Kobo Aura

At a Glance

The Kobo Aura was the first eBook reader to truly combine the look and feel of tablets with that of dedicated reading devices. The front of the Kobo Aura is as flat as you’d expect from a tablet (or smartphone), which not only looks sleek but also feels great to the touch. Yet, you don’t have to worry about screen reflections like you do with a tablet. The front of the Kobo Aura is anti-glare, so you can read the screen perfectly even in direct sunlight—just like any other eBook reader. The only other reading device offering a similar design is the Tolino Vision.

From the very beginning, the Aura was positioned as a premium device, which was reflected in its relatively high price of around 150 euros. By now, however, you can pick up the device for a lower price, making it a bit easier to go for the smallest 6-inch eBook reader. It’s not just compact—the device is also exceptionally light at just 174 grams, making longer reading sessions no problem at all.

The eReader’s front lighting is even and gives off a pleasant, warm color tone. On the downside, the display’s contrast is relatively low, and even with the light on, there’s only minimal improvement.

Excellent Text Customization

Of course, the biggest advantage of the Kobo system can also be found on the Kobo Aura: the device offers outstanding text customization, giving you virtually every option imaginable for adjusting how text appears. You can change font size, line spacing, and margins across many levels, and even adjust the font thickness. If you want, you can even install custom fonts. It really doesn’t get any better.

But even beyond font adjustments, there’s praise for the clear, user-friendly interface. You can find your way around quickly, and you’ll soon appreciate the minimalist layout. The Kobo Aura also comes loaded with handy features like a dictionary and note-taking. You can organize your books into collections for better order too. The Kobo Aura supports pinch-to-zoom, making it a great choice for working with PDF files. Thanks to waveform screen technology, ghosting effects are almost completely eliminated during normal reading.

On the downside, there is one major drawback: you’re required to register the device, meaning you have to connect it to a PC or Wi-Fi on first use and sign up for a Kobo account. Without registering, you can’t use the Kobo Aura. The Kobo Aura is available in addition to the Kobo Glo.

Conclusion: Despite its 6-inch display, the Kobo Aura is a real little powerhouse. It’s the smallest eBook reader with this screen size—something you definitely notice in everyday use. Its low weight is another big plus. If you’re willing to pay a little extra compared to other similar devices, you’ll get a top-notch eBook reader with the Aura (rating: 1.4).

Video Review

Kobo Aura: Full Review

The Kobo Aura is the latest eBook reader from the Canadian eBook specialist and is meant to add another premium device to an already extensive lineup. The Kobo Aura doesn’t replace the Kobo Glo, but is sold alongside it.

At first glance, the technical differences are relatively minor: it still uses an E Ink Pearl display with a similar resolution and integrated lighting. However, Kobo promises less ghosting thanks to a new waveform technique.

The most noticeable change is without a doubt the case design. The Kobo Aura is not only smaller, it also now uses a capacitive touchscreen. Kobo has extended the touchscreen surface across the entire front, making the eBook reader look more like a tablet. Whether that’s enough to claim a new top spot in our rankings, you’ll find out in the following review.

Unboxing

Recently there have been a few pleasant surprises when unboxing one device or another, e.g. a bundled power adapter with the PocketBook Touch Lux or the integrated cover of the Sony PRS-T3.

The Kobo Aura, however, is back to the Spartan approach we’re used to from most other eBook readers. In the high-quality, compact box you’ll find the reader itself, a micro USB cable, and quick-start guides.

Build quality

The unremarkable contents shouldn’t distract from the fact that unboxing the Kobo Aura is still a bit special. Thanks to its unusual look, the new eBook reader is a real eye-catcher.

What stands out most is the device’s small size. The Kobo Aura is currently the most compact 6-inch eBook reader on the market. That also shows in the lowest weight for a lighted eBook reader at 174 grams.

Designs could hardly be more different: Tolino Shine (left) vs. Kobo Aura (right)

An unusual form factor …

I already mentioned the biggest design highlight in the introduction: the flush front. The surface of the Kobo Aura is completely flat across the front, as you know from most tablets. It’s not only easy on the eyes, it also feels great in the hand. With this new design language, the Kobo Aura exudes a very premium feel and underlines Kobo’s premium ambitions.

