Happy Kobo Aura One owners

[deleted2]

I thought I could make a positive Kobo Aura One thread.

Before I got my Kobo Aura One, I've read lots of posts here. I was a little bit afraid that my experience would be a nightmare.

Now that I have one, I can honestly say that I'm really glad I bought it. Maybe I'm just lucky or Kobo really fixed the problems with the last couple of firmwares.

I updated the firmware via wifi. All went fine. I'm now on the latest 4.2.8283

I then put the wifi off and unchecked the auto sync feature. I also unchecked any of the auto lighting. I prefer to do it manually. And it probably consumes less battery that way.

I let it charge for at least 4 hours, like Kobo is advising.

Kobo promises around 15 hours of battery life or one month if you're reading like 30 minutes per day. On my first night, I've read a little bit less than 2 hours and the battery was at 85% Woke up the next day, it was at 84% During the next day, I didn't observe any loss in percentage while the device was on sleep mode.

I don't have a sleep cover. I just hit the power button.

The screen is very bright. Coming from a Kobo Aura H2O, I first thought that the Aura One was more cream white than white blue like my previous H2O. But after a couple of days, I really can't feel the difference anymore.

In bed, at night, I used to set the light at around 10% Now, I set the Aura One at no more than 5% The natural light is a cool gadget for late night reading. Just giving the screen a little less blue light is welcome for the eyes.

It feels very light and holding it with one hand is not a problem. The screen is gorgeous and the size is just right. Feels like reading a real book, but without the weight.

Giving all this, I hope that people wanting a Kobo Aura One will know what they are getting.

[kansaskyle]

As a new KA1 owner myself, I am happy to post my good results here as well.

The big selling factors for me include:
* Overdrive integration - I really like how I can find a book via my library's site, hit borrow, and then the book autosyncs to my KA1.
* EPub support - I finally got around to getting a couple free library memberships, and I found they carry some books I wanted to read only in ePub, which is what prompted me to switch over from being a Kindle user since 2010.
* Huge screen - My Kindle Voyage screen seems tiny now!

[deleted2]

Originally Posted by kansaskyle

As a new KA1 owner myself, I am happy to post my good results here as well.

All good points !

[Nikko73]

Good to see this kind of thread here. A potential KAO purchaser sure could be put off by the negative posts on here, even though they are entirely understandable. Of course customers who have issues with their brand new shiny device are more likely to grumble; I would.

I have had a KAO since early October 2016 and despite a few glitches (which I will explain) it is now perfect. Easily the best eReader on the market, beautiful to look at, miles of screen space, blue light reduction built-in, solid build and waterproof into the bargain. Well maybe not bargain but you get what you pay for. Usually.

Out of the box until about a month ago I did have a few issues. It is now working as advertised. I never had the huge battery drain that other's suffered from. Initially I read without a cover and followed advice to disable sync and WiFi. After a few weeks a salmon pink, ill-fitting bit of Chinese rubbish masquerading as a cover arrived and I immediately had issues on par with those authentic Kobo cover user's were having. Sleep not activated, text highlighted, some significant battery drain. Using the cover sparingly I waited until I go a new navy blue, beautifully fitting awesome piece of Chinese kit as a cover (this one cost an extra $3.45 AUD). Since then, with an upgrade to 4.1.8 (something like that) firmware, I have had virtually no problems. Once or twice over the past month if I have closed the cover asymmetrically it will highlight text or move back a page. But no battery drain as in it is good for 15 hours per month or thereabouts.

Very happy customer.

[deleted2]

Originally Posted by Nikko73

Since then, with an upgrade to 4.1.8 (something like that) firmware, I have had virtually no problems. Once or twice over the past month if I have closed the cover asymmetrically it will highlight text or move back a page. But no battery drain as in it is good for 15 hours per month or thereabouts.

Very happy customer.

Yeah, too bad for the early adopters, but from my experience, I can say that battery problems are solved. I'm glad I waited a bit before buying.

As for the sleep covers issues, I never used one.

[deleted2]

I'd also like to thank Joel Goguen, the maker of 2 extensions (in Calibre) I could not live without :

Kepub Output : converts on the fly Epub to Kepub, which lets you benefit from the stats while reading.

Kobo TouchExtended : which lets you create and manage your collections on the device (by tags for me.)

I also added the tweak that can make available full page, without header and footer.

How to Enable Full Screen Mode

1. Plug your Kobo ereader into a computer with a USB cable and enter computer transfer mode.

2. On Kobo devices there’s a folder called Kobo eReader.config. It’s located on the Kobo drive in the .kobo folder inside the Kobo folder.

3. Right-click on the Kobo eReader.config file and choose to open it with a basic text-editing program like Notepad.

4. Add the following code to the file at the bottom, or anywhere as long as it’s separate from the other code:

[FeatureSettings]
FullScreenReading=true

5. Safely eject your Kobo ereader from the computer. Then open the settings menu and go to Reading Settings. There’s now a checkbox to show the header and footer.

