Would you buy a used Aura One?

[mezzanine]

I'd been on the fence about whether to get a used Forma, used Aura One, or the new Paperwhite the last few weeks. I was leaning towards the new Paperwhite, but I knew in the back of my mind I'd prefer a larger screen.

I answered my own question this afternoon and decided to go for a used Aura One, mostly because of cost and because I'm not big on page turn buttons. Ended up lucking out and grabbing one for $60 and am more impressed with it than I was expecting to be.

It's thinner than I was expecting, which was the first pleasant surprise. It's strange, but my perception of it's weight actually seems similar to my Clara, despite the significant weight difference. I haven't had a flush screen reader for a few years and am reminded that I prefer them over the recessed screens I've been using more recently.

My first impression is that I would actually prefer the Aura One over the Forma if both were identically priced, although I expect I'll still grab a used Forma when I get a chance in the future. I am doubtful the screen of either the Sage or Forma will be superior enough to the One that it would be a significant upgrade.

The only debate I'm having now is whether to start using Koreader if it would improve the speed of the page turns. They don't bother me and that was my biggest worry because my Aura HD is right at the borderline of where I find it slightly annoying and I read some complaints that led me to think the One might be as bad.

When I look at my Clara now I can't even imagine the next time I'll use it. I'm crossing my fingers the battery isn't too degraded and am going to be monitoring it closely the next couple weeks.

I'm glad in retrospect that I didn't end up going for the Kindle because I've become too adapted to the customizability of the Kobos. I'd been trying to convince myself it wouldn't matter that much, but once you've become used to it's features, it becomes as much about familiarity as anything else.

I'm so impressed I may actually look at buying a backup if I see another deal pop up.

[Almamida]

The only thing that would worry me is the health of the battery, for the rest, I feel you, if you are very comfortable with the Kobo ecosystem, you did a good thing to stick with it.
Are you converting your epub in kepub with calibre? It might help the page turn speed to do so.

[davidfor]

I'm not sure of the point of the post. The subject seemed to be asking for help, but, you already have the Aura ONE. So????

But, to answer the subject: No.

I do have an Aura ONE, and it is a good device. And until the Forma came out, I would have said it was an excellent device. For a while, it was my main reader and I loved it. And my wife loved it even more. But, it had some big issues:

• The touch is badly calibrated
• The screen colours can be badly mixed. This can depend on brightness and exactly what colour you set it to.

And @Almamida said, it is very likely that the battery in a good state. At one time, mine could do over 15 hours of reading on one charge (and I remember one day on vacation that I pretty much did that). I haven't checked it properly recently, but, I know it is significantly less than that.

[mezzanine]

The original post was a question debating between the merits of the KA1 or the Forma, but then I ended up getting the KA1 a few hours later and edited it to reflect my first impressions and couldn't change the title.

Originally Posted by Almamida

The only thing that would worry me is the health of the battery, for the rest, I feel you, if you are very comfortable with the Kobo ecosystem, you did a good thing to stick with it.
Are you converting your epub in kepub with calibre? It might help the page turn speed to do so.

Yeah, that's what I'm going to be most curious about. Now that I've actually got passed the first impression stage, I see some of the criticism I'd read about; there's some unevenness of the light on the lower left side of the screen that's darker and the touch sensitivity may actually be worse than my Aura HD, which I definitely wasn't expecting.

I may end up doing the kepub conversion, but the speed of the page turns doesn't bother me, it's the touch sensitivity. I may end up doing some research to see if there's anything I can do to improve it, but I'm guessing not.


Still impressed with the device and feel it's easily the best value in the used e-reader market. For my preferences, it was the obvious choice, I just didn't think I was going to find one before my impatience caused me to go with something more available.

I will never go back to anything less than an 8 inch screen.

[pgilster]

An 8-inch screen is my preference as well, and I bought an Aura One as soon as it became available. I still use it, though the battery is slowly but surely declining. The touch screen is wonky enough that I had to learn how to handle doing annotations -- it depended on what part of the screen I was working with. I didn't really have any problems with the lighting.

I now have a new Sage, a fine device. I have to say, though, that for me the best of all worlds would be a second iteration of the Aura One without the display problems re touch, etc. I don't guess that will ever happen. The Sage is a worthy substitute, though I just don't have any need for those buttons.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by davidfor

• The touch is badly calibrated
• The screen colours can be badly mixed. This can depend on brightness and exactly what colour you set it to.

And @Almamida said, it is very likely that the battery in a good state. At one time, mine could do over 15 hours of reading on one charge (and I remember one day on vacation that I pretty much did that). I haven't checked it properly recently, but, I know it is significantly less than that.

Battery life is indeed the reason why I wouldn't buy a second-hand e-reader. It's also the reason why I never gave away or sold my Gen1 Kindle; its battery can still be replaced.

Does the Sage fix the poor touchscreen? It's the one thing on the Aura ONE that aggravates me everytime I use it. You just touch and touch and touch until something happens; and if you are unlucky and touch a few pixels wrong, the menu disappears or the brightness goes to 500%, or you've suddenly selected half your book. That was a big letdown compared to my old 2012 Kindle. For the rest, I like the Aura ONE much better than the Kindles I've seen since 2012.

[pgilster]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Does the Sage fix the poor touchscreen? It's the one thing on the Aura ONE that aggravates me everytime I use it. You just touch and touch and touch until something happens; and if you are unlucky and touch a few pixels wrong, the menu disappears or the brightness goes to 500%, or you've suddenly selected half your book. That was a big letdown compared to my old 2012 Kindle. For the rest, I like the Aura ONE much better than the Kindles I've seen since 2012.

I've only had a few days reading with the Sage, but so far I've been really pleased with screen response and accuracy. Like I say, I do a lot of annotations and haven't had any trouble making these accurately the first time through. The one carryover from the Aura One that I've seen (also the Forma) is that when highlighting text, the software often leaves out a closing period in a sentence. That seems to be something that could be easily fixed by developers, so it surprises me.

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by pgilster

I've only had a few days reading with the Sage, but so far I've been really pleased with screen response and accuracy. Like I say, I do a lot of annotations and haven't had any trouble making these accurately the first time through. The one carryover from the Aura One that I've seen (also the Forma) is that when highlighting text, the software often leaves out a closing period in a sentence. That seems to be something that could be easily fixed by developers, so it surprises me.

If it bothers you, give kobo feedback on their site. It could be a bunch of folks don't like this, but Kobo aren't being told. And as in so many things, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.