You don’t need to worry about it being as reflective as a tablet, though. The surface is anti-glare, so light reflections are hardly stronger than with an infrared touchscreen. Fingerprints are a bit more visible, but they’re easy to wipe off—unlike on the matte, soft surface of the Kobo Glo or Touch.

The rest of the build largely impresses as well. There’s no creaking, and it feels solid. The back is made of hard plastic with a diamond-check relief. Essentially the same as the Kobo Glo, just much smaller. Fingerprints don’t stand a chance here. At the same time, the Kobo Aura continues the design language of the larger Aura HD, which has two pronounced bulges on the back. On the Kobo Aura these are only subtly suggested. Unlike our Kobo Aura HD test unit, the smaller Aura fortunately doesn’t wobble when you set it down.

Kobo Glo (left) and Kobo Aura (right)

… with a small flaw

It isn’t perfect, though: along the top edge of the front there’s a small light leak. When you switch on the light, our test unit has a spot about 1 mm in size that glows even though it shouldn’t. It’s most noticeable in low ambient light. Fortunately, the area is so small that you could cover it with a pen if you had to. Even with that DIY fix, this really shouldn’t be necessary on a device with premium aspirations.

On the top edge of the Kobo Aura you’ll find the push button for the light and the slide switch to power the device on. Along the bottom edge are the microSD card slot, the micro USB port, and a recessed reset button. There are no buttons or ports on the left or right sides.

For anyone who values portability, the Kobo Aura’s compact dimensions are a big plus. Despite the smaller size, handling is still problem-free. That’s also thanks to the low weight, which lets you hold the Kobo Aura quite loosely without having to constantly grip it tightly to keep it from slipping.

All in all, I really like the device’s design, and handling and feel are convincing too. Only the small light leak slightly mars an otherwise excellent impression.

Fingerprints don’t stand a chance on the back of the Kobo Aura

Features

The Kobo Aura comes with 4 GB of internal storage (3.16 GB available), which can be expanded by up to 32 GB via microSD card.

Like all other current Kobo devices, the Aura has built-in wireless in the form of Wi-Fi. This lets you browse the internet and shop directly on the device. As with most other readers, there’s still no audio support.

Display & lighting

The Kobo Aura’s display structure is unique—that’s been mentioned multiple times now. Naturally, the question is how this uniqueness affects readability. Before we get into that, a few words on the tech: the Kobo Aura has an E Ink Pearl display with waveform technology. Pearl promises contrast ratios of at least 10:1 and thus very good readability. The display resolution is 1,014×758 pixels, which is 10 visible pixels fewer in height (or 7,580 pixels total) than the Kobo Glo. The lower resolution doesn’t result from a different panel, but from the device’s construction—so the pixel density is the same as other 6-inch “HD” devices. The diagonal measures exactly 15 centimeters (= 5.9 inches).

The Kobo Aura also has built-in front lighting. Illumination is provided by a light guide film that evenly distributes light from LEDs in the frame across the screen. There are still 5 LEDs, which are barely visible even on close inspection.

Contrast ratio and readability

So, on to readability. In our brief hands-on preceding this review, I already measured the Kobo Aura’s contrast. Unfortunately, I made a mistake setting up the microscope that skewed the result. Below are the correct figures:

Contrast ratio without lighting (higher is better)

• Sony PRS-T2 13:1
• PocketBook Touch Lux 12:1
• Kindle Paperwhite 11.5:1
• Kobo Aura HD 11.5:1
• Tolino Shine 11:1
• Kobo Aura 10.5:1
• Kobo Glo 10:1

The Kobo Aura has good blacks, but the screen background is also visibly darker than on other eBook readers. This is presumably due to the capacitive touchscreen’s grid pattern. As a result, despite the slightly better black level, the contrast ratio doesn’t differ much from the Kobo Glo.

