Kobo Aura

A number of years ago I was a reluctant convert to reading e-books. I love the feel of books, but books can be heavy. When I knew I was nearing the end of a book I would bring two more along with me so I would have a choice when it came time to pick the next one. This would make my purse VERY heavy. That was the first problem that lead me to consider reading an electronic version of a book. The second problem was that I work in a public school and being addicted to romance novels, didn't always want my students to be able to see the cover of the book I was currently reading. There were two possible solutions, the first would be to simply only read those books at home, and have a separate, more appropriate, set of books to read at school. I didn't like this option because I usually don't like to read more than one book at a time. The second solution was to get an e-reader so no one could see what I was reading, appropriate or not. At that time I purchased an e-reader from a certain popular north american book seller. I loved this e-reader, it had expandable memory, and it could read just about any format of e-book that you would want it to. The same company then came out with an updated version, as they tend to do. It was smaller, but still had the expandable memory and an added bonus of a touch screen, I upgraded. The fourth iteration of this e-reader did not include expanded memory, and it seemed clunky, so when I lost my e-reader (hopefully the person that is currently in possession of it is enjoying the many romance novels that it came with) I looked to other e-reader companies to find my replacement. Kobo's Aura had almost everything that I was looking for in an e-reader and more. I wanted an e-reader with expandable memory. Back when I used to carry three books everywhere I never imagined that some day I would be able to carry 1000 books to choose from for my next book. I wanted a glow light. Kobo Aura has an awesome glow light. I love that I can adjust it with a two finger swipe. It is able to read most formats of e-books, and the memory is not limited to books from the kobo library. I can side load as many books as I want to. The one thing that I wish it had were physical page turn buttons, but I am quickly getting used to the lack of buttons. The feature that I wasn't looking for that I absolutely love is that there is no bevel. So many times in the past I would look at my e-reader screen and get slightly disgusted by all of the dirt and grime that would be trapped under the bevel around the screen. Not only was this gross, but I wondered if it affected the sensitivity of the touch screen as from what I understood it worked from sensors that were sent out over the screen from under the bevel, if the dirt and grime was blocking the sensors, how could they tell where your fingers were? I never experience my touch screen not working, but it was a concern I have. This E-reader has a completely flat screen similar to a tablet. Which makes it easy to clean as well as giving it a very smart look. When I first got this e-reader I was concerned by how small it was. Even though the screen was the same size as my previous e-reader, it seemed so much smaller. That is another thing that I have gotten over, and I can happily say that this is something I use daily and absolutely love!

