Kobo Aura ONE
IS THIS THE E-READER TO RULE THEM ALL?
WITH ENTRY-LEVEL EBOOK readers starting at just $110, you’d really want to be doing something pretty special to justify a price three times that. With its new $350 flagship, Kobo’s answer to that challenge has largely been to just do more than those basic models. That means better specs — compared to the 6-inch standard, this Aura ONE gives you a much spacier 7.8-inch display that’s also at a higher 300dpi resolution (or 1,872 x 1,404 pixels), which renders text nice and crisp right down to the tiniest of font sizes. You also get more ample storage space — 8GB, or double most others — plus waterproofing, so you can safely read by the pool or in the tub, and the inbuilt backlight has been improved, with a new orange-hue option that be less disruptive to sleep (exposure to blue light before bed is known to affect many people’s ability to nod off).
Compared to Kobo’s previous flagship e-reader, the $239 Aura H2O, the ONE is more enjoyable to hold and to use thanks to its more modern design language and despite its size, it’s a tad thinner and lighter than the H2O, and all the corners are now comfortably rounded. Combined with a textured rubber back, it’s easier to grip and hold up for prolonged reading.
On the software side of things, not a lot has changed from the H2O. However, that’s not an especially bad thing. There are still lots of options to customise font types and sizes, as well as margins, and all the exclusive features we love — like the ability to sync with Pocket (so you can easily read saved web articles in more comfort, whenever you like) and support for the OverDrive ebook lending platform (which is widely used by Australian libraries) — are still in place. And while the Kobo ebook store isn’t quite as extensive as Amazon’s, you’ll still find the vast bulk of popular titles (both old and new) on there.
If the ONE has a main flaw, it’s that it doesn’t feel as robust or well-built as last year’s Aura H2O — which is frankly a bit of a tank — or most current Kindles for that matter. Tap the back with your fingertips and you’ll notice a hollowness; it doesn’t feel like it could take nearly as much physical punishment as its Amazon alternatives.
On top of that, the bigger screen and new backlight seemingly team up to drain the battery more quickly than before — with an hour or two of reading daily, we found we needed to recharge it every week, rather than every two to three on the H2O. That said, we think that’s a fair trade off for the added screen size and general reading comfort — and it only takes a little over two hours to go from 10% battery to full.
It’s not a total win for Kobo, then, but the improvements to the actual reading experience do, in our minds at least, balance out some of those new drawbacks.
This is our favourite e-reader of 2016 — but there’s definitely still some room for improvement. [ DAN GARDINER ]
AURA ONE GIVES YOU A MUCH SPACIER 7.8-INCH DISPLAY THAT’S ALSO AT A HIGHER 300DPI RESOLUTION (OR 1,872 X 1,404 PIXELS), WHICH RENDERS TEXT NICE AND CRISP RIGHT DOWN TO THE TINIEST OF FONT SIZES.