Welcome to another Good e-Reader Comparison Video. Today we take a look at the Kobo Aura HD and the recently announced Kobo Aura. Obviously they both have the same name and could be a bit confusing on what these devices bring to the table. The essence of this comparison is to dispel the myths and rumors and give you a solid indication on the core differences and put them head to head.
The Kobo Aura maintains the standard six-inch approach that the company made famous with their entire product line. It currently has a super high resolution e-Ink “Clarity Screen” with 212 DPI and sixteen levels of grey. Really, the resolution is the exact same on the Glo, and has not broken any barriers on using a next generation e-Ink display. This e-Reader has the exact same front-lite technology that was found on the original Kobo Aura HD. This will allow readers to adjust the brightness settings to suit their environment. Currently, Kobo has the best front-lit screen in the business and has surpassed Amazon in terms of quality. To turn the screen light on, there is a button at the very top and then a virtual slider bar to control the brightness. You can also take advantage of the capacitive multi-touch display and use two fingers to change the brightness.
It is powered by the quintessential Freescale i.MX507 1 GHZ processor and has 1 GB of RAM. There are 4 GB of internal memory, which can be enhanced via the Micro SD Card. It seems that Kobo e-Readers still have expandable memory, which makes adding books to your collection fairly easy and painless. It also has over two months of battery life, which is ideal.
The Kobo Aura HD features a 6.8 inch touchscreen with a resolution of 1440×1080 with 265 DPI. This e-reader is seriously the best in the business with its high-definition display. The Kindle Fire HD 7 has 1280×800 and the Nook HD has 1440×900. What this means is that as an e-reader, it actually has better image quality than the majority of mainstream tablets on the market. The Aura HD also has a built in comfort light, which allows you to read in the dark with a front-lit display.
The Kobo Aura HD is using a 1GHZ CPU processor and has 4 GB of internal memory. This is 2 GB more than what the Glo offers, and you can expand the memory up to 32 GB via the Micro SD card. Battery life is fairly respectable at a solid month of normal use.
Aside from the marginal hardware differences the software is also quite different. The six inch Aura has some useful enhancements with Pocket – Formally Read it Later and Beyond the Book. Pocket is sort of like Instapaper and allows you send articles to your account from Flipboard, Pulse and social media networks. Beyond the book is really neat, it hyperlinks specific words throughout a novel and gives you a greater insight on people, places, and things. Instead of just your standard dictionary you can pull up biographies and related eBooks. The video below documents fairly extensively all of the core differences.
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.