Like many people who own an ereader I have been searching for another one that I could use an SD card on. I have a Kindle paperwhite which I love but unfortunately it will not hold the over 3,000 books I have from other eBook stores. Until recently I have always had a Sony eReader for that. My last one was the TS2 and I absolutely loved it. The only problem I had was that it did not have a backlight. So I went searching for a new one that did. For anyone that knows the history of Sony they do not sell ereaders anymore and the Sony bookstore was bought out by Kobo. So I started researching the Kobo aura. The first thing I will say is do not purchase it through a merchant here because it really is overpriced. I managed to get it on Thanksgiving weekend with a coupon for $89.95. I was very excited when I received it and was anxious to see how it compared to the Kindle paperwhite. I will say the Kindle paperwhite words on the screen are a little more crisp but Kobo makes up for it with their advanced settings that you can tweak to get the weight of the ink in the words very clear. Loved all the advanced setting options offered by Kobo that the Kindle paperwhite does not offer as well as it's smaller size. So I was having a wonderful and lovely relationship with my new Kobo ereader for a few days until the first time I went to sideload my books purchased elsewhere that I have on a micro SD card. As I already stated, I have over 3,000 books downloaded onto a 32 gigabyte micro SD card. When I insert this card into my Sony TS-2 reader it takes about 5 minutes for it to download and process all the content and you can even read ebooks while it is doing it. Unfortunately that did not prove true with the Kobo. It took almost 8 HOURS to process the content and you cannot access anything on the eReader while it is doing it. This is also when all my troubles started when the e-reader would constantly freeze for no apparent reason. I cannot even count how many times I did a soft reset with a paper clip as well as a hard factory reset. I spent hours online troubleshooting trying to fix the issues I was having with the eReader, but they just continued to happen. At this point I figured I must have a lemon so I contacted Kobo to see about their exchange policy. Their 1-800 number refers you to the online customer service form. I filled out the form with all the details and I will say they did call me back within 5 minutes. The person on the phone had to go through all the soft reset and hard reset steps that I had already done on numerous occasions before we could do anything else. But I humored her and did them then put in my micro sd card and that was the end of that! It started processing the content at the snails pace rate I had told her it would. At this point she consulted someone else and came back and told me that the reason it takes up to 8 hours to process the content is because I have over 3,000 books on it. At this point I tried to remain calm and told her that that was absolutely ridiculous since it only took 5 minutes to do the same thing on my Sony eReader. Basically I was told that's just the way it is. Now mind you, over 3,000 books takes up a little over 2 gigabytes on my 32 gigabyte micro SD card. So can you imagine how many DAYS it would take to process the content on the ereader if I actually was using the entire 32 gigabytes of space for books to download if I followed that reasoning?! I told her that was completely unacceptable and that I wanted a refund instead if that was going to be their reasoning. It's too bad too because I really was enjoying the reader. I was really hoping to do an exchange for another one to see if it would do the same thing. I just can't imagine that it would, because the whole purpose of purchasing the Kobo eReader for people like myself is to be able to sideload books with the micro SD card and if everyone had that problem who purchased one I would have heard about it during my research. And yes, I even took the suggestion by someone in one of the troubleshooting forums and reformatted my SD card and reloaded the books on it before I inserted it into the eReader. It didn't make a bit of difference. I even tried it with another micro SD card to no avail. So it is not like I just quickly gave up, I really wanted this to work. Now I am just waiting to see how the return policy works since the Kobo company is located outside of the US.

I was a little suspicious of the Amazon reviews since Kobo is the Kindle's main competitor these days, so I wanted to leave some feedback as a verified purchaser. I bought this in October 2015 as the Aura was sold out on Kobo's website. I went with the Kobo because I have a lot of epubs and PDFs and it seemed like the better choice over the Kindle. First Impression: -The Kobo was smaller than I had imagined. It's about 1 inch taller and 2 inches wider than an iPhone 5. Obviously the size is in the description, so no starts were removed because of this. The size is really only an issue if you are reading PDF's, as the text can be pretty small. Epub's and Mobi's allow you to change the font size. -I also assumed the Kobo had more of an open-source feel since they let you load epubs. But with the current firmware, Kobo forces you to sign up for an account and download their desktop PC software before you can even use the device. There is no workaround with Calibre. I did some research, and there is a workaround if you flash the firmware to certain older versions. Alternatively, you can run SQL Lite to insert some default values into the device for the user/account info. But that may be a little too technical for a lot of people. Google/MobileReads will have more info on this. Pros: -It's a nice device that holds a lot of books -Battery life is amazing compared to a modern smart phone -The software setbacks can be avoided if you are willing to put a few hours of effort in -The books load to the device pretty quickly -Easy to sync with Calibre -The device is comfortable to hold Cons: -Like someone else said, it is easy to accidentally switch the page when you touch the screen. There was no way to change the settings to make the Left/Right side "touch area" smaller. They do have other options for page changing, but they seemed counter intuitive. -The device defaults to a Track Reading option, which allows the device to phone home and report all of your reading info to Kobo. It is supposedly to give you reading awards, but who needs that unless you're 6 years old. It came off as a little creepy. -The Kobo desktop software seems difficult to work with unless you buy all of your books from Kobo Other Thoughts -There are a few 3rd party firmware options that you can run on the device instead of Kobo's software -I get the feeling that the Aura is going to be discontinued since they've been sold out on the Kobo website for a month

I would give this ereader 5 stars for its simplicity, light weight and similarity to my Nook 1st edition, which I just recently needed to replace. This device has a glaring flaw however, and had I known about it I wouldn't have bought this device. You cannot access footnotes in a convenient fashion; apparently you have to keep going to the end of the book and paging progressively further forward to read them, then trundle back to where you left off in the text. I read a lot of non-fiction books that often have a lot of footnotes, so this is a deal-killer for me. If you don't care about this, then consider this a 5-star rating, but I really wish I'd known about this problem before I bought.