With the light off, the Kobo Aura’s contrast ratio is slightly better than the Kobo Glo’s. To the naked eye, however, the difference is barely noticeable

I had already pointed out the relatively dark background beforehand. The microscope image shows that the Kobo Aura and Glo’s E Ink screens are actually quite similar. That applies only to the display unit itself. The wires of the Aura’s capacitive touchscreen are very thin but dense enough to visibly darken the background to the naked eye.

Fortunately, you can counteract the effect with the built-in lighting, although the black level of the text also becomes noticeably lighter. This means the contrast ratio improves only slightly with the light on.

Contrast ratio with lighting (higher is better)

• Kindle Paperwhite 15:1
• PocketBook Touch Lux13:1
• Kobo Aura HD 12.5:1
• Tolino Shine 12:1
• Kobo Glo 11.5:1
• Kobo Aura 11:1

A worse black level with the light on is common to almost every lighted eBook reader. The effect is a bit more pronounced on the Kobo Aura, making the screen look slightly more washed out compared to the Kobo Glo. The brighter the environment, the less noticeable it is. I checked this repeatedly in various lighting situations, i.e. the difference is visible to the naked eye in a direct comparison.

Of course, the Kobo Aura still reads excellently. It’s not as if you’ll run into any issues in practice. The contrast differences between the Kobo Aura and Glo are relatively small overall. That speaks for the Glo, which is part of the first lighting generation, but makes the Aura a bit of a letdown—after all, a next-gen light should be noticeably better.

Lighting and screen brightness

Naturally, the brightness of the built-in light is also important. The brighter it can go, the better it works in bright ambient light. Here the Kobo Aura is at a similarly high level to the Glo.

At minimum brightness, however, the Aura clearly comes out ahead with visibly lower settings. While the Kobo Glo was often too bright for some users even at the lowest level, that shouldn’t be an issue with the Aura anymore. Here are the measurements:

Maximum screen brightness in cd/m² (higher is better)

• Kobo Glo 121
• Kobo Aura 112
• Kindle Paperwhite 2 91
• Tolino Shine 41
• PocketBook Touch Lux 38
• Icarus Illumina HD 36
• PocketBook Color Lux 34

Minimum screen brightness in cd/m² (lower is better)

• Kobo Glo 4
• Icarus Illumina HD 3.2
• Tolino Shine 2.4
• PocketBook Color Lux 2
• PocketBook Touch Lux 1.2
• Kobo Aura 1.2
• Kindle Paperwhite (2013) 0.2

Illumination across the screen is even, and the shadowing along the bottom edge that you often see on other lighted eBook readers is barely present and almost invisible here. There’s still a slightly brighter glow along the top edge, though.

The Kobo Aura also exhibits a similar vertical color gradient (bluish at the bottom, yellowish at the top) that we already saw on the Aura HD. The effect is less pronounced and most people will hardly notice it. We made the gradient visible in the photo via contrast enhancement:

The slight vertical color gradient made visible here via photo manipulation: contrast +90

Brightness can be adjusted continuously either with the on-screen slider or by placing two fingers on the screen and sliding them up or down. This multi-touch gesture works reliably and is a nice bonus in everyday use.

Capacitive touchscreen

The Kobo Aura is operated via a capacitive touchscreen. As mentioned, the surface stretches across the entire front, making the device’s front perfectly flush. The touchscreen only responds in the visible display area, i.e. you can touch the bezels without triggering it. Sensitivity is excellent, so even light touches register perfectly. Unlike the infrared tech on the Kobo Glo or Sony PRS-T3, capacitive tech is also less prone to interference.

On the downside are the fine wires forming a grid across the screen. You can make them out with the naked eye if you look closely, but not at normal reading distance (about 25–30 centimeters). In everyday use, the grid mostly manifests as a visibly darker screen background.

The front of the Kobo Aura is completely flush

Thanks to the flat front, there’s no annoying shadowing at the screen edges. That’s a big plus over infrared readers. The positioning of the E Ink screen also stands out positively: thanks to the construction, it sits noticeably closer to the surface than on other devices. That makes an excellent impression and looks more paper-like than any other eBook reader.

