Kobo Auro One replacement

[radius]

I'm looking for ideas to replace a Kobo Aura One which is feeling quite long in the tooth.

The vast majority of my reading on an e-book reader is novels, manga, and non-fiction (ie: not textbooks or large-page PDFs or American comics etc).

I tried to replace the KA1 with an 11th generation Kindle Paperwhite Signature, but I find the screen on the Paperwhite to be a touch small, for someone used to Kobo the Kindle feels restrictive, and finally the power button both sticking out and being on the bottom is very annoying.

My main reason for leaving the KA1 behind is I just can't deal with the slooooooooooooowness inaccurate/offset touch response, and inability to jump to a specific page number any more.

I'm looking for:

- minimum 7" screen and strongly prefer around 8 to 8.5"
- sideloading. If it presents as USB mass storage device to a computer then even better
- flush screen, not sunken bezel
- snappy UI
- good search options, both for titles/authors and for text within books (e.g. Kindle is annoying because you can't pop back to the search list as far as I know)
- sharp, contrasty screen
- fits in my back pocket (this probably knocks out modern Kobos with the wide side bezels)
- can add my own selection of fonts
- easy to buy in Canada

Would be nice:

- quick pan and zoom on graphics would be nice
- Overdrive integration. I coooould make do with Libby but I don't like the Libby Android app on tablets so I doubt I would like it any more on an e-reader.
- clock displayed somewhere while reading
- file format support beyond epub. cbr/cbz would be handy. I seldom use it, but PDF and RTF support would be cake.
- some way to grab books off cloud storage, be that a good web browser, or apps for Dropbox, Box etc.

Don't care about:

- store. My to-read pile is already years long
- dictionaries. Nice to have but not critical
- case availability. I haven't used one in close to twenty years
- Google Play Store. I want to read, not TikTok

What's the state of the e-reader art? Thanks!

[Hellmark]

If you want to stick with Kobo, the Sage has an 8" screen and the Elipsa has a 10.3" screen. The Supernote Nomad has a 7.8" screen, and looks like a good option based on what I've looked into so far for myself.

[JSWolf]

This leaves out Kobo. The Libra 2 is discontinued and no B&W replacement. The color models are meh!. The Sage and Elipsa have rather poor batteries. So really, there's nothing there for you (IMHO). The only decent Kobo is the Clara BW and that's a 6" screen.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This leaves out Kobo. The Libra 2 is discontinued and no B&W replacement. The color models are meh!. The Sage and Elipsa have rather poor batteries. So really, there's nothing there for you (IMHO). The only decent Kobo is the Clara BW and that's a 6" screen.

I think the Libra Color is pretty good IMO. The contrast could be a bit better for reading with the light off, but the second you use the front light it becomes moot IMO and it's fine in sunlight or with a good lamp. It's speedy, light. Easy to buy and get in Canada. It is a smidge wider than a Kobo Aura One by maybe half a centimeter.

I think it's worth at least trying.

The only other serious option new is the Boox Page but that's harder to get and return. And it's still a wider device.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

This leaves out Kobo. The Libra 2 is discontinued and no B&W replacement. The color models are meh!. The Sage and Elipsa have rather poor batteries. So really, there's nothing there for you (IMHO). The only decent Kobo is the Clara BW and that's a 6" screen.

Out of a perhaps morbid curiosity, where did the OP mention battery life in their post? Is it terrible that I need to charge your Sage once per week or so though that does make it among the longest lasting devices I own. As for the Elipsa? The Elipsa 2E has a better battery life than the original Elipsa which I tend to attribute to switching to a MediaTek SOC from the AllWinner B300 chip used in the original Elipsa and the Sage.

Comparing the Elipsa 2E to the Kindle Scribe, we have a 2,400mAH battery compared to dual batteries which total 3,000mAh. While the Scribe says 12 weeks battery life, if you use the stylus, this drops to 3 weeks. Amazon and Kobo seem to love using 30 minutes per day for the battery life estimate which IMNSHO, is far too low. One acquaintance of mine uses their Elipsa 2E mostly for reading about 5-6 hours per day and recharges it every 3 days. 15-18 hours of reading would give 30-36 days of reading using 30 minutes per day (they have WiFi on and the brightness set to 25%). On the rare occasions when they is marking up text, they needs to recharge every second day so about 10-12 hours.

I take it you have owned and tested the Clara Colour and/or Libra Colour to be able to write as if you have had personal experience with them? I find the screen on my Libra Colour to require using the frontlight so I tend to use it at about 20% brightness compared to 10% brightness on my Sage. The colour is nothing to write home about but does make some charts and graphs in books easier to read.

[radius]

Thanks for the reccos!

I checked out the Kobos and none of them have a combination of larger screen without the "handle", sadly. They just won't fit in a back pocket for me.

I'd heard of Supernote, but never really looked into them because I thought of them as being ReMarkable competitors, ie: good for note-taking but not so much for reading. Looks like I'm going to be watching some Youtube reviews...