Overall a very good product. Contrary to what the others indicated, the screen illumination is of a lesser quality compared to Kindle Paperwhite 1st generation (the LEDs on top are visible and create a brighter line, on the bottom one can see a dark line and all of this is quite irritating). Despite that lack of perfection and the lousy dictionary service (where the manufacturer and not the seller is to be blamed for), as stated above the unit performs well and the build design is good. I liked it!

I switched to this device from a Nook simple touch mainly because of the backlight and the higher resolution screen. The backlight is not bad, but the higher resolution has proved to be irrelevant because most of the fonts appear pixelated at many size settings. My Nook, which had a lower resolution on paper, had sharper text across the board. The screen, which is a nice texture, unfortunately seems to reflect more light than other readers. Another major problem I had was that the small bezel makes the device uncomfortable to hold. There is very little room for my thumbs and touching the screen accidently will cause the page to turn. This is easy to do because the glass is flush with the bezel due to the capacitive touch screen. Its very small size overall means I can't find any comfortable position to hold it. I also miss having physical page turn buttons. I was drawn to this device because it looked nice and seemed to be well designed but after owning it for a while I have found it to not be worth the trouble. I am strongly considering replacing it.

The package arrived in really good condition! It was bubble wrapped and completely sealed. No scratches or whatnot, completely new and I am so excited to use this and get back to reading and ebook hunting! Works perfectly so far. I'm a little weird-ed out that there's no warranty card, but then I don't know if Kobo does include warranty cards in there units. I've preferred Kobo since I ventured into the world of ebook readers since I think it offers the best deal in terms of price and what you get -- an ebook reader with either a beveled (for Touch) or rubberized (i.e. Aura) backing with a decent internal memory and the ability to expand it by inserting a memory card, not to mention the lack of advertisements (and you don't have to pay to not deal with them, unlike with Kindle) and the wide variety of file formats that you can open with it: Books: EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, and MOBI Documents: PDF Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, and TIFF Text: TXT, HTML, and RTF Comic Books: CBZ and CBR From [...] But hey if you have an Amazon subscription, the Kindle might be worth considering since I hear they have a pretty vast library anyway. :)

I purchased a Kobo Aura HD six months ago, and have previously had four different Amazon Kindle models. Since I've been getting sick of being tied to DRM when purchasing ebooks and a friend highly recommended Kobo gear, I decided to check it out. The product itself was enjoyable to use, and had many compelling features over the available Kindle models at the time, though it did have some software idiosyncrasies that took some getting used to. Shortly after purchasing the product, the back of the case developed some flaking of the matte plastic cover -- and glossy plastic was becoming exposed. It took awhile for me to call in to get it replaced before I took this on extended travel where it would get some real wear and tear on it, and the initial support call was fine -- I was told that this was not normal for any Kobo products. After several rounds of e-mails of being asked repeatedly for the same information I already provided, Kobo support took a turn for the worst. Kobo didn't want to provide warranty service for the device under terms of this being a manufacturer defect -- instead of answering my questions about why this was and asking for some relevant references or reasoning to why they believed this was normal wear (even though they hadn't seen it before), I was informed by Kobo support that their warranty covers *only* software, not hardware. Kobo Support's response: "Thank you for contacting Kobo Customer Care. We are happy to assist you. You contacted us in regards to an issue you were experiencing with your Kobo eReader Aura HD. You advised us that the case of your Kobo Aura is wearing off. We apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused you. Unfortunately, Kobo 1 year standard warranty does not cover wears of the case of Kobo devices and after we investigated the provided information. The 1 year warranty covers only software problems." I plan to return this device to the retailer (who normally supports returns when manufacturers don't honor their warranties) and using that money to get another Kindle. I'm not excited about it, but I'm highly turned off of the support experience, and any manufacturer that states their warranties aren't honored isn't worth using.

great bit of kit, had a kobo touch before this which I can't fault but the inbuilt light of the aura makes it far better for reading at any time of day or night. my wife has a kindle with built in light and this is much heavier to hold compared to the kobo and the addition of a micro sd card means you can carry as many books as you like without having to delete books to add more

Es una muy buena alternativa a "otros". Facil manejo. La bateria dura y dura y dura... La luz muy util y la lectura buena y clara.

