Aura ONE Kobo Aura One owners thread

[alizarin]

My KA1 had blotchy green areas when natural light was on. Kobo CS sent me a replacement, and after a long wait, it's finally here.

The good news: the replacement has no green blotches.

The replacement isn't perfect - fit and finish isn't as good as the original, the rear plastic plate is a little loose (not enough glue?). But I can live with that.

Here's the interesting part: the replacement KA1's regular backlight has a warmer tone than the original.

http://i.imgur.com/D8VGoRs.jpg

The original is on the right, the replacement is on the left.

I'm used to the bright white light of my Kindles and my original KA1 - is it just me or is the warmer temperature of the backlight a little easier on the eyes?

What do you think? Should I keep the replacement or roll the wheel again?

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by alizarin

Mu KA1 had blotchy green areas when natural light was on. Kobo CS sent me a replacement, and after a long wait, it's finally here.

The good news: the replacement has no green blotches.

The replacement isn't perfect - fit and finish isn't as good as the original, the rear plastic plate is a little loose (not enough glue?). But I can live with that.

Here's the interesting part: the replacement KA1's regular backlight has a warmer tone than the original.

http://i.imgur.com/D8VGoRs.jpg

The original is on the right, the replacement is on the left.

I'm used to the bright white light of my Kindles and my original KA1 - is it just me or is the warmer temperature of the backlight a little easier on the eyes?

What do you think? Should I keep the replacement or roll the wheel again?

My KA1 looks similar to your replacement. I prefer the warmer tone of the KA1 to my Kindles.

[Willa]

Originally Posted by alizarin

My KA1 had blotchy green areas when natural light was on. Kobo CS sent me a replacement, and after a long wait, it's finally here.

The good news: the replacement has no green blotches.

The replacement isn't perfect - fit and finish isn't as good as the original, the rear plastic plate is a little loose (not enough glue?). But I can live with that.

Here's the interesting part: the replacement KA1's regular backlight has a warmer tone than the original.

http://i.imgur.com/D8VGoRs.jpg

The original is on the right, the replacement is on the left.

I'm used to the bright white light of my Kindles and my original KA1 - is it just me or is the warmer temperature of the backlight a little easier on the eyes?

What do you think? Should I keep the replacement or roll the wheel again?

My eyeballs prefer the one on the left.

[Odin-zemlyanin]

So really guys can u tell us how is that device working at pdf using KOReader if to compare with kindle?

[SCION]

That looks like the backlight of my original (warm) and replacement (cool). I prefer the cool because you can always make it warm using the natural light. The one on the right is my preference. Rolling the dice is always a gamble with these displays.

[manxam]

My first KA1 was noticeably warmer than my replacement. Turning the natural light up all the way resulted in a red display; the new unit turns orange. The touch was far more accurate on the first as well. The replacement has everything on the left 1/2 of the screen several pixels out (directly tapping "e" on the keyboard results in an "f")

I'm surprised that there's this much variance in the displays of these models.
Another QA screw up along with bezel gaps and battery problems?

[TheHazardsDuke]

It does seem like there's alot of QC issues. Perhaps they've switched to cheaper materials or a lower cost (and thus lower quality) manufacturer. Or maybe to keep up with demand they decided to lower the standard. Either way it does make me wary of considering getting one at this point. Usually when a product has this many horror stories it's not undeserved.

[alizarin]

>My first KA1 was noticeably warmer than my replacement. Turning the natural light up all the way resulted in a red display; the new unit turns orange. The touch was far more accurate on the first as well

which one did you end up keeping?

>I'm surprised that there's this much variance in the displays of these models.
Another QA screw up along with bezel gaps and battery problems?

Agree that there are significant QA issues. Both my original and replacement KAs have bezel gaps. The replacement has a slightly loose back plate. The original had a display with green blotches. The replacement doesn't but it has warmer backlighting. And interestingly, when I lay the KA1s side by side, the auto brightness function is *very* different under the same ambient lighting (one is at 80%, the other at 21% as I type this). And battery issues. And buggy firmware.

So the real question is, why am I not returning both and going back to my Oasis?

There are a few reasons, of which the top three are:

First, the screen size. Since I got my KA1, I have persistently preferred reading on it vs the Oasis. The Oasis has a great ergonomic design, but the larger screen of the KA1 makes reading just so much more enjoyable. So much so that my Oasis and other Kindles are now gathering dust.

Second, the ability to add and customize fonts is a huge plus, at least in my book. I'm sure many folks (like my wife) are perfectly happy with the default Kindle fonts, but I love being able to tweak my font settings until it is *just* the way I want it

Third, I think that viable competition to the dominance that Kindle has over the ereader market is actually good for all of us - not only does it offer consumers a choice, it also spurs Amazon to innovate and that's a good thing too.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

I have been using kepub exclusivly since April 2014 and the same books that work on my Aura 6" don't show them on the KA1.