The Kobo Aura’s surface is anti-glare, so you don’t have to worry about distracting reflections. Reflections are on par with other capacitive eBook readers (e.g. PocketBook Touch Lux and Kindle Paperwhite).

Waveform technology

A few final words on the new waveform technology. The Kobo Aura is the first to use it to reduce ghosting. It wasn’t clear beforehand exactly what this technique entailed, and there was speculation that waveform and Regal are the same thing. That doesn’t seem to be the case. While the Sony PRS-T3 (presumably) uses Regal to reduce ghosting, the Kobo Aura takes a different approach.

That becomes apparent when you turn a page. The Kobo Aura shows a minimally visible flicker, but it’s not as strong or distracting as a full refresh. Under the microscope, you can see why:

Kobo Aura waveform technology in action

The image shows the waveform technique at work. For a fraction of a second during the page turn, the screen is covered with small black dots. It doesn’t happen all at once but spreads in a wave—hence the name.

The result is convincing: you’ll only notice ghosting on the Kobo Aura if you look very closely. In other words, the faint “bleed-through” from previous pages isn’t completely gone, but it’s at a level that will satisfy 99 percent of users.

More importantly, the result is consistently good. While Regal on the Sony PRS-T3 produces very mixed results, the Kobo Aura doesn’t have negative outliers and anti-ghosting performance remains consistently high.

Kudos to Kobo for not resting on its laurels (unlike some others, like Sony) and continuing to experiment with new techniques and constructions. In my opinion, the Kobo Aura’s display is a success—though the saying still applies: “Where there’s light, there’s shadow.”

Reading & usability

Initial setup of the Kobo Aura works the same as on other Kobo devices. There’s still a mandatory registration, requiring you to create a Kobo account or use an existing one. Otherwise you can’t use the device, as you can’t skip the initial setup.

You can complete setup via Wi-Fi or by connecting to a PC with a USB cable. As with almost every new Kobo release, there’s a software update available right away, which is downloaded during setup. All told, first-time setup takes about 10 minutes.

We’ve criticized the mandatory registration several times in the past, though at least you can remain anonymous by entering any name, as Kobo currently doesn’t validate the data. If you log out after setup, the device automatically resets to factory settings and you have to start over.

Home screen

Once setup is complete, there’s a short introduction (which you can now skip) to the Kobo Aura’s features. Then you land on the redesigned home screen. Kobo Aura HD users and those who keep their Kobo Glo up to date will already know the new home screen, which has little in common with the old spiral view. The home screen now uses a tile layout, which is increasingly popular in the tablet and smartphone world.

The home screen is a bit confusing at first, but you quickly get used to it and appreciate the functionality

It displays all kinds of elements: awards, newly added books, recently read eBooks, extras, recommendations, and last sync. Open a new book, the browser, a game, etc., and the view updates automatically. Because so many different tiles are mixed above, beside, and below each other, it takes a moment to get used to. At first it can feel a bit cluttered. But after a few days with the Kobo Aura you’ll appreciate the new layout, which gives quick access to various functions without constantly diving into menus. If there’s something you don’t need, you can remove it with a long press.

Directly above the tiles is a search field that runs the full width of the screen. It immediately calls to mind the Google search bar on current Android smartphones, which is also placed in a similar spot by default. The search lets you search both the store and your on-device library.

Tap the search field and the virtual QWERTZ keyboard pops up at the bottom. It’s been given a new layout and now shows punctuation and numbers without needing to switch. Unfortunately, umlauts still aren’t displayed directly and require switching to the (cluttered) special character list. A long press on vowels also doesn’t bring up umlauts. At least the direct access to punctuation makes text entry much easier. The keyboard also responds slightly faster than on the Kobo Glo, so it no longer drops keystrokes. As with the Aura HD, you can also move the cursor within a text field by dragging it with your finger. In terms of easy text entry, the Kobo Aura still isn’t quite at the level of Android eBook readers (Sony PRS-T3, Tolino Shine) or the Kindle Paperwhite, but the improvements are noticeable and the gap is small.

