Watersports-friendly e-reader: Kobo's Aura H2O is literary when wet

> It is hard to know what kind of punter is going to opt for a top of the range waterproof e-reader over a tablet

Me. I get the train to work with a long walk at either end, often in the rain, and I'm forever worried about it soaking my Kindle.

e-ink

It's a shame e-ink readers are not doing as well as the manufacturers had initially hoped, but really they've been a victim of their own success.

Everyone I know with an e-reader (no matter what brand) loves it, and only seem to replace them when they break as the new ones only really seem to provide incremental upgrades to an already excellent product. Everyone I know without an e-reader can't see the point of them for whatever reason and a new e-reader probably won't change their minds.

I just hope that there will continue to be enough of them being replaced that there'll always be someone willing to make a decent e-reader, because I for one won't be reading my novels on a tablet any time soon.

Endangered Species

Bloody hell, I hope not. At present, tablets simply aren't as good for reading on. The combination of long battery life, ruggedness, ease of use and lack of glare makes e-readers fit for purpose.

I'm still using my original Kindle, sadly the damn thing simply won't die, so I've got no excuse to upgrade. It's survived tropical and mountain trekking, various beaches, getting a little damp and general packing abuse without turning a metaphorical hair.

As for ease of use, my 94 year-old mother-in-law will only have hers prised out of her cold, dead hands. She doesn't want anything more complex, just something she can read. Everyone in our family owns Kindles of various models, we are serious readers :-)

Call the subeditor !

The headline does not match the contents.

You write that it is "pricey", but do not state the price. FFS.

If the touchscreen packs up in the wet