Amazon has created a robust ecosystem that rewards readers who go all-in, and once you've tasted those rewards, you'll miss them too much. The Aura might be the best e-reader on the market (it is), but it's tough to recommend that anyone currently swimming in the Kindle pool hop the fence and join Kobo's party. And in a very odd decision, Kobo is only selling the Aura HD "for a limited time," and there's no word on when that time will end. After all, that's $30 more expensive than the best ad-free Kindle Amazon sells. I'm sure there are people willing to pay $170 for the awesome hardware, but the masses won't. Also missing: the great cloud-based Kindle stuff like X-Ray. Of course, you can easily side-load books from any store onto the Aura HD, but you're losing that one-click experience Amazon has perfected. While the Kobo bookstore is on par with Amazon's Kindle bookstore for most of the big titles and mainstream books you want to read, it still lacks the Kindle exclusives Amazon has used to fuel its device's impulse power – things like Kindle Singles and exclusive novellas from superstar authors like Stephen King. Largest of these downsides is the ecosystem. In all, it's a spectacular e-reader, but it suffers from the shortcomings of a device intended for a niche audience. The Aura HD also has 4GB of on-board storage, and if that's not enough (it certainly will be for almost everyone) there's a microSD slot that supports up to another 32GB. It does seem faster, but e-readers have gotten to the point where page turns are zippy enough that another 25 percent isn't really that big of a deal. Kobo says the e-reader is 25 percent quicker than others on the market. Page flips, which you initiate by touching the screen, were super-fast in my testing thanks to a 1GHz processor. It reminds me of the red buttons they used to put on the bottoms of toys in the 1980s.
The power button is bright red, and it sticks out visually like, well, like a shiny red button. The peak on the left-hand side is slightly wider than the right, something southpaws with tiny hands may find uncomfortable.īesides ignoring the customers of the Leftorium, the design of the Aura is beautiful. But it's clearly built with right-handed readers in mind. The tiny peaks create a more ergonomic, grabble device. The bibliophile love fest also extends to the back of the Aura, where two slightly raised ridges run from top to bottom. Like the smartphone world, each generation of e-readers has a display that's slightly better than the one before it. Compound that with Kobo's TypeGenius feature that can fine-tune a font's size, weight and sharpness (a wonderful add for not just font nerds, but for the visually impaired) and you have a reading environment that's superior in every way.Īlthough it is more expensive ($170), there's a good chance most of the Aura HD's high-end features will eventually land on a more reasonably priced Kobo in the future. The brightness levels are nearly uniform from edge to edge with a only a very slight dark area at the bottom of screen – ironically, where the actual lights reside. The light leans more toward yellow than the Glo, so it isn't as harsh and it gives the screen a hue that more closely resembles the printed page. Kobo's excellent ComfortLight feature has also been upgraded, and surpasses the Kobo Glo's screen – not an easy feat, considering the Glo bested the bunch in that department. Text appears crisper on the Aura's display than on any of the other e-readers I've tested, not just the Paperwhite. The display – a 6.8-inch, 1440 x 1080 screen with a density of 265 ppi – knocks the Kindle Paperwhite off its throne as e-ink emperor. There's a clear win: the Aura HD has the best screen on the e-reader market today. In this case, the rewards aren't just warm and fuzzy vibes.
They're also people who prefer to contribute to the success of a hardware device not made by the bigger, more dominant company. They shop at independent bookstores and routinely pick titles from small publishers, side-loading them on their e-readers. Most of all, they're people who root for the little guy. The Kobo Aura HD is a device for those hardcores: people who not only crave a better e-ink screen (really, who doesn't?), but also those who pay closer attention to a device's design.
The Japanese company's success in the e-reader market can be pinned equally on its strong international presence and its willingness to create a product specifically tuned to the wants and needs of its most hardcore customers. Yet, Kobo lives on – not just surviving, but thriving. Battling the e-reader juggernaut Amazon is tough.
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