The status bar expands when needed to reveal more options and indicators

The status bar at the top has also been redesigned compared to the Kobo Glo’s launch-day software. In the top-left corner is the virtual Home button, which always takes you back to the home screen. The top-right shows the light status (on or off) and the battery level. There’s also a shortcut to the device settings. Tap any of these and an options panel drops down from the top, showing exact brightness and battery levels in percent, as well as Wi-Fi and sync status. From here you can bring up the slider to adjust brightness and go to settings.

At the bottom are three shortcuts to the library, the eBook store, and the Reading Life features.

Library and collections

The library is divided into four categories:

• Books
• Previews
• My Collections
• Pocket Articles

Under Books you’ll find all titles on the device or memory card. There’s a list view, a list-with-covers view, and a covers-only view. You can sort by last read, title, author, file size, and file type. The only thing missing is sorting by recently added.

If you like, it also shows titles in the Kobo Cloud, i.e. eBooks you own but aren’t currently stored on the device. You can download them from here. You can also archive on-device eBooks to the cloud to free up internal space—but only for titles purchased from Kobo.

There are a number of different display and sorting options

Open the options menu with a long press on the book row/cover. From here you can add eBooks to a collection or delete them.

The “Books” heading is also a shortcut to the other library categories, so you can switch back and forth quickly and easily. Previews from the Kobo Store automatically land in the right category. You can create collections right on the device via the options menu and sort them by name, number of books, and date created. A book can belong to multiple collections at once. Collections offer the same display options as the regular book view (see above).

Book options

Once you’ve found the eBook you want, open it as usual by tapping the cover or title.

To turn the page you can tap the left or right third of the screen, or use the familiar horizontal swipe. Alternatively, you can adjust the touch zones so a larger area is used to turn forward. There’s also a handy option for left-handers to use the left side to go forward.

In the reading settings you can also choose the full refresh frequency, with options adjusted to really make use of the new waveform screen. You can now choose a full refresh every page, every fifth page, every tenth page, or once per chapter. Compared to the old options on the Kobo Glo or Kobo Aura HD, that might look like a limitation at first glance, but thanks to the waveform screen you simply need full refreshes much less often. Even for someone (like me) who’s sensitive to ghosting, these options are sufficient.

Tap the middle of the display to show the status bar at the top and the options menu at the bottom. The status bar functions are as described above. The bottom options bar shows:

• Back
• Page Navigation
• Font & Layout
• More Options
  • Add to Collection
  • Mark as Read
  • Reading Settings
  • Annotations
  • Dictionary
  • Bilingual Dictionary

“Page Navigation” opens a slider that lets you jump quickly through the book and tap once to return to your original position.

Strangely, the search function has been removed from the options menu entirely. Previously you could launch a search from here; now you have to first highlight a word to then search for it or enter a manual query. I can’t say whether that’s intentional or was overlooked in the update. What’s clear is that the new method is more cumbersome than the old one.

At least the search itself still works very well. Enter a word and a list shows occurrences along with a few surrounding words. On many other eBook readers you can only jump from one hit to the next, which is impractical. That’s not the case here.

Font & layout

Font and layout adjustments are among an eBook reader’s most important features. They let you tailor the text to your preferences and needs.

We recently reported that eBook readers and tablets can help with reading difficulties by shortening line length. The Kobo Aura is well suited for this, as margins (and thus line length) can be set in many different increments. You can also choose from 10 preinstalled fonts, including two designed to support people with dyslexia: OpenDyslexic and Dyslexie. If needed, you can install additional fonts.

When it comes to font and layout controls, Kobo is in a league of its own

Beyond font family and margins, you can also adjust font size and line spacing with sliders across countless steps. You can choose text alignment between left-aligned and justified.

And that’s not all: the Kobo Aura also allows advanced font tuning. With supported fonts you can adjust weight and sharpness—so every need should be covered. No other manufacturer offers such extensive font customization.