Da mein Vorrezensent eigentlich schon recht präzise das Wesentliche zum Kobo Ara geschildert hat, möchte ich nur noch etwas ergänzen. Das Foto aus der Werbung, lässt den Reader wesentlich größer erscheinen, als er ist. Wenn man geschätzt ca. 20 der früher üblichen Standard (DIN B6)Briefumschläge übereinander stapelt hat man ungefähr die Kobo Aura Maße vor sich. Wem auch immer man das Teil in die Hand drückt, der wird erst einmal erstaunt sein. Dünn, rahmenlos, elegant. Nur einen roten Einschaltknopf und einen Knopf zum Ein-/Ausschalten der Beleuchtung gibt es auf der Oberseite(*). Auf der Unterseite gibt's den Steckplatz für eine MicroSD Speicherkarte, den Micro USB Anschluss, sowie ein (Büroklammer-) Loch für den Reset Schalter. (* Hat man den Kobo Aura in einem Kobo Sleep Cover mit Sleep Funktion eingeklemmt, übernimmt der "Buchdeckel" das Ein-/Ausschalten des Readers beim Auf- und Zuklappen. Wenn man zusätzlich die sparsame Beleuchtung permanent eingeschaltet lässt, braucht man also keinen einzigen Knopf mehr zu drücken. Alles geht dann per Touchscreen und Buchdeckel, fast wie bei einem Buch aus Papier, nur dass dieses nicht leuchtet, die Schrift nicht vergrößert und kein Wörterbuch eingebaut hat. Ein annäherndes "Buch aus Papier Gefühl" beorgt man sich z.B. über eine Sleep Cover Hülle aus Leder oder Buchleinen.) Trotz seiner erstaunlich geringen Maße und seines leichten Gewichts (174 Gramm) hat der Kobo Aura einen vollwertigen 6 Zoll Bildschirm, fast doppelt so viel eingebauten Speicher (4 GB RAM - reichen für ca. 3000 Bücher) wie die meisten anderen eBookReader (2 GB) und zusätzlich einen Slot für MicroSD Speicherkarten bis zu 32 GB. Ich habe eine 16 GB Class10 Micro SD Karte eingesteckt. Der Zugriff darauf ist recht flott, wenn ich ihn diesbezüglich einmal mit meinem deutlich langsameren Pocketbook 903 Pro vergleichen darf, der ebenfalls eine Class10 Micro SD Karte eingesteckt hat, dessen Audio Funktionen dem Kobo Aura allerdings komplett fehlen und dessen 9 Zoll Display natürlich deutlich größer aber leider auch etwas schlechter lesbar ist. Da macht sich beim Laden der Bücher aus dem Speicher wohl der schnelle 1GHz Prozessor bemerkbar; mehr übrigens als beim Umblättern von Seiten, was zügig erfolgt aber nicht herausragend schnell gegenüber anderen Readern. Es gibt 11 eingebaute saubere, gut lesbare Schriften, alle zudem nach Wunsch mit Vorschau an den eigenen Bedarf/Geschmack anpassbar. Ich bin mit dem Schriftbild sehr zufrieden. Der kapazitive Touchscreen reagiert recht gut auf die Fingereingaben, kann aber gelegentlich verzögert reagieren (selten bei meinem Reader), wie mein Vorrezensent schon schrieb. Weil kein Rahmen am Gerät vorhanden ist, kann man gleich vom Rand aus ohne Unterbrechung mit dem Finger wischen, um z.B. die Seiten umzublättern. Sehr praktisch und derzeit noch einzigartig (wenn ich richtig informiert bin) ist es auch, die Helligkeit der Beleuchtung durch "Zweifinger Wischen" Gestensteuerung, ohne Umweg über ein Menü regulieren zu können. Die sehr gleichmäßige Beleuchtung ist für mich übrigens bereits bei 7% für das Lesen bei Dunkelheit ausreichend. Störende Lichthöfe oder Schatten sind in erwähnbarem Umfang auch auf meinem Exemplar nicht zu sehen. Wenn die gesamte Serie so beleuchtet ist, wird es wohl kaum Beschwerden dazu geben. Ich kann man auch zur Beleuchtung nur postiv meinem Vorredner anschließen. Die Bedienung