Aura Aura One disadvantages

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Braid

That's pretty unusual... I've never heard of anyone voluntarily converting files to PDF. Oh well, if you like to read that way, sweet!

I did that too, for my Sony and BeBook Mini.
You couldn't turn off that highly annoying page number in the margin when reading EPUB on the Mini (it's some "feature", which I never understood...) and MOBI didn't have the right font-size for me (size x was too small, size x+1 was too big). So, I set up a system where I can tranform HTML into epub, mobi and PDF (using LaTeX). It's completely made up so it can be easily read on a 5" screen. Then I got the Sony, whose epub reader was better, but still lacking in margin and font settings, and those PDF's looked still good (even though they were made for a 5" screen, the 6" of the Sony worked as well).

I only started using the epubs after I got my H2O. I finally could set the margin I wanted, with the font-size I wanted.

Originally Posted by Braid

The main weakness of Kindle devices when compared with Kobo devices is the overall appearance and layout of text. Kobo devices, for some reason, just lay out text in a prettier way, in my opinion. The justification is more consistent. The use of hyphenation is much better - on my Kindle I quite frequently see words cut up in awkward, unnatural places, and words spaced miles apart in order to fill the line, whereas on my H2O and Aura One I very rarely see this. I also prefer the default fonts on my Kobo devices. Maybe these things are what Kindles sacrifice in order to turn pages and open books that little bit quicker.

And that weakness of Kindle devices is why Kobo devices will always win for me. I can get used to a slower touch screen reaction, but if the page layout is not correct, I just can't get into the book... (I can really get bothered by a huge margin, or letters that are too close or too far from each other).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

If speed is important to you, have you tried using calibre to send your epubs to the Kobo as kepubs? Kepub touch response and page-turning is faster than standard epub.

I'm not sure that kepub is faster than ePub as ePub has gotten faster with 4.3.8699.

[pagepack]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm not sure that kepub is faster than ePub as ePub has gotten faster with 4.3.8699.

I've just tried it epub/kepub page turns with the latest firmware. Kepub page turns are still faster. I think epub has improved, although still feels laggy to me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pagepack

I've just tried it epub/kepub page turns with the latest firmware. Kepub page turns are still faster. I think epub has improved, although still feels laggy to me.

ePub doesn't feel laggy to me.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

ePub doesn't feel laggy to me.

Have you compared it to kepub page turns?

Shari

[radius]

I've had a KA1 for two weeks and these are the things I don't like so far (if you can help me ameliorate any I'd appreciate it):

- touch screen. The sensitivity seems low and it often doesn't register my touches. Even when it does, the accuracy doesn't let me consistently choose between navigation, font, and menu in the bottom corner. Similarly I can't consistently hit brightness and wifi etc. I can't find any way to calibrate or change sensitivity

- frontlight. Overall satisfactory (I recognize the challenge of evenly dispersing frontlight over such a large surface) but it doesn't go dim enough. Even 1% is quite bright in a darkened room. Also, I can't figure out the granularity in adjustment. I'll tap the go brighter or darker and sometimes it changes by 1% and sometimes by some larger amount.

Also, the daylight feature isn't usable to me because at low illumination, I can see the red and green LED zones quite clearly near the bottom of the screen. It evens out at higher brightness but that feels like reading while staring into a flashlight.

- weight distribution. It's light enough to feel good in the hand and carry, but actually operating it with one hand is very difficult for me unless I am seated. When holding it in one corner, the device is big enough that the center of gravity is far out and produces too much moment to be comfortable long term. Also, when reading with the cover on, the only way I can hold it one-handed is by folding the cover back and I don't like to do that for a number of reasons.

- font adjustments. The entire reason I bought a Kobo was the promise of advanced font and display control. However, for some epubs the controls are inoperative unless I tweak the stylesheet. But if I have to do that I could have adjusted things how I like for display on any reader. I also can't figure out how to use some side-loaded fonts; they show in bold italic instead of regular, for instance. I also feel that fonts are drawn with a little too much weight by default, and you can't change that for the fonts I sideloaded.

- page display. The widow/orphan control seems very aggressive. I often find many blank lines at the bottom of pages. This is exacerbated by the large standard bottom margin.