* Depending on the ebook, sometimes full screen doesn't work as expected. Then, you have to disable full screen. But it works fine most of the time.

[Onemack]

Having owned and consistently used eReaders since 2007, including Bookeen, iRex Iliad, Sony (various models) Kindle (various models) Kobo Aura, various Samsung tablets, my experience is that the KA1 is the best eReader that I have used.
Its features are excellent, its ease of use is intuitive, the battery life is good, the lighting features are very, very good, the weight is almost negligible, the quality of the finish is classy, these features, combined with the size of the screen puts it into the top of the class

[pastaenthusiast]

I love my KA1. It had a few growing pains, but now that it's updated all is well.

I like the larger screen. I like the colour temperature adjustments and can finally read in bed when my partner is asleep without bothering him. I also have enjoyed reading it in the bath and hot tub without worrying about dropping it. I haven't used the overdrive integration a lot but when I have it has worked beautifully. I haven't had a problem with the battery life since I first got it (before the first major upgrade).

[PeterT]

@Claude_C I do wish you'd add in the caveat that full screen mode CAN introduce rendering errors at the bottom of the page.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[deleted2]

Originally Posted by PeterT

@Claude_C I do wish you'd add in the caveat that full screen mode CAN introduce rendering errors at the bottom of the page.

The only caveat for me is, that on the left side of the screen, the letters are a very tiny bit cut. But nothing that bad that it is interfering with my reading. Nothing wrong with the bottom of the page from my experience.

[PeterT]

All I'm suggesting is that mention of this hack includes mention that it's not perfect. We've seen people claiming that the formatting of books is broken, only to discover they had enabled full screen mode.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[deleted2]

Originally Posted by PeterT

All I'm suggesting is that mention of this hack includes mention that it's not perfect. We've seen people claiming that the formatting of books is broken, only to discover they had enabled full screen mode.

Yes, you're right. Depending on the ebook, sometimes it doesn't work as expected. Then, you have to disable full screen. But it works fine most of the time. I'll add the "warning" to my post.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Claude_C

Yeah, too bad for the early adopters, but from my experience, I can say that battery problems are solved. I'm glad I waited a bit before buying.

As for the sleep covers issues, I never used one.

I am an early adopter and I never had any battery problems. So I'm glad I got it on day one

Sleep cover: don't use it either, so, no experience with that.

I love this one. I thought I'd use my H2O once in a while beside the One, but I only looked at it once, after getting the One. I finally ended up giving the H2O to my mother.

[musteman]

I believe this post is a very good idea. I bought my KOBO AURA ONE in September and checking this forum sometimes makes you feel the device is a disaster -which is far from the truth-.

I feel most of the posts are from people with issues and that gives the general impression the ereader works very badly. I feel there are many readers satisfied with the product who do no require to post anything. Since the beginning this device is been out of stock due to a higher demand than expected by KOBO so there are probably a lot of happy customers also.

I know the ereader had some issues at the beginning but most of them have been resolved with the firmware updates. In my specific case, I have only experienced one battery drain caused by the official cover. Long a ago I decided to turn off the device pushing the bottom instead of closing the cover and no more unexpected issues with the battery.

The ereader is not perfect but the screen size/quality, lighting, software customisation,.. is just fantastic for me and clearly an improvement from my previous kindle.

[Pjama]

I came to the Kobo Aura One from the Kindle Voyage which I was happy with for two and half years, apart from the size. The 7.8" screen makes all the difference for my reading - I'm blasting through books now. Plus having the Overdrive integration means I can just read and read without weighing up the pros and cons of buying a particular book.

I have a big library on amazon, as I have had a Kindle of one kind or other since 2010, but it was easy enough to transfer to my computer and convert so I can read them on my KA1.

I waited and waited for amazon to provide a reader with a bigger screen and waterproofing and was surprised and disappointed when the Oasis didn't have either. I watched from the sidelines as Kobo released first the HD in three different colors (I coveted the chocolate one), then the H2O... I read the forums here about the many software glitches and decided to hold off.

When I found out about this one, however, I was finally ready to give Kobo the benefit of the doubt. A large screen and waterproofing - the rewards were too great not to give it a go. So I managed to get one through Chapters Indigo. It arrived last week, since when I have powered through three books.

It's just a pleasure to read on - the appearance of the page is identical to a book - the text on the page looks so much nicer than on the Voyage, plus I find the comfort light to be a real boon at night. With this orange-ish light, I can read in the dark with the same font size as during the day - something I was never able to do with the Voyage - I had to keep turning the brightness down down down and bumping up the font size to get it readable, resulting in not much text on screen.

It's such a joy to read on this screen - and I didn't even mention how I love being able to control my font weight/boldness.

So far, I couldn't be happier with my Kobo.