kobo arura hd purchase and features

[antalj]

Hello Guys!

I considering to buy an Aura HD in the near future but earlier tests and comapirsons shows that there some really usefull differencies between the Aura and Aura HD, and I heard also that these functions might be implemented on the Aura HD too.
Like there are options with two finger touch like brightness calibration or zooming, or saving webpage and articles for later reading etc.
Are these function already implemented?

Is it possible to check somewhere the firmware updates and its changes and improvements?

cheers,

[adityadubey]

Hi,
I've had the Aura HD for a few months now. The features are nothing special. It's fast, so there's very little lag. Sometimes it may take an extra click to get things done, but it's never very cumbersome. It has basic Facebook and links to Pocket, so that's useful.

However, the thing that really stands out and feels premium is the screen itself. The slightly bigger size allows for more text on a page so it feels like a book, with fewer pageturns. The display lives up to it's HD name and fonts are crisply rendered. The light is so beautifully done that it appears backlit. To be fair if you're looking for it, you can notice a slight discolouration towards the top of the page from some angles. But you forget about it once you're reading.

I've been reading quite a bit on it and I prefer it to physical books most of the time now.
I hope that rambling made some sense :P Is there anything in particular about the device you'd like to know?

[EndlessWaves]

The Aura HD uses a completely different touchscreen technology, Infrared sensors on the edges (leaving the screen clear) rather than an capacitive layer over the screen, so I wouldn't assume anything there.

As for saving articles, if you mean Pocket(formerly Read It Later) then that's available on all current Kobo eReaders except the mini:
http://help.getpocket.com/customer/p...pocket-to-kobo

[Joques]

There is an unofficial hack that adds two-finger swipe light controls to the HD and GLO. It works like a charm: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=232431

[antalj]

Wow,thx Guys!

Great news!

[feliciano]

adityadubey, can the Aura HD minimize the margins to zero when using PDFs?

[arspr]

Originally Posted by feliciano

adityadubey, can the Aura HD minimize the margins to zero when using PDFs?

Yes and no.

AuraHD (or any other Kobo) doesn't have either text-reflow feature for pdfs or auto zoom to just the written width inside the page.

But you can manually adjust the zoom to whichever value that makes your text fill the screen. With two "small" drawbacks:
+ When you turn pages, the zoom level is kept but the focus goes to the upper left corner, so all your left/top margin will be shown and the text will go outside the screen on the right side. You have to drag the page in order to "center" it.
+ If you close the book and go to the home screen when you reopen it, that precise zoom level is lost...

Nevertheless, there's an important bug within pdf rendering that you should know (and a really OLD bug which I hope that is fixed in upcoming FW 3.2.0). While reading pdfs you can turn pages by tapping on the left or right sides of the screen. (Good feature). But if you change to landscape mode (which you can only do in pdfs, not in epubs/kepubs), touch areas are kept unrotated so you have to tap on the up/down part of the screen... (It's really crazy...)


About AuraHD vs Aura:

• AuraHD. Bigger and slightly more dense screen. In fact a gorgeous screen with nearly no ghosting although I must say it seems to have slightly less contrast and clearly a darker white than my old good Sony PRS-650 even both being Pearl e-ink displays.
• Aura. Smaller (but conventional sized screen like EVERY other eReader in the world: the standard 6 inches). The same Pearl e-ink technology BUT touchscreen through capacitive technology (like smartphones/tablets and Kindle Paperwhite), while in AuraHD is infrared (like most of other eReaders). I haven't tested an Aura but capacitive vs infrared implies natural advantages and disadvantages. Capacitive is MUCH more responsive and precise than infrared, but it adds an extra layer over the screen so I suppose that it will slightly kill some of the e-ink contrast. As a summary in an eReader I personally think that IR is better as I don't really need "perfect" touch responsiveness. I mean, OK, sometimes I tap, quickly drag or whatever and my gestures are not registered or recognized... but I prefer getting the best possible contrast for my eyes than the best possible responsiveness for my fingers. And of course forget about using Aura with gloves in your hands (unless they are specially made for that usage, I mean, they must be conductive).

(I'm not a Kindle fanboy, but given its price and its new e-ink technology, unless you really wanted something special -Kindles don't have nearly any other extra feature than just a web browser-, if you just want an eReader for reading I think the only "real" options nowadays are either the Kindle Paperwhite or the AuraHD if you can/want to pay a bit more because of the screen size and resolution).