Can Kobo’s Aura H20 Version 2 replace paper books?

WHAT if we told you there was book you could read in the bath, at the beach or even swimming in your pool? Well that product exists.

The only book you can read under water

THE advantages of ebook readers are obvious. Entire books can be downloaded in an instant. Hardly bigger than a passport, it’s the perfect travel companion.

Camping trips aren’t weighed down by heavy volumes and your poolside or beach holiday reading is sorted. Ebook readers have been undoubtedly revolutionary.

But it’s 2017, and the market for ebook readers isn’t what it once was. It turns out we still want to store novels on our bookshelves and bedside tables; books make us feel important. Look at me, their spines scream from the shelves of your bookshelf, I’m so clever! I’m cultured! And I cook!

Yet despite the many cookbooks that line the kitchen bench or the novels that insulate the walls of my house, I’m reading less than ever. Books languish in piles of dust on my bedside table while I binge on another Netflix series instead.

In an attempt to redefine the e-reader, Kobo’s newest model aims to be the solution for people used to reading from the digital screen. Here’s what we thought of it.

COMFORTABLY FITS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND, INCREDIBLY LIGHT

Getting used to handling Kobo’s Aura H2O Version 2 is straightforward enough. It’s small enough, and extremely light so you can hold it in the palm of your hand. While it’s arguably easier to hold compared to a paperback book, it does change the way you read.

Here are some things that you can’t do with an ebook reader: you can’t fold down a corner, crack a spine (super satisfying) or flick the pages to see how far you’ve come and how far you have to go. You can’t pass it on to a friend or leave it in the neighbourhood book exchange. No longer are there two clearly defined domains — the left and right pages — and you can’t judge your navigation of the story based on the thickness of the pages that are left to go. The gentle rhythm of turning yellowed pages is replaced with a less-satisfying tap of the right-side of the screen.

Perhaps as a compromise to bridge the old with the new, Kobo’s Aura H2O looks like some kind of Soviet-era machine; its retro-looking plastic body wears a sensible grippy texture. It’s the ugly duckling among our supremely sleek and vibrant iPads and smartphones. Unlike tablets, the Aura H2O’s display is only black and white, but the high-resolution display that mimics the look of a printed page. But that’s where the similarities with traditional books end. With the Aura H2O there are literally millions of books available to browse and download whenever you feel like it and it feels rugged and robust enough to chuck it into your bag without worrying about it getting scratched.

As its name suggests, the Aura H2O is completely waterproof, you can totally immerse the device in the bathwater for up to one hour — I tried it. It felt weird to submerge the screen under water, but it passed the test. And you can even control the Aura H2O underwater, it’s just slightly less responsive. Its TypeGenius software offers 11 fonts in 50 sizes, different weight and sharpness settings, margin and justification adjustments, in-book search, and note-taking tools. The antiglare display allows you to read in the full glare of the sun, or in the darkness of your bedroom.

There’s only one button, the on/off button at the back. There are no physical buttons on the front; you’ve got to tap or swipe the screen to turn the pages or navigate to adjust the settings. The navigation doesn’t mirror those of an apple device like you would assume. It’s easy enough to work out, but not super intuitive like you’d expect from a tablet.

With the new Kobo Aura H2O, you’ll experience reading in a whole new light.

EDITION 2: SMALLER IN SIZE BUT MORE POWERFUL

If you’re upgrading from your old Kobo Aura H2O, The Edition 2 is smaller and lighter than the previous version, with the same 6.8-inch screen size and 265 ppi display. This results in the text looking beautifully sharp. Inside, the Aura H2O is powered by a 1GHz processor and connects to Kobo’s store over 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, meaning it has virtually the same capabilities as Amazon’s Kindle ebook readers. There is a slight delay when jumping between books or opening up the bookstore, which might be frustrating for someone used to an instant and seamless browser navigation. Likewise, the web viewing mode (currently in beta) looks like the browsing experience from the iMac Jellybean years, and the slow refresh rate will test the limits of your patience.

Storage has been doubled to 8GB, which means you can store up to 6,000 books, as opposed to the just as ridiculous 3,000. A bit like Apple’s Night Shift, the Aura H2O includes adaptive light technology, so the closer you are to bedtime, the less alert the light will appear to your eyes. That means you’re less likely to be kept up past your bedtime due to overexposure bright digital screens. It’s a sophisticated touch. Battery life lasts a month — which seems insane — depending on your reading speed you could read a couple of books and still have plenty of battery life left.

The Activity feature gasifies your reading so you can track how many minutes you spent reading each day of the week, what your page average is per minute, and so on. The enthusiasm to apply performance metrics seems at odds with the relaxing nature of reading, but for those who like to use apps to monitor their sleep/ eating/ running habits, this might be a fun feature.

HOW MUCH WILL IT SET YOU BACK?

At $239.95, the Kobo’s Aura H2O Version 2 packs a punch. It’s very straightforward to buy books over Wi-Fi via Kobo’s store, and books are downloaded in only a couple of seconds. The store boasts about five million titles, and just like Netflix, the genres are organised by curated collections (e.g., “heartwarming and funny”). Buying books via Rakueten isn’t much cheaper than the purchase of a book in store; expect to pay around $15 per book.

IS IT WORTH THE INVESTMENT?

Compared to the Aura H2O’s original design, there aren’t too many significant changes. The Aura H2O is still a great ebook reader — it’s waterproof, has a smart light display, a large, sharp screen, and is incredibly robust and lightweight. The result is a competent ebook reader that delivers on its promises but does nothing more.

This lack of innovation might be disappointing for people already familiar with other Kobo or Kindle ebook models. But for someone looking to invest in their first ebook reader, the Aura H2O Edition 2 will impress. While there’s something nice about referring to a recipe from well-thumbed, food splattered pages of a cookbook, in an era where we rely so much on technology, there’s also something equally comforting to reading a story from the pages of a glowing digital screen. In fact, I raced through Alias Grace (soon to be released as a miniseries on Netflix) in less than a week.

Originally published as Can Kobo’s Aura H20 Version 2 replace paper books?