Kobo Aura Edition 2 Review

Kobo Aura Water Edition two

MSRP $179.99

"Kobo's new Aura H2O is a great big-screen Kindle alternative that's too waterproof"

Pros

Durable, waterproof body
Adaptable backlight and blue-light filter
Intuitive, highly customizable software
Can store 6,000 books

Cons

Pricey
Middling performance

It's 2017, and the market place for ebook readers isn't what information technology one time was. There accept always been just a scattering of major players, but Amazon has widened its gap and still reigns rex. Kobo is reaching back to its well-reviewed 2014 Aura Water to offer an culling to the popular Kindle.

Different the ebook reader market, the newly-refreshed 2017 Aura H20 hasn't inverse much at all. It's nonetheless waterproof, and it has the same backlit 6.8-inch screen, with the same resolution. The major change? It loses the MicroSD carte du jour slot present on the original in favor of double the internal storage.

That's non a bad thing, though. The new H2O'due south design and features aren't any less impressive than they were the first time around. But on some level, the H2o feels like a missed opportunity. Kobo had a run a risk to disrupt a stagnant market, but decidedly played it safe. The result is a competent ebook reader that delivers on its promises, just does aught more than.

Comfy and lite

The Kobo Aura H2o won't be mistaken for a Kindle Paperwhite. It has a distinct, athwart blueprint that feels more rugged than its competitors. Thick bezels border its 6.8-inch Due east Ink screen, and a rubberized dimpled cloth stretches the length of its ergonomic back cover. It'due south comfy in the palm, and uncommonly light.

The bezels provide ample room to rest your thumbs, but we would've liked to run into Kobo trim them a scrap.

The Aureola Water is minimalist. Kobo has taken intendance to muffle the Aureola Water'south ports and buttons, going then far equally to recess the ability button and motion it from the ebook reader'southward superlative to its back cover. It's not as indented as nosotros'd like, making it a lilliputian tough to find — the more y'all use the device, the more you'll get used to information technology.

Testing the H2o with H2O

What hasn'tchanged near the Aura H2O (thankfully) is its water resistance. Just similar the 2014 model, Kobo'southward new ebook reader is waterproof: Information technology ships with the company's patented HZO Protection, which should provide up to 30 minutes of protection at a depth of 3 feet.

It'south comfortable in the palm, and uncommonly calorie-free.

We put Kobo's waterproofing claims to the test past submerging the Aura Water in a large basin of h2o for five minutes. Subsequently we thoroughly dried information technology off with paper towels, it was adept as new; the ability button and the IR touchscreen worked as well as they had before, and we didn't notation any signs of impairment on the charging port.

Y'all should notation the screen does become a little unresponsive, and the device has trouble registering touches until it's completely dry. Regardless, h2o resistance is e'er a welcome characteristic because information technology increases a device'south longevity and durability. Feel free to read with the Kobo Aura H2O in the bathroom — something y'all demand to be a lot more careful with when using Amazon's Kindle ebook readers.

A well-baked and sharp screen

We're pleased to see the Aura H2O'south screen is just equally crisp and precipitous as the original. The resolution and pixel density is unchanged at 1,430 × ane,080 pixels and 265ppi (pixels per inch), and nosotros found text and book covers to be sharp — sharper than the cheaper 6-inch Kindle, which has 167ppi, but non as abrupt equally the Kindle Oasis, which packs 300ppi (and has a college, slightly more comparable toll indicate).

Adam Balkin/Digital Trends

All Kindles come with a 6-inch screen, and so it's nice to meet Kobo offering a larger size for big-screen lovers who want more screen real estate.

The device features Kobo's ComfortLight technology, which produces a bright, tonally-consistent light across the Aura H2O's entire screen. It also boasts a Natural Low-cal feature, which adjusts the screen's hue (from bluish-white to orangish-grey) to minimize centre strain. Nosotros found the "bedtime" feature, which automatically switches the screen to warmer, non-blue hues at a specific time, a nice affect.

The Aura H2O performs just also outside. Thanks to Kobo'due south proprietary glare-reducing technology, it'south easy to read in direct sunlight.

Middling performance

Powering the Aura H2O is a 1GHz processor like concluding twelvemonth'southward Kobo Aura One, and it packs 512MB of RAM. That puts it more or less on par with Amazon's Kindle ebook readers.

Feel free to read with the Kobo Aura Water in the bath.

Despite the upgrades from the original 2014 device, the Aura Water isn't as snappy every bit we hoped. It took upwards to a total 2nd longer to load books than Amazon's 6-inch Kindle, for example, and it sometimes stuttered in menus — especially the search screen. In ebooks, the E Ink screen refreshed a little too frequently for our liking — virtually every half-dozen pages. For comparison, the $80, 6-inch Kindle refreshes every five pages, and the $200 Kindle Voyage refreshes every xiv pages. The Kobo Aura Water is $180, and it's disappointing to run across information technology doesn't have a page refresh rate more comparable to the competition.

One appreciable improvement is the internal storage. The new Aureola H2O can shop twice every bit many books equally the original, up to 8GB worth. That translates to about 6,000 ebooks, which is more than than plenty for the average reader. The original did have a MicroSD card slot, which meant yous could hold even more, but it'south highly unlikely anyone would always go above 6,000 — we're not complaining most the omission.