[Aleron Ives]

SuperNote is primarily aimed at writing, yes. The reading functionality is pretty limited compared to other devices, and SuperNote is extremely expensive. On the plus side, it has user-replaceable parts. You probably would be better off looking at the 7.8" Boox Nova series.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by radius

Thanks for the reccos!

I checked out the Kobos and none of them have a combination of larger screen without the "handle", sadly. They just won't fit in a back pocket for me.

I'd heard of Supernote, but never really looked into them because I thought of them as being ReMarkable competitors, ie: good for note-taking but not so much for reading. Looks like I'm going to be watching some Youtube reviews...

You don't want any Reader in a back pocket. Way to easy to sit on and break.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

SuperNote is primarily aimed at writing, yes. The reading functionality is pretty limited compared to other devices, and SuperNote is extremely expensive. On the plus side, it has user-replaceable parts. You probably would be better off looking at the 7.8" Boox Nova series.

Boox Nova series doesn't exist anymore. Closest things now are the 7.8" Tab Mini C and the 7" Page. The former is color with those tradeoffs and the latter has a handle like the Kobo Libras.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Out of a perhaps morbid curiosity, where did the OP mention battery life in their post? Is it terrible that I need to charge your Sage once per week or so though that does make it among the longest lasting devices I own. As for the Elipsa? The Elipsa 2E has a better battery life than the original Elipsa which I tend to attribute to switching to a MediaTek SOC from the AllWinner B300 chip used in the original Elipsa and the Sage.

Comparing the Elipsa 2E to the Kindle Scribe, we have a 2,400mAH battery compared to dual batteries which total 3,000mAh. While the Scribe says 12 weeks battery life, if you use the stylus, this drops to 3 weeks. Amazon and Kobo seem to love using 30 minutes per day for the battery life estimate which IMNSHO, is far too low. One acquaintance of mine uses their Elipsa 2E mostly for reading about 5-6 hours per day and recharges it every 3 days. 15-18 hours of reading would give 30-36 days of reading using 30 minutes per day (they have WiFi on and the brightness set to 25%). On the rare occasions when they is marking up text, they needs to recharge every second day so about 10-12 hours.

I take it you have owned and tested the Clara Colour and/or Libra Colour to be able to write as if you have had personal experience with them? I find the screen on my Libra Colour to require using the frontlight so I tend to use it at about 20% brightness compared to 10% brightness on my Sage. The colour is nothing to write home about but does make some charts and graphs in books easier to read.

The thing is, for the color screens, they make the eInk screen too dark. I like being able to read without the front light when there is enough ambient light. But with a color overlay, that ambient light may have to be brighter to not have to use the front lite. Plus, if I notice the color filter while reading B&W text, I'll never unsee it. I'm not needing color to read books. I have a 12.9" iPad Pro I can use to read in color should I need/want to.

As for the other Kobo, I would want them to have a longer battery life. I like the idea of putting in two batteries if that's what it takes. I know the OP did not mention battery life, but if something like that would be an issue for the OP, then he should know about it.

[JSWolf]

Since the OP doesn't like the wider right side bezel, how hard would it be to take a PW5, open it, remove the Kindle guts and put in Libra 2 guts? Sure you'd lose the buttons, but you'd have a a symmetrical Reader like the Kobo Aura H2O.

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't want any Reader in a back pocket. Way to easy to sit on and break.

Or, carry it in your back pocket and take it out before you sit down.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Since the OP doesn't like the wider right side bezel, how hard would it be to take a PW5, open it, remove the Kindle guts and put in Libra 2 guts?

Extremely? It's not like replacing a flashlight battery! I doubt the dimensions of the two devices are exact matches and that's just for starters.

I hear the OP; I'm in the same place. Don't want buttons, prefer the oblong shape, and the Aura One is slow with an inaccurate touch response. But. It beats the alternatives so I'll wait it out. I always thought I'd get a Forma, but it never got cheap enough (to my mind) once it was discontinued, so here I am.

I also have a PW5 and it's not a good alternative, although I'm happy enough with it. Not only is the screen size smaller to start, the inability on a Kindle to reduce the margins to virtually none means the effective screen size is significantly smaller.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

Extremely? It's not like replacing a flashlight battery! I doubt the dimensions of the two devices are exact matches and that's just for starters.

I hear the OP; I'm in the same place. Don't want buttons, prefer the oblong shape, and the Aura One is slow with an inaccurate touch response. But. It beats the alternatives so I'll wait it out. I always thought I'd get a Forma, but it never got cheap enough (to my mind) once it was discontinued, so here I am.

I also have a PW5 and it's not a good alternative, although I'm happy enough with it. Not only is the screen size smaller to start, the inability on a Kindle to reduce the margins to virtually none means the effective screen size is significantly smaller.

You can use negative margins in an HTML tag in CSS to reduce the forced margins.

For me, I would love to get two new models of Aura H2O. One with a 7" screen, faster processor, larger battery, and the same except an 8" screen.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You can use negative margins in an HTML tag in CSS to reduce the forced margins.

Nope. The main reason to have a Kindle is to direct download Kindle books. If it can't be fixed on the device (and it can't), it's not happening. That's way more work than I'm going to put into my ebooks.