8 Questions on Oasis 2/Aura One/Inkpad 3

[JasperGeh]

Hey people!

I am looking to replace my old Paperwhite with something bigger, crisper and modern and am looking at said three readers: Kindle Oasis 2, Kobo Aura One, Pocketbook Inkpad 3.

I already compiled a comparison list with pros/cons for myself but still have (for now) eight questions which some of you can hopfully answer if you have/use of of the devices.

1. Probably most importantly for me: Highlighting and dictionaries. I love it on my Kindle: Mark a single word and get instantly the chosen-dictionary entry plus options for highlight/note/search/wiki/translate etc. Mark multiple words and they instantly get highlighted plus the options. This one-tap interaction for dictionaries and highlighting is so great! I can also easily extract the highlights and notes to my PC with calibre. How is this handled on the Aura1 and Inkpad? And can I also extract the notes/highlights?
2. I can get Pocket natively on the Aura1 and via Pocket2Kindle or something to the Oasis. How is the Pocket experience on the Inkpad?
3. I don't read comics often, but how is the experience? Oasis needs to convert to MOBI but is faster and has this fastturn feature, right? Aura1 has CBR/CBZ support but is laggy, I read. What about the Inkpad and 3rd party apps for it?
4. I mostly read horizontal with my small Kindle. How is horizontal on the Oasis with the page turn buttons facing the bottom? For the Aura1 it should make no difference and it might even be comfortable with the Inkpads buttons on the (now) side.
5. General things and comfort: Not that important. I don't need dozens of custom fonts and I expect every reader to include the general formatting settings (page width, line space, orientation, etc.pp.) but do you know any good or missing features here? Also, how good are the UIs in terms of simplicity and numbers of taps to set e.g. brightness or font.

Thanks a bunch in advance, every single answer is highly appreciated!

[DaleDe]

You didn't say how much bigger. If you want to go up to 10.3" you might consider the BOYUE Likebook Note or the Onyx Boox Note both described in our wiki. The ones you mentioned are also in our wiki BTW.

Dale

[cmoim]

While i don't have a kobo aura one , all kobos have the same firmware, i got a kobo aura 2nd edition so i know the ecosystem. I also own a Oasis 2.


4)
To answer your question about turning pages in horizontal mode on the kindle Oasis 2, I prefer to turn pages by tapping rather than clicking on the button since it is in an awkward location, I have to say i have small hands. In the kobo ecosystem you can't read in landscape mode unless you have Koreader installed(jailbroken firmware). The buttons are very useful to me on both my Voyage and Oasis, i usually read in vertical mode.

5)
Concerning the speed of page turning on the oasis 2 , it slightly faster than my Voyage and Kobo Aura 2nd edition, as far as i know it is the fastest E-reader out there since it uses a newer processor.

6)
To read PDFs on an E-reader you need an app on jailbroken firmware, unfortunately you can't jailbreak the oasis 2 , but kobos are easy to jailbreak, Koreader reads pdfs/epubs/cbr/zip very well,it has highlighting support and dictionnary support and many more features, if you want to read pdfs on your E-reader Koreader will be very useful.
(Koreader Wiki)

7)
I find it hard to hold my Oasis in one hand without any support since it has a larger screen and i got smaller hands though I have to say it is comfortable, I like the fact that I can turn pages with either my right or left hand since the screen can rotate. In kindles, you can modify the boldness,the size of the font,you can even add your own fonts , you can do that on the kobos as well.
One feature I like in the kobos is tracking your reading statistics. Telling you how many books have you read, how much time have you spent on reading them.(reading stats).
But the reason I would pick a kindle over a kobo for now is the fact that there is no software to manage your notes and highlights on kobo. Kindle mate(http://kmate.me/), helps me check my notes, track the words i have looked up in the dictionnary.Import my notes to my computer.
Concerning the screen quality 300 ppi is perfect, it is the quality most books are printed in. It is comfortable. The frontlight on my KO2 is great.


