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This is only my second E-reader so I don't have too much experience with them. This one is much better than my Kobo touch. I love it, the screen is crisp and clear, and the lit screen doesn't tire the eye like a tablet or phone would. Long battery life and awesome size screen. And I can read comic books, albeit in back and white. I am so happy with this purchase.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
Use-case: free pdf ebooks downloaded on line, like _50 Years of Naval Computing_, processor datasheets, _Atari, The Book_ (the guide to servicing electronic video arcade machines), engine service manuals, nautical charts, poster format diagrams, etc. When things are published as physical books, I generally buy them as such, so my use-case is everything else published electronically as pdf. I'm taking class, so I have reference materials in various subject matters. Setup: Did not go smoothly. One of the first steps is picking a WiFi access point (or else associating with software installed on a computer, but of course mine isn't supported). I picked the home WiFi AP off of the top of the list of ten or so visible access points, then it started strobing its screen spastically for a minute before coming back with an error. Clicking through to try again, it presented a list of access points -- with none on it, not even the neighbors. This repeated about ten times before it was able to successfully download its firmware updates. It promised this would take less than a minute, but it took several. Long pauses would become a pattern. There's no option to skip associating with an online account. It's nice that it has a long list of various booksellers it supports, all of them the lesser known ones, but I'm specifically avoiding the abusive giants, so this is good. I was able to create an account on the manufacturer's site, but I'd really rather have not given anyone else my email address in order to have a pocket e-ink pdf reader. Between that and WiFi being flaky, I'm already annoyed at this point. First go at using it: I copied about 20 pdfs to a micro SD card and put it in the slot. This device begged for a minute and then wedged, for hours. I went and did other things, checking on it periodically (new toy). It took about eight hours to make sense of what was on the card. I decided to delete some things to see if that would make it more responsive. The home view UI came up, and it was flashing as it updated, de-incrementing the number of items in the library one by one, about five times, until it wedged hard. This was the first time I had to take a mechanical pencil and shove it into the tiny hole in the water-resistant access port in order to unwedge it. I tried deleting the Kobo data directory on the flash hard hoping for a fresh start but no luck. After it became clear that the software got overwhelmed with some left over photos on the flash card and wasn't capable of dealing with anything being removed, I reflashed the firmware and went through the setup and update process again, again with WiFi hiccups. Other devices on WiFi are working fine. Later, I tried to load too many pdfs at once, and it begged for "a minute" and wedged for an evening and overnight before I pushed in the tiny reset button and removed the micro SD card. I wasted about eight hours trying to get the device into a state where it could pull up a pdf before I succeeded, then another day before I figured out that it just can't cope with much. Reading a pdf: One of the points of e-ink is that it doesn't take battery power to keep an image up, and I selected this one in part because it doesn't show ads when it thinks it is idle. I want to be able to leave a chart up, or a cheatsheet, or other reference. Nope. It goes to a screensaver that shows the logo, Fnac, the company behind the device. DPI is okay-ish, but the screen is about a third the size of a 8.5x11 page. By some coincidence, the max zoom level is 3x. Since the DPI is less than that of paper, you cannot view any diagram nearly as well as on a printed copy. So, no keeping a reference chart up, and no zooming on it to the point where something printed even page size is legible. The UI is annoying. There's a library tab that doesn't show you items you have on the SD card. Instead, you have to wait for it to notice that you put things on SD card, which involves either a looong wait for it to scan them (leaving me wondering if it's processing of them is slower than it would take me to actually raed them) or else rebooting the device. I highly recommend completely powering the device off by holding down the power button for a while (no good visual indication that you've succeeded, but when you have, it'll animate four small dots on the screen while it boots) when loading pdfs on the micro SD. Water resistance: The warranty page of the manual says it is void if the device gets wet. So while it has some level of water resistance, you're on your own, apparently. The manual also says that if you get pool water on it (chlorine is a salt, salts make water conductive, so salt water is far more dangerous to electronics than tap water), it must be rinsed immediately, so no reading books in the pool or hot tub. This device was apparently designed precisely to appeal to me while at the same time being completely useless to me.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The Kubo is fine. Good battery, good screen, a good Ereader. The problem with the Kubo (and the Nook, and other Ereaders is Adobe's DRM (digital rights management) software which requires that the Kubo (or Nook) be cabled to a computer in order to "borrow" books from a public library, you cannot do this wirelessly. This DRM download handicap requires several more key strokes, and a potentially discouraging setup process, before you get to borrow your books. Contrast this with Amazon's Kindle which works via wifi, does not require a cable to a computer, and is basically a more simple and quicker process. The Kubo is a great device, it is the DRM which makes life difficult. It appears that most libraries have most books in Kindle format, and that the Epub (DRM) format books are not dominant in numbers. For most people, I suggest a Kindle, you will get access to the same books and it is more easy to borrow and to return. No need to keep hooking up your Ereader to a cable and a computer to borrow and return, less steps, easier to setup.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The Kobo Aura H2O is a superb idea: a water-resistant high-resolution ereader with long battery life and extensibility through a microSD slot. The software design has additional features like a reading log that keeps statistics on how many books you read and how long you spend reading and has a neat way to interface with Calibre for maintaining shelves of your library. However, I found it was heavier than comparable ereaders, froze often, and has a somewhat fragile screen. The additional weight is due to the metal case which is needed to provide rigidity because the screen uses a glass substrate. The glass substrate seems to provide a sharper, more brilliant image than the Nook Glowlight but is also damaged by vibrational, torsional, or thermal shock. There seem to be many satisfied users on the Web so this can't be a common problem but there are also a number of people reporting broken screens so it's not exactly rare either. This is what rendered my Kobo useless and contacting customer support was totally useless. Their attitude was quite simply, "you must have damaged the screen through negligence. Sorry, can we sell you ebooks or a replacement device?" I liked the statistics and bookshelf features enough that I was willing to overlook the freezes and would even have paid to replace the screen if they had offered a service but the company's attitude has turned me off completely. If you want to read at the pool, beach, or hot tub and don't want to worry about water damage, get a used Nook Glowlight or Kindle Paperwhite and put it in a 25-cent zippered plastic bag. You can now spend the additional $60-80 you just saved on ebooks -- and isn't that why you want an ereader in the first place?Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Although it Is far from the latest version, this Kobo h2o. Version 1 is still my favorite. Newer Versions have a slightly higher definition but this is sharp enough. No new ones have the SD card and I want that flexibility. No reader is ideal, I would want certain features no reader currently all has (better dictionary, word etymology, page turning buttons, note taking section separate from the book, color, zoom in on images, and more). Since storage is my first priority after general ease of readability, this fits the bill. Others may value book store connection or highlight features etc. I just load epubs at a high turnover and volume. The used unit I received was just fine, no flaw on the screen and was clean.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