I don't like the "flash every six pages" thing. I'd prefer it on chapter boundaries or file boundaries (didn't it used to be like that?). I am going to try inverting on every page because I feel that predictability might be more comfortable than having a page turn suddenly flash and be slow every once in a while.

- UI. Between the standard font for the UI (Georgia I think?), the lack of affordances, and the spiderweb thin lines used everywhere, I strongly dislike the way the UI is drawn. I also don't like that on the main screen, three quarters is mostly useless to me. In general it feels like I have to tap more to do common things compared to, say, Kindle. Combine this with many of my taps going unrecognized and it can get annoying quickly.

Navigation depends on TOC links or a slider. Well, I probably couldn't get a slider on the page I wanted in the first place, but with the screen touch sensitivity the way it is I have no hope. I just hope my book has short chapters. This would be mitigated if there was a scanning function like Kindle or Sony, but I can't find any way to do something similar to that either. I often read the same book on a number of different devices depending on where I am so this is important to me. Maybe less important to someone who only uses one reader in a serial fashion.

- cover. Not directly related to the reader, but I find the gimmicky "stand" mode isn't useful for me, and it puts a line in the cover that makes holding the device less comfortable, especially when reading as an "open book".

Closing the cover might not consistently activate sleep mode. Sometimes when I open it, I see words that have been selected and that my page has changed etc. I have only hand-carried the device so far and not placed it in a bag to be jostled so I'm not sure how these phantom touches are happening.

- limited download. I was hoping to use wifi and the browser to download books wirelessly from my personal cloud. Unfortunately, downloads past a few hunder kb don't seem to work very well (and I think the absolute limit is 2MB). This means I'd have to strip covers out of books in order to download them this way.

- speed. Overall the device seems sluggish. For example, if you change font size it can take two or three seconds before it takes effect. Combine that with difficulty recognizing touches and you can see where frustration might set in. And in my testing phase I am only keeping one or two books on the device at a time so indexing should be minimal.


Issues I don't have (but have seen people complain about):

- screen clarity. This passes the good enough test for me. I wouldn't mind higher resolution or better contrast, but this is the first eink device I have owned which I consider acceptable.

- battery life. Since my charge almost two weeks ago, I've read Death's End, Seinfeldia, Babylon's Ashes, The Black Unicorn, Airhead and Indemnity Only (admittedly with some pages read on other devices) and haven't run out of battery yet. I don't turn on wifi and have the light at 1%.

- USB connection. I connect to a Linux machine and not Windows, but I've had no issues having the KA1 recognized as a USB mass storage device.

[robko]

Originally Posted by radius

- limited download. I was hoping to use wifi and the browser to download books wirelessly from my personal cloud. Unfortunately, downloads past a few hunder kb don't seem to work very well (and I think the absolute limit is 2MB). This means I'd have to strip covers out of books in order to download them this way.

This is a bug in the current firmware. It previously wasn't this way and Kobo is aware of the problem and will hopefully fix it in a future update.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by shalym

Have you compared it to kepub page turns?

Shari

The speed of ePub is good and the font handling of ePub is much better than Kepub.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The speed of ePub is good and the font handling of ePub is much better than Kepub.

In your opinion. For me, Kepubs look and respond much better.

Shari

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Braid

That's pretty unusual... I've never heard of anyone voluntarily converting files to PDF.

I've done it, too. I've bought a number of Egyptology reference books in both Kindle and ePub formats and converted them to PDF with Calibre so I can read them on the excellent multi-tab iPad PDF app, GoodReader.

[JoOrwick]

The battery life is nowhere near as good as my Paperwhite 2015 and Voyage. My Aura One still has the 10% battery drop issue (battery indicator goes down by 10% every few hours). I get up to 15 hours at 10% light or lower on my Aura one and around 25 hours on my Voyage and Paperwhite at 10-15% light.

While it's fairly light for its size, it's still a bit uncomfortable to hold for more than 1-2 hours, especially in bed. It's the main reason I mostly use my Voyage these days. I can easily hold it and turn pages with one hand, while with the Aura One I find myself constantly having to change positions in bed and use two hands to flip pages. Holding the Aura One with one hand for more than 10 minutes gets really uncomfortable. It's light, but it's not as light as my Voyage/Paperwhite. It's also a bit too angular/square making it even more awkward to hold with one hand.