ist insgesamt recht intuitiv, wenn man sich in kürzester Zeit ein wenig damit vertraut gemacht hat. Ausprobieren führt meist zum Erfolg. Ich habe jedenfalls kein Handbuch lesen müssen. Einfach mal mit dem Finger in die Mitte des Bildschirms tippen und dann das Menü erkunden. Der Akku hält recht lange, wenn man nicht dauernd das WLAN eingeschaltet lässt, welches ich sowieso gar nicht erst eingerichtet habe. (Bei meinem Pocketbook 903 Pro hält der Akku länger, dafür lädt er dort aber nicht so schnell wieder auf wie beim Kobo.) Ob man mit einer Akkuladung wirklich die versprochenen zwei Monate Betrieb mit Beleuchtung bei 30 Minuten täglichem Lesen erreicht, habe ich noch nicht testen können und werde ich wohl auch nicht. Bin mir aber sicher, dass man im Gegensatz zu Tablets bzgl. Ladezyklen beim Kobo Aura nicht mit Stundenzeiträumen, sondern mit Wochen/Monaten rechnen kann. Da ich viele ungelesene kostenlose (z.B. Projekt Gutenberg) Bücher besitze, habe ich mich noch nicht allzu sehr mit dem Kobo Shop beschäftigt. Ein Versuch mit einer kostenlosen Leseprobe aus dem Kobo Shop verlief aber sehr zufriedenstellend. Zur Ersteinrichtung muss der Reader bei Kobo angemeldet werden, was aber problemlos mittels der Kobo Software gelingt, über die man auch Zugriff auf den Shop bekommt. Die Kobo Software spielt einem bei der Anmeldung die aktuelle Firmware auf das Gerät. Man wird dabei nicht etwa gezwungen, eine Kontoverbindung anzugeben. Das wird höchstens nötig, wenn man kostenpflichtige Bücher bestellt. Etwas störend für mich, sofern ich keine Lösung dafür finde oder eine per Firmwareupdate erfolgt: Manche Funktionen werden nicht generell für alle Bücher garantiert, sondern für die aus dem Kobo Shop. Z.B. könnte eines der vielen kostenlos verfügbaren einsprachigen und zweisprachigen Wörterbücher in einem kostenlosen Buch oder einer PDF Datei unvollständig bis gar nicht funktionieren. Das ist tatsächlich derzeit bei mir der Fall, da ich gerade "Charles Dickens - A Child's History of England" auf Englisch lese. Schlage ich dort ein Wort nach, bekomme ich immer zuerst das deutsche einsprachige Wörterbuch angezeigt, muss dann das deutsch-englische manuell auswählen. Gehe ich dabei womglich obendrein noch in das Menü/die Suche des Wörterbuches und verlasse dieses wieder, ist anschließend ein Teil des Bildschirms leer und füllt sich auch beim Umblättern nicht wieder mit Textzeilen. Abhilfe schafft nur, per Tippen auf das Home Icon in den Startbildschirm zu wechseln und von dort zurück ins Buch. Dergleichen gab' es bei der Kobo Leseprobe nicht, ist also evtl. in der Struktur meines kostenlosen Buches (epub) begründet. Vielleicht bin ich aber auch selbst an diesem Fehler Schuld, mache etwas falsch oder muss nur das eBook passend zum Reader neu formatieren. Beheben ließe sich das Problem notfalls vermutlich, indem man jeweils die Standardsprache des Readers auf die des gerade gelesenen Buches einstellte. Danach sollte automatisch das entsprechende Wörterbuch gewählt werden. Kann aber nicht im Sinne des Erfinders sein. Kostenlose eBooks lassen sich, wie vom Vorrezensenten schon erwähnt, ansonsten ganz normal mit der Software "Calibre" auf den Kobo Aura und auf eine eingesteckte SD Karte übertragen und natürlich auch wieder löschen. Kopiergeschützte Bücher kann man mit Hilfe von "Adobe Digital Editions" natürlich auch außerhalb des Kobo Shops bei anderen