Dictionary

Long-press a word and the dictionary opens automatically. A window with the definition pops up directly above or below the word. If the word isn’t found, a few taps in the options menu take you to the dictionary function where you can enter it manually. That could certainly be simpler.

In the device settings you can install different dictionaries, with the monolingual dictionary for the book’s language selected by default (if available).

The following dictionaries are available:

• German
• English
• French
• Dutch
• Japanese
• Italian
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• English–Japanese
• German–English–German
• Spanish–English–Spanish
• French–English–French
• Italian–English–Italian
• Portuguese–English–Portuguese

Unfortunately you can’t change a dictionary’s default setting (as you can on the Kindle Paperwhite, for example). So the monolingual dictionary is always selected first, and it takes two more taps to get to the translation dictionary. The device also doesn’t remember that you already chose the translation dictionary. That’s especially inconvenient if you read in other languages and frequently need the translation dictionary. This issue already existed on the Kobo Aura HD.

The dictionary view opens when you highlight a word

Also not entirely satisfactory are the dictionaries’ coverage and the function itself. Sometimes different grammatical forms aren’t recognized. Even though the Duden is used for German, simple words like “Türen” or “Güter” sometimes aren’t found. Search for them on the Sony PRS-T3, which also uses the Duden, and they’re found without issue. So the dictionary function (despite the many bundled dictionaries) still needs work.

Notes and highlights

Once you long-press a word, two handles appear to adjust the selection. These work better than they did on the Kobo Glo, but aren’t quite as smooth as on the Sony PRS-T3 or Kindle Paperwhite. Nonetheless, you can now place them accurately without constant correction—a clear step forward compared to earlier firmware.

After selecting the desired passage, use the shortcut in the bottom options bar to add a highlight or write a note. Notes are entered with the QWERTZ keyboard. As mentioned, text entry works very well, thanks to the expanded key layout and faster response.

One inconvenience is the lack of a visible note indicator. The selected text is grayed out, but you can’t tell whether it’s a note or a simple highlight (without a note). There’s also still a bug with sideloaded ePub files where notes and highlights can’t be deleted.

Note entry is as clear as the rest of the system

Notes in externally purchased eBooks can be viewed in Adobe Digital Editions, but beware: if you change even a single note in the book, all notes on the Kobo Aura later disappear. There still seem to be issues with format reconciliation or similar. It’s advisable to transfer the eBook to your PC and make a backup. eBooks purchased from Kobo are synced via the cloud and can be viewed on your PC in Kobo’s software. In both cases, notes and highlights can’t be exported.

In short, the notes function is still a nice extra, without posing any danger to the Sony PRS-T3 or PocketBook Touch Lux.

When a word or passage is selected, you can also search for further occurrences in the book. As described above, this works flawlessly. The only minor gripe is the lack of page numbers in the search results list.

PDF function

The Kobo Aura’s PDF functionality is still fairly limited, but overall works noticeably better than on the Kobo Glo.

PDF files appear in the regular books view and on the home screen and can be opened as usual. They open full-screen, and as usual a 6-inch screen is far too small for DIN A4 documents. A double-tap zooms a passage to 200 percent, which is usable for two-column texts but still not enough. With pinch-to-zoom you can now (on a Kobo device) for the first time enlarge intuitively and smoothly to up to 300 percent.

The ability to zoom with pinch-to-zoom is a huge comfort gain and clearly improves usability over earlier models. This is also where the fast processor really pays off, as zooming and panning now feels almost dynamic. Not at the level of current tablets, but very decent. The E Ink screen remains the limiting factor. In the zoomed-in view, you can turn to the previous or next page at the left and right edges and the zoom level is preserved.

You can also switch to landscape mode. This isn’t available for EPUB files.

However, this is where the waveform tech hits its limits: because of the constant panning, ghosting becomes quite visible compared to normal ePub reading. Unfortunately, you can’t enable full refresh to eliminate ghosting.

Overall, the Kobo Aura’s PDF feature set is still relatively limited, but thanks to pinch-to-zoom you can still display and navigate PDFs fairly satisfactorily.