Finally if you are buying the E-reader both to read on the go and at home, go for a smaller screen, the kobo aura one is too large 7.8", the downside of the Kindle Oasis 2 compared to the paperwhite(6") is the fact you can't put the KO2 7" in your pocket.
I am sure if you buy the KO2 you will find the battery life is smaller since it has a 1,000 mAh(paperwhite 1 1,470 mAh, Kindle Voyage 1,320 mAh) , mine lose 2% per day with no use, but it is ok for me since i can read up to 600 pages before it reaches 40%.
The Kobo Aura one has 1,200 mAh with a larger screen 7.8".
You will find a small comparison between E-readers here.

I do hope you this has helped you

[mobama]

Normally I would do propaganda for Pocketbook at this point, but for me the shape of hardware (i.e. your last point - general comfort) is vital, and Pocketbook 3 is vastly overshadowed here by Pocketbook 2. Pocketbook 2 has wider bezels so you can hold it in comfortably in any orientation. Page turn keys are wide, comfortable, and work regardless of the angle of pressure. Pocketbook 3 is much worse to hold and handle compared to Pocketbook 2.

Then again, Pocketbook 3 has 1GB of RAM and a crisp 300 ppi Carta screen over Inkpad 2's half GB and dated Pearl screen.

Kobo Aura One has as thin bezels as Pocketbook 3 (too thin for me). Kindle Oasis (even the 7" version) is simply too small to be a serious research tool.

For PDF viewing, any Pocketbook in my opinion surpasses, due to cropping and orientation options and pinch zoom, all Kindles and Kobos. On the downside, highlighting is not comfortable to do on Pocketbooks.

To make PDF files tolerable on a Kobo, there's the Koreader app https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2oSOeAnD10

If highlighting and annotation will be your main preoccupation, I recommend investing a bit more and get an Onyx Boox Note: 10" screen with Android 6, i.e. practically limitless choice of additional apps, including for bookshopping on the device. Onyx Boox Note, as the name implies, is specifically geared towards notetaking.

[JasperGeh]

Thank you all for your input so far.
True, I haven't said how big, but 8" is the upper limit as I will mainly use it for reading literature.
Highlighting is insofar important as I use it to extract key paragraphs to my PC and into a seperate document; not because I use my reader for note-taking. The 10" readers are a bit overkill for me

Hm, so its boiling down to personal taste, it seems.
Oasis has better highlighting (although there is no Mac version of kindle mate) and possibly nicer screen size for reading.
Aura 1 has Pocket, reading stats, yellow light but no landscape.

Hard!

[Marinolino]

Originally Posted by JasperGeh

...
Aura 1 has Pocket, reading stats, yellow light but no landscape.

Hard!

There is landscape orientation in Koreader, for pdf, epub, djvu, cbz.

https://youtu.be/i2oSOeAnD10?t=52

With Koreader app Kobo Aura 1 is a very good pdf reader, without Koreader it is pretty poor.

[cmoim]

Installing Koreader on Kobo is a 15 minutes process, it is quite simple. It combines both kobo and kindle good stuff, like vocabulary builder , reading stats, sending books wirelessly and many other features. And the best advantage of Koreader to me is reading pdfs smoothly. If you have that in mind maybe Kobo is better.

Concerning using Kindle Mate on Mac. You can use Windows emulator(wine). It is useful.

[JasperGeh]

Okay, thanks everyone!
I ordered the Aura One and will try it with KOreader. If I miss some features I can still check out the Oasis.

[cmoim]

Check the Kobo subforum to learn how to jailbreak the Aura One

Enjoy

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by cmoim

Check the Kobo subforum to learn how to jailbreak the Aura One

Enjoy

Minor nit. It's not jailbreaking nor rooting. There is no special procedure needed before you try installing KSM/KoReader for example. Unlike the Kindles where you need to modify the system before installing patches/software (and near as I can tell, the newer Kindle firmware is working hard to make that impossible), Kobo's ereaders are open out of the box.

I'd also suggest checking the KOReader forum as well.