Händlern kaufen. Hinweis zur MicroSD Speicherkarte: Mein Kobo Aura mochte es nicht, als ich die MicroSD Speicherkarte (in komplett ausgeschaltetem Zustand) aus dem Gerät nahm und anschließend den Reader einschaltete. Da fuhr das Betriebssystem nicht mehr bis zur Startseite hoch. Es half dann nur, die Karte wieder einzustecken und den Resetknopf zu drücken. Die Speicherkarte sollte man also besser immer in der Kobo Software ordnungsgemäß auswerfen lassen. Vermutlich geht das auch über die Schaltfläche in der Software Calibre (nicht ausprobiert). Der o.g. Mangel mit dem Wörterbuch bei kostenlosen eBooks, lässt mich eigentlich nur 4,5 Sterne, evtl. 4 Sterne gerechtfertigt erscheinen. Ich gebe dennoch fünf Sterne, weil der Reader zusätzlich zu schickem Styling bei kleinen Ausmaßen im Manteltaschenformat einen hohen Lesekomfort und eine einfache Fingersteuerung bietet. Überall schnell zur Hand, ob zu Hause oder unterwegs. Zudem war ich mit dem kostenlosen telefonischen Support der Kobo Hotline sehr zufrieden, als ich diesen wegen einer zu stornierenden Bestellung anrief. Die Mitarbeiter waren freundlich und halfen schnell. Nachtrag (03.12.2013): 1.) Gestern habe ich meinen Kobo Aura über die Kobo Desktop Software mit dem Kobo Shop verbunden. Es gab sowohl ein Update für die Desktop Software, als auch ein Firmware Update (Laut Einstellungen/Geräteinformation: Softwareversion 2.10.0). Gefühlt läuft der Kobo Aura jetzt noch etwas schneller und präziser. Zudem friert er nicht mehr ein, wenn man die MicroSD Karte entfernt. Die lässt sich sogar ohne Absturz im laufenden Betrieb entnehmen, wenn man ein Buch aus dem Hauptspeicher und nicht von der Karte liest (einmaliger Test - selbstverständlich normalerweise nicht zu empfehlen). Zuvor musste man den Reset Knopf bemühen, um das Gerät ohne eingelegte MicroSD Karte starten zu können. Soll heißen: stabilerer Betrieb. 2.) Mein weiter oben in dieser Rezension erwähntes Wörterbuch/Sprachen -problem habe ich lösen können. Mein Fehler! Wenn man in Calibre kostenlose Bücher verwaltet (z.B. Downloads von Gutenberg.org), sollte man in den Metadaten der Bücher explizit die richtige Sprache zum Buch definieren. Gibt es dort keinen Eintrag zur Sprache, behandelt der Kobo Aura dieses Buch so, als sei es in der Standardsprache geschrieben, die man in den Geräteinstellungen global festgelegt hat. Bei mir ist das Deutsch. Für jedes sprachlich nicht definierte Buch öffnet mein Kobo Aura also immer das deutsche Wörterbuch. Nachdem ich aber in Calibre für alle meine nicht deutschsprachigen Bücher die korrekte Sprache definiert habe, öffnet der Kobo Aura jetzt auch das sprachlich jeweils passende Wörterbuch. Insgesamt bin ich jetzt noch zufriedener mit dem Gerät.

Ottimo prodotto! Prima di acquistarlo ero dubbioso, legato al fascino della carta fra le mani, ma non appena ho iniziato ad usarlo ho apprezzato moltissimo la praticità di avere sempre con te moltissimi libri, e la facilità di leggerli in ogni condizione. Non ho mai letto tanto come da quando l'ho comprato. La batteria dura tantissimo: con un uso quotidiano arriva facilmente a due settimane.

This model is difficult to find these days, but in my opinion it's the best one that Kobo has ever made. I love the grip on the back, I love the size, I love the backlight, and I love the fact that there's no beveled edge around the screen, the entire front surface is smooth.