Kobo Aura One, finally an e-reader for comics?
Published on 23 December 2016
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's articles with titles that end with a question mark. But in this case it's justified, because the answer to my title isn't obvious.
[](https://i0.wp.com/www.macarel.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/20161223-122617-iPhone-7-Plus.jpg)
You've figured it out, I'm going to talk to you here about my new e-reader, the Kobo Aura One. Explain to you why I chose it, and especially the usual "pros" and "cons," which will make you give in or not. This article isn't sponsored, and I paid for this Kobo with my own personal money that belongs to me.
Why an e-reader?
Because I don't read enough anymore, and being a big crappy geek, I figured that having an e-reader would motivate me to take time to read again. On top of that, I'm often traveling, and I like my bag to be light.
Is it your first e-reader?
I briefly had the Kobo Aura 2, I also tested a few Kindles, and I used my iPads a lot as e-readers, for a while.
What do you read?
A few books, and especially comics. That's the point that made me want to test the Kobo Aura One.
So why this choice?
I wanted an e-reader to be able to read in the sun, so right away that ruled out all iPad-type tablets. The first argument for me was clearly the size of the screen and its resolution. That's THE point that matters when you want to read a bit of comics on your tablet. Here we have a screen definition of 300 ppi at 1872*1404 pixels, and a 7.8-inch panel. So it's pretty big, and the definition is there.
And so what's the reading like?
For literature nothing to complain about, for comics, well "it's ok," it's much better than on most tablets. On 75% of the comics tested, you can read the speech bubbles fairly cleanly. The grayscale conversion of color comics is perfectly acceptable (even though obviously the point is mostly to read comics that are already in black and white). There's, on the other hand, a real slowness problem when you need to zoom when the text is too small or to change pages.
[](https://i0.wp.com/www.macarel.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/20161223-122723-iPhone-7-Plus.jpg)
Ok so what are the big PROS?
- The screen, its size and its definition.
- It's waterproof.
- It's good-looking.
- A night mode to tire the eyes less.
- It accepts all formats natively, comics included, unlike Amazon's Kindles.
- Its interface is pretty cool.
But so what's not good?
- It lags like hell on comics.
- I find it pretty expensive (count on 230€)
- It only has 8 GB of memory, non-expandable, a bit light for comics.
Conclusion?
Well I'm happy with it, even if I don't use it enough. On the other hand, I very warmly recommend it and consider it really the best choice, especially if you have a bit of comics, bought legally or not, to store on it.
I'll add that it would be good if comic publishers got off their butts a bit to digitize and offer subscriptions to their catalogs, it would save us from pirating comics again and again.
The Kobo Aura One is available at Amazon or at FNAC, when it's not out of stock.
[](https://i0.wp.com/www.macarel.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/20161223-123254-iPhone-7-Plus.jpg)
Photo credit: DR
By Paingout