One-calendar month battery life

1 of the most appealing features of ebook readers is their fantastic battery life, and the new Aura Water doesn't disappoint. Kobo says it should last up to one month off a charger, which works out to about xxx minutes of reading each twenty-four hours (if you turn the page once per minute).

The battery life estimate seems spot on. We tested the Aura H2o for near a calendar week, using it for 30 minutes to an hr each evening with the effulgence ready to 50 percentage and Wi-Fi enabled. By day 5, the battery life had dipped to about 56 percent.

Intuitive software

The easiest mode to load books onto the Aura H2O is over Wi-Fi via Kobo'south store. It boasts nigh five million titles, the company says — about a million short of the the Kindle shop's roughly six meg. It'due south organized logically by department, and features curated collections (e.g., "great reads under $5") that brand narrowing downward new titles easy.

The Aureola H2O has the added reward of robust support for third-political party ebook formats. If you connect it to a computer via the MicroUSB cord, you can transfer ebooks in EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, and MOBI from your calculator'due south hard drive to the device's internal memory.

Adam Balkin/Digital Trends

Free ebook resources like Projection Gutenberg and MobileRead will work just fine. Just it's important to notation that Digital Rights Management (DRM) software will prevent you from transferring almost books from third-party ebook stores. Some can be converted using Calibre, a free ebook management program, but if you download an ebook from the Barnes and Noble store that's formatted for a Nook ebook reader, for example, yous'll take trouble getting it to a format the Aureola H2O can apply. Sadly, ebooks from Amazon's Kindle library are likewise non supported.

The Aura Water's software is intuitive, for the most part. Nosotros specially like the universal search characteristic, which trawls through the Kobo'southward online store, offline downloads, saved annotations, and the built-in dictionary for volume titles, authors, series, and ISBN numbers. It helpfully provides autocomplete suggestions as you type also, which comes in handy for lengthy titles like "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince."

Kobo's TypeGenius software, which powers the Aura H2O's font-rendering engine, is impressively robust. It offers 11 fonts in 50 sizes, different weight and sharpness settings, margin and justification adjustments, in-book search, and note-taking tools. A preview window makes it easy to see changes before they're applied, and TypeGenius' page navigation tools make flipping back a few chapters a cakewalk.

The Aura H2O isn't equally snappy as we hoped.

An energy-saving feature automatically turns off the Aura Water later on a few minutes. Reading controls let you fine-tune the appearance of pages. A web browser — currently in beta — lets you peruse sites on the H2O's screen, thought we wouldn't recommend it — the slow refresh rate will exam the limits of your patience.

The Aura H2O'due south Activity characteristic gamifies your reading. Y'all can see stats similar how many minutes you spent reading each day of the week, how many pages you average a minute, and how much progress y'all've made in your electric current book. An "Awards" tab offers badges unlocked by completing tasks like creating a Kobo business relationship, using the built-in dictionary, and reading Proust.

Warranty data, price, and availability

Kobo offers a standard express warranty for the Aura H2O. If a defect arises one twelvemonth from the date you purchased it, the company volition supplant information technology with a new or refurbished model of equal or greater value, or repair it using new or refurbished parts. Y'all'll take to contact Kobo to make a warranty claim and provide a proof of purchase, and send the Aura Water to Kobo's repair facility.

The Kobo Aura H2O costs $180, and you can pre-order it now. It will be available on May 22 in the U.South., Canada, the U.K., Italy, France, the Netherlands, Espana, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, and Turkey. It will come to more countries later this year.

Our Take

The Aura H2O is equally every bit good equally the original, but we would accept liked to run into better performance. It's a great option for people who prefer large-screen ebook readers.

How long volition information technology terminal?

The Aura H2O'south build quality is exceptional – and the body'south waterproof. If the first-generation Aureola H2o is whatever indication, we expect it to last more three years.

On the software side, Kobo'south devices tend to meliorate over fourth dimension. The visitor introduces experimental new features via the beta carte, and just in February rolled out a revamped domicile screen interface to the entire lineup of Aureola devices.

Is there a improve alternative?

Aye. The Aura H2o is a keen ebook reader, but there are less expensive alternatives.

Take Amazon'south Kindle lineup, for example. The entry-level Kindle has a smaller display and a lower resolution than the Aureola Water, but information technology boasts built-in Bluetooth, and starts at $eighty. The next step up, the $120 Kindle Paperwhite 3, bumps screen sharpness to 212ppi and adds 3G connectivity. The larger $200 Kindle Voyage packs haptic sensors, and there's the $290 Kindle Haven with a two-calendar month battery life.

The $100 Nook Glowlight Plus, some other Aureola H2o competitor, is besides waterproof.

Should y'all buy it?

Yes. The Aura H2O is a not bad ebook reader — information technology'south waterproof, has a blue-light filter, a big, sharp screen, and it supports a number of ebook file formats. If those features interest you, the Kobo Aura H2O is a great fit. It is a lot more expensive than the entry-level Kindle, though, so you may want to accept a look at Amazon's offerings starting time.

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