It's noticeably more sluggish than my Voyage. Both are slow because they're E-ink devices, but the Aura One is REALLY slow sometimes. Epubs are extremely slow so you'll have to use kepubs unless you don't mind 2 second long page turns. I still find myself having to tap menu selections multiple times on the Aura One whereas my Voyage does exactly what I want it to every time. Highlights work much better on the Voyage, as well.

I still get the occasional restart, crash or freeze on the Aura One, but it never happens on my Voyage.

The screen is not as uniform compared to the Voyage. There are visible shadows all around the screen and the top third of the display is warmer than the bottom. The bottom where the LEDs are is slightly greenish and red. My Voyage looks nearly perfect in comparison.

It's built quite well, but there are a few areas where it creeks/pops. It's very silent, but it's there. I also found it bends extremely easily to the point where my 3rd party cover bent it slightly (might be why it creeks a little). The Voyage is rock solid in comparison.

The front has a few "bumps" on the glass (one near the light sensor and at the bottom where the Kobo logo is), but they're only visible at certain angles. The right edge has a noticeable gap between the display and the bezel. It collects dust like crazy and I can also see the LED notification light inside the gap. Fairly minor things, but again, my Voyage has none of these issues.

There's a few more things, but these are most of the major ones.

[pagepack]

Originally Posted by JoOrwick

There's a few more things, but these are most of the major ones.

I bought a voyage and took it back, I found the screen lighting absolutely shocking for a "premium" device. My kindle paperwhite was far better. My KA1 is pretty even, and I'm picky as hell.

If you are still suffering battery drain, I would send it back for refund or replacement.

As to two second page turns on ePub, I would agree its slow coming from a kindle, but again you must have a serious problem if its taking two seconds to flip a page. I prefer Kepub, page turns are very similar in speed to my Kindle

[Lady Stardust]

Originally Posted by pagepack

As to two second page turns on ePub, I would agree its slow coming from a kindle, but again you must have a serious problem if its taking two seconds to flip a page. I prefer Kepub, page turns are very similar in speed to my Kindle

I also have a problem with slow page turn in epub on Kobos (I have Aura One and HD). So I only read kepubs. I don't know if it's two second or less or more, but when it takes time, it irritates me.

Though I love the light of Aura One in the dark and I love reading fiction on it.
But I use my PW and Oasis for nonfiction for the ease of use of footnotes and absolutely great highlighting.

[JoOrwick]

Originally Posted by pagepack

I bought a voyage and took it back, I found the screen lighting absolutely shocking for a "premium" device.

Luck of the draw, I guess. My Voyage looks nearly perfect. When did you buy yours?

If you are still suffering battery drain, I would send it back for refund or replacement.

It's not the usual battery drain issue. The battery is fine in sleep mode. It's most likely a battery percentage bug, not an actual capacity problem.

As to two second page turns on ePub, I would agree its slow coming from a kindle, but again you must have a serious problem if its taking two seconds to flip a page. I prefer Kepub, page turns are very similar in speed to my Kindle

It's ridiculously slow and it's unacceptable for a 2016 device. You're pretty much forced to use kepubs which come with their own issues.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by JoOrwick

Epubs are extremely slow so you'll have to use kepubs unless you don't mind 2 second long page turns. I still find myself having to tap menu selections multiple times on the Aura One whereas my Voyage does exactly what I want it to every time.

Except for PDFs for which I use Koreader, I sideload all my other books as epubs on my KA1. Never have had any problems with page turns. Just tap or swipe the page, and it turns.

Highlighting is not as precise as it could be. It sometimes takes a few attempts to select a single Chinese character when attempting to bring up a definition in the dictionary. Not sure if that is due to the sideloaded Chinese-English dictionary or the KA1 itself. However, it is not a huge deal since most of the time one wants to select two character words which seems to be its default setting.

As for an unresponsive screen, that has only happened to me once. Just the other day. Was attempting to look up a character and the screen just froze. Nothing worked. However, that was easily enough remedied by putting it to sleep and waking it up again.

From your other comments about your KA1, it sounds like you may have received a defective device. My advice would be to send it back for repair or replacement. That's what warranties are for. Too expensive a device to be used as a doorstop or a paperweight.