Anyway this isn't anything unknown, we have talked about it in this very thread before.

Davidfor said sideloaded books would be treated differently and jackiew even wrote some patch for it. jackie.

I am not willing and I doubt I am able to patch anything and I seriously don't know why I should. The KA1 should work better than my old Aura not worse.

The problem has been reported to Kobo. I don't know if they will do anything about it. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, sideloading kepubs is not really supported. The only mention of it by Kobo is as a way to test books before publishing them through Kobo. As a general way of reading books, it isn't officially supported. If a purchased book doesn't work, then they need to fix something. There is no obligation for sideloaded kepubs.

Then, Kobo own the kepub standard. Unfortunately they don't publish this, but what they say goes. As far I have seen, all purchased kepubs have the internal file structure I mentioned in the other thread. It is completely possible that they consider the previous behaviour the bug and have now fixed it.

[challe232]

To the person who exchanged, was it a difficult experience? I'm getting mine replaced through Kobo (just got off chat - I don't like the blue blob and my first one had a great light but other issues) but I don't know what to expect

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The problem has been reported to Kobo. I don't know if they will do anything about it. There are a couple of reasons for this.

Firstly, sideloading kepubs is not really supported. The only mention of it by Kobo is as a way to test books before publishing them through Kobo. As a general way of reading books, it isn't officially supported. If a purchased book doesn't work, then they need to fix something. There is no obligation for sideloaded kepubs.

Then, Kobo own the kepub standard. Unfortunately they don't publish this, but what they say goes. As far I have seen, all purchased kepubs have the internal file structure I mentioned in the other thread. It is completely possible that they consider the previous behaviour the bug and have now fixed it.

You are right, I didn't think of this/think it through. Well, I really hope it will be available for sideloaded books again, as I would hate for them to go down the Amazonlike-fencing-in road even further.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Poppaea

You are right, I didn't think of this/think it through. Well, I really hope it will be available for sideloaded books again, as I would hate for them to go down the Amazonlike-fencing-in road even further.

This has nothing to do with them stopping sideloaded kepubs. What it might have to do with is getting the kepubs right. If you read the other thread, you can get it working easily. Edit the books, and put all the content into a subdirectory inside the book. When you send these books as kepubs, any footnotes will be displayed as popups.

[Zaroff]

Posted in another thread, but it bears repeating it in here. After all it's of interest to all KA1 owners.

----------------------------

Alright, I have to be the devil's advocate again.

Firmware 4.1.7729 solves NOTHING. As far as battery is concerned.

So, I've posted in other threads about the problems I was having with this thing, pre and post firmware update.
So I managed to get a replacement unit, finally, from where I bought it from. Which means that currently, I have both on hand.

First, the screens couldn't look more different if they tried. Kobo QC? Forget about it. Screens are all over the place. If anyone doubts that, I can post pics within a minute.

Second, I set up the new device exactly following the recommendations, to the letter, of another poster (I forgot the name, mea culpa) suggesting never to turn on wifi in the first place, which I didn't. Only, what do you know, at the end of the setup process through the PC application, at first reboot, wifi is enabled by default. So, so much for that, but thanks.

And, finally, guess what, after a half day use of the new unit, the dreaded 10% drop appears. This is with 4.1.7729.

Kobo Aura One isn't ready for prime time, and should never have been released in the sorry state it's in. Period.

I strongly discourage anyone from investing in this thing until Kobo sort their crap out.

[haydnfan]

In one of these threads someone posted a solution to the battery problem (edit the configuration file).

To the OP as well as the re-posters I sincerely say thank you. I made that change to my Kobo Aura One and it stopped my battery from draining. Not long after I made that change a hurricane came through the area and I lost power for quite awhile. I can not read paper books by candle light. My other ereaders were completely dead.

Thanks to you I could read on my Kobo Aura One when there was nothing else to do in the dark.

[Poppaea]

Originally Posted by haydnfan

In one of these threads someone posted a solution to the battery problem (edit the configuration file).

To the OP as well as the re-posters I sincerely say thank you. I made that change to my Kobo Aura One and it stopped my battery from draining. Not long after I made that change a hurricane came through the area and I lost power for quite awhile. I can not read paper books by candle light. My other ereaders were completely dead.

Thanks to you I could read on my Kobo Aura One when there was nothing else to do in the dark.

It sounds like you are ok. Thank goodness! And the ONE seems to be ok, too. Which is even better Just kidding, I'm glad you are alright.