Kobo doesn’t upgrade its products much, because, let’s face it, the e-reader market isn’t what it once was — and what’s left of it is still dominated by Amazon. Still, the Canadian-turned-Japanese company consistently releases some of the best e-readers out there. And while this morning’s Aura H2O announcement doesn’t mark a huge departure from its predecessor, it continues to deliver one key feature the Kindle doesn’t: waterproofing.
There are some nice upgrades here, of course, mostly taken from the company’s more premium Aura One[1]. Storage has been doubled to 8GB, which means you can store a totally ridiculous 6,000 books, as opposed to a just kind of ridiculous 3,000. More compelling is the adoption of ComfortLight PRO, the e-reader version of Apple’s Night Shift, which lowers the amount of blue light that comes through the screen, so reading before bed is less likely to keep you up all night.
But the true killer feature here, however, is one the line has sported since 2014 – and one Amazon still hasn’t caught up with. An increasing number of flagship handsets have gone waterproof, including big names like Apple and Samsung, but if you want the added insurance when bringing the device to the pool, reading in the bath, or just factoring in the possibility of getting caught in a downpour, there’s really only one choice at the moment.
The Aura One still has some key advantages over the H2O, including the larger screen, but at 6.8-inches and 265ppi, you’re still getting a pretty good one here, as far as E Ink goes. I’ve been playing around with it a bit myself, and think I actually prefer the H2O’s screen size to the One’s. It splits the difference well,...
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