The Kobo Aura Edition 2 is on sale for $99 and the Kobo Aura H2O edition 2 is available for $179 at Chapters Indigo in Canada and you can get the deal in all of their bookstores and online. If you live in the United States you can get them shipped out to you in a day or two.
The Aura Edition 2 came out in 2016 and features a six inch E-Ink Carta display with a resolution of 1024 X 768 and 212 PPI. These specs make it a very basic e-reader by 2018 standards and there are plenty of similarly priced alternatives on the market, such as the Kindle Paperwhite that has a resolution of 1430×1080 and 300 PPI.
Underneath the hood is a 1 GHz Freescale i.MX507 processor, and either and 512 MB of RAM. There is 4 GB of internal memory and with no option to enhance it via an SD card for your average user. There is a hidden SD card on the circuit board, but it powers the operating system. There is no easy way to insert a higher capacity card unless you know how to use clone imaging software.
The Kobo Aura H2o Edition 2 came out last year and is one of our top picks for the best waterproof ereaders of 2018. This device features a 6.8-inch E-Ink Carta Display with a resolution of 1430×1080 and 265 PPI. The screen is sunken, which means they are employing an IR display, instead of a capacitive touchscreen.
The Kobo Aura H2O Edition 2 is the second e-Reader to employ the new ComfortLight PRO lighting system, which comprises of nine white LEDs and eight RGB LED lights. This innovative technology was introduced with the launch of Kobo Aura ONE last year, winning the seal of approval from Colleen Carney, Associate Professor and Director of the Sleep and Depression Laboratory at Ryerson University, who said devices that eliminate blue light work well for those who enjoy reading before bed; for more from Dr. Carney, click here.
Underneath the hood is a Freescale 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM, the same as you get with most new Kindles. There is 8GB of internal storage and there is no publicly available SD card. Instead, the SD card is grafted to the circuit board and powers the Linux operating system. There is no easy way to remove the back platting, because of the waterproof design.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.