Pocket (read-it-later)

A practical new addition is Pocket integration. This service lets you prepare web articles on your PC for the eBook reader and sync them over. Once you’ve registered and signed in on Pocket’s website and installed the browser plug-in, you’re good to go. One click on the Pocket icon on your PC and the article is ready for syncing.

On the Kobo Aura you also need to be signed in (and connected via Wi-Fi), then just press “Sync” (if you don’t want to wait for automatic syncing) and you can read the downloaded Pocket articles like an eBook. The articles are transferred in HTML format, so fewer functions are available here—you can’t look up words in the dictionary or write notes.

Reading Life and extras

A Kobo hallmark is Reading Life awards and stats. It’s a fun gimmick to boost reading motivation by awarding badges for various actions (e.g. writing notes, looking up words, finishing a book, etc.). You can view your awards by tapping the shortcut on the home screen. They don’t offer real utility, but they’re a nice bonus. You can also view the following reading stats:

• Progress in the current book and chapter
• Hours read, minutes per session, pages turned, and pages per minute for the current book
• A ring chart showing how much of your library you’ve finished, how many books you’ve completed, and your total reading time

For Kobo eBooks, you can also open reading stats directly within the book.

There’s also “Beyond the Book” for compatible eBooks (on our test unit: “The Hobbit”), which is Kobo’s counterpart to Kindle X-Ray. It lets you view information on places, characters, authors, etc., though the feature is primarily available for English-language eBooks—just like Amazon’s. The idea is solid: if you need background information, open “Beyond the Book” and read up—provided the content has been populated. Available entries are underlined; tap a word to open a window with more information.

Also included are the chess and Sudoku games. You’ll find them under “Beta Features” in the settings. There’s also a simple drawing app (with no special functionality), as well as the web browser.

The browser surprises with fast page loads and good usability

As with the Kobo Glo, the Aura’s browser is another pleasant surprise. Feature-wise it’s on the simple side, but it at least has bookmarks and a customizable start page. There’s no landscape mode, unfortunately. On the plus side, pages load very quickly and the browser is very responsive. It also displayed almost every site we tested correctly, whereas many other eBook readers often struggle. It’s definitely good enough for looking things up on Wikipedia & co.

What I can’t figure out is why you can’t launch the browser directly from a book to search for a highlighted word on Wikipedia or Google. That would be easy to implement and add real value—especially since the browser works so well.

The browser can also download files, but ACSM files aren’t processed on the device. In other words, you can’t use Onleihe directly on the Kobo Aura, only via PC. If you want to buy from other stores on the device, make sure the eBooks are DRM-free. If not, you’ll have to go via PC. It’s also a bit inconvenient that the browser occasionally “forgets” login data.

General usability, notes

The Kobo Aura is not only one of the best-looking devices in terms of hardware—it also shines in software. I want to explicitly note that the Kobo software redesign is very well done. Despite many options, the interface is overall excellent (save for a few small things; e.g. the missing search). Hardly any competitor pulls that off as well.

Occasionally the Kobo Aura cuts off the text

One thing that deserves criticism (again) is a software bug. This was an issue with the Kobo Glo at the time of our test as well. The bug occurred several times over two weeks on the Kobo Aura, cutting off the text at a line and showing nothing below that “cut line” (see image). To fix it, you have to go back to the home screen and then re-open the book. Thankfully, the fix is easy, though the bug’s occurrence is an avoidable annoyance.

Aside from that, the software is thankfully stable and trouble-free.

Compatibility

The Kobo Aura supports ePub, MOBI, TXT, PDF, (X)HTML, RTF, CBZ and CBR files as well as JPG, GIF, PNG and TIFF image formats. That’s not the very best in terms of format support, but it’s more than Amazon, Sony or Tolino offer. Support for CBZ/CBR is particularly interesting for comic and manga fans. The now-good pinch-to-zoom usability makes reading comics even more appealing.

Kobo also uses KEPUB files (Kobo ePub) in its own store, which can include special formatting instructions. It’s worth noting that various issues (e.g. with note-taking—see above) often don’t occur with KEPUB files.

