opines that with a white bezel they perceive a better contrast on the text of their device than with a dark bezel, their opinion is simply not correct, they are mistaken, that's simply not the case.

[Breid]

Originally Posted by Fourl29

After trying out a few eink devices, when I switched to a kpw, it was like when I 'd switched from windows to os x. I started actually using the device and enjoying it, instead of being constantly frustrated and debugging it. The difference is night and day. Plus with calibre it's easy to keep your library in mobi too (files are too small anyway) and makes the closed garden thing of the kindle really a non issue.

I like that I can buy from amazon, have them back everything up, access my annotations (which work like a charm) from everywhere, and get all the amazon perks in general and also be able to put in there whatever epub I want, via calibre's piece of cake epub to mobi.

And it feels great to have stable, bug free software to use. Even the browse is really neat, article mode works great. I wish they'd add a copy past thing system wide, a proper rss reader and a notepad, but at least for the last two there are work arounds.

I simply love my kpw, and it's not just that the screen is gorgeous, it's because the software has given me a very enjoyable bug free experience, where I could focus only on what I want to do, that is read and annotate.



It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact which type of bezel produces better perceived contrast for the text on the screen of the device. I too like white bezels more, so I am of the same opinion that I prefer them, I said as much. Perceived contrast though is indeed better with a dark bezel around the device as a matter of fact, what can we do about it, it just is. Even if someone opines that with a white bezel they perceive a better contrast on the text of their device than with a dark bezel, their opinion is simply not correct, they are mistaken, that's simply not the case.

Perhaps I am mistaken, and I stand open to correction, but I thought that this was a thread to discuss the Aura Hd and not a thread to promote the KPW. As a KPW owner, I am well aware of its capabilities and I am happy to air them in the relevant thread. I am not sure it there is a KPW Vs Kobo Aura HD thread, but if not, I suggest that you start one to compare the relative merits of both ereaders rather than hijacking every single Kobo Aura HD thread to promote the benefits of the KPW.

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by Breid

Perhaps I am mistaken, and I stand open to correction, but I thought that this was a thread to discuss the Aura Hd and not a thread to promote the KPW. As a KPW owner, I am well aware of its capabilities and I am happy to air them in the relevant thread. I am not sure it there is a KPW Vs Kobo Aura HD thread, but if not, I suggest that you start one to compare the relative merits of both ereaders rather than hijacking every single Kobo Aura HD thread to promote the benefits of the KPW.

Yes I think you are mistaken. You can't dictate what others here post.

EVERY thread on mobile read presenting/discussing an eink reader has had posts comparing said reader with the competition. Every single one of them.

I am not "promoting" the kindle paperwhite, I have no affiliation with amazon, nor am I hijacking the thread, all the more so since I am replying to a poster who felt extremely frustrated with kobo's software and was thinking about switching over to kindle. So I shared my experiences with them, as I shared some of the concerns (walled garden) they have before I made my purchase.

I don't know what your problem is, on the other thread about how the kobo "rocks" some people started talking about epub formatting, the impetus clearly being some of kobo's inadequacies with reading epubs (as opposed to kepubs) and you brought them to task about not talking about how kobo "rocks". Here someone else mentioned their frustrations and their thinking of opting for an another brand of ereader and I responded to them with my experiences, and you had a problem with that too.

I suggest, in good will, that you take her easy. It's just the interwebs, nothing's really at stake here, we are all just killing a bit of time chit chatting about our hobby.

[Breid]

Originally Posted by Fourl29

After trying out a few eink devices, when I switched to a kpw, it was like when I 'd switched from windows to os x. I started actually using the device and enjoying it, instead of being constantly frustrated and debugging it. The difference is night and day. Plus with calibre it's easy to keep your library in mobi too (files are too small anyway) and makes the closed garden thing of the kindle really a non issue.

I like that I can buy from amazon, have them back everything up, access my annotations (which work like a charm) from everywhere, and get all the amazon perks in general and also be able to put in there whatever epub I want, via calibre's piece of cake epub to mobi.

And it feels great to have stable, bug free software to use. Even the browse is really neat, article mode works great. I wish they'd add a copy past thing system wide, a proper rss reader and a notepad, but at least for the last two there are work arounds.

I simply love my kpw, and it's not just that the screen is gorgeous, it's because the software has given me a very enjoyable bug free experience, where I could focus only on what I want to do, that is read and annotate.



It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact which type of bezel produces better perceived contrast for the text on the screen of the device. I too like white bezels more, so I am of the same opinion that I prefer them, I said as much. Perceived contrast though is indeed better with a dark bezel around the device as a matter of fact, what can we do about it, it just is. Even if someone opines that with a white bezel they perceive a better contrast on the text of their device than with a dark bezel, their opinion is simply not correct, they are mistaken, that's simply not the case.

Having owned ereaders with both white and black bezels, my preference is for black. You may well be right regarding the research on the merits of white/black bezels. Rather than saying "Your opinon doesn't matter", I think it would have been better if you had just said "Current research states..." Perhaps I am over-sensitive but I am just sharing my opinon.

[Fourl29]

Originally Posted by Breid

Having owned ereaders with both white and black bezels, my preference is for black. You may well be right regarding the research on the merits of white/black bezels. Rather than saying "Your opinon doesn't matter", I think it would have been better if you had just said "Current research states..." Perhaps I am over-sensitive but I am just sharing my opinon.

Ok, fair enough, but don't quote me with "...", that is verbatim, when I never verbatim said "your opinion doesn't matter". I said it doesn't matter what you think on this issue because there's a proven fact about it, because the op had dismissed my original post where I was trying to explain this very fact to another poster, and hence to explain why from the videos I 've watched the aura seems to have less well defined font than the kpw. And I said that my perception could well be wrong since the comparison videos had a white bezeled aura and the usual black bezeled kpw, which was an unfair comparison exactly because of the black bezel thing.

And I went on to say, how I wasn't aware of it either and I got to figure it out by reading the forums from others that made a pretty conclusive case about it. And all that despite my own preference on white bezels.

Actually I couldn't begin imagine how I could begin using a device with a black bezel, it seemed so strange, so un-book-like to have my text surrounded by black margins so to speak. Yet I really ended up appreciating what the others here were saying about contrast and black bezels.

[louden]

Can someone who already has an Aura provide more comments about reading technical PDFs?

I've seen the goodereader video, and can see how pictures are rendered, but I want to know what the experiences is like for reading page after page of a technical PDF (like an O'Reilly or Pragmatic Publishing book)

I'm hoping for an experience similar to GoodReader on the iPhone and iPad - where you can set a zoom and center for the book, and then have each page render to that specification...