Battery life

As so often, there’s nothing unusual to report with battery life. In our two-week test the Kobo Aura only needed to be charged once, putting it on par with other lighted eBook readers. Without using the light, you can expect multi-week runtimes on a single charge.

Battery life depends on your use of the light. If you don’t turn it on, you’ll likely get just as much runtime per charge as with an unlit eBook reader

eBook store & syncing

Thanks to the built-in Wi-Fi, you can buy eBooks on the Kobo Aura directly on the device. The store is very clearly laid out and uses the same clean, minimalist design as the rest of the OS. When you enter the store, it doesn’t feel like you’re leaving the system but simply opening another section. The eBook store thus integrates seamlessly into the overall experience. Load times are pleasantly short, making it quick and easy to use.

You can browse categories, find similar titles, view Kobo recommendations and other tips, access your wishlist, and use search.

The Kobo Store is clearly laid out, but should be expanded

Of the Spiegel Top 20 paperback fiction bestsellers, Kobo has only 11 titles, i.e. 55 percent*. It looks a bit better in the KulturSPIEGEL paperback fiction list, where Kobo offers 15 titles, i.e. 75 percent*. For nonfiction it’s similar at 75 percent (paperback nonfiction) and 50 percent (KulturSPIEGEL paperback nonfiction)*. The most recent test by Stiftung Warentest also gave Kobo’s eBook selection a poor grade.

As mentioned, the Kobo Aura also supports standard EPUB files and thus externally purchased eBooks, which you can transfer either via Adobe Digital Editions or mass storage using your file explorer. Kobo’s PC software doesn’t support externally purchased eBooks. At the same time, Adobe Digital Editions doesn’t support Kobo eBooks (KEPUBs). That’s inconvenient if you don’t get all your books from one source and need multiple programs to manage them.

* Spiegel bestseller list 45/2012, checked on 07.11.2012

Conclusion

Alongside PocketBook, Kobo is one of the most active eBook reader manufacturers on the market. That may also be due to the expansion drive of the Japanese-Canadian company, which has massively ramped up its efforts over the past two years. The Kobo Aura aims to continue that success and is convincing in many areas.

On the positive side is the device’s excellent design. From the first time you handle it, you’ll love the compact, tablet-like form factor. This is definitely a design I want to see again in future Kobo readers. Build quality is also convincing overall (despite a small flaw), and the PDF functionality and browser are also pleasant surprises (despite few changes).

The display, on the other hand, is an aspect I don’t like quite as much. While the waveform technique impresses in practice with very little ghosting, the capacitive touchscreen causes an unwanted darkening of the background. Kobo should also revisit the front light—on the Glo I much prefer the warm light without a color gradient. Also negative is the software rendering bug that occasionally cuts off pages of text (see review). Otherwise, the same typical criticisms we already raised with the Kobo Glo remain: the notes function and dictionaries should be improved.

Kobo Glo owners don’t need to switch, but new buyers can look forward to a great device with outstanding looks in the Kobo Aura

Aside from that, the Kobo Aura is an excellent device, made especially cohesive by the redesigned user interface. It’s quick and easy to use, and despite numerous features the system feels tidy. The extensive font and layout controls can’t be praised enough—no other manufacturer has perfected this aspect like Kobo. Also worth highlighting is the Pocket integration, a practical way for heavy internet users to comfortably read long articles on the eBook reader—with simple syncing and no complicated handling.

In the end, the Kobo Aura once again earns a very good score of 1.4 in our test. That makes it the third excellent device in a row from Kobo. Even so, it hardly makes sense for Kobo Glo owners to upgrade, as the differences are too small. New buyers should also keep an eye on the Kobo Glo, whose lighting works better in my view and which is more affordable at a slightly lower price. That recommendation shouldn’t obscure the fact that the Kobo Aura is still worth the money. The great design and the currently exclusive Pocket integration are clear plus points.

Kobo Aura: Technical Specifications

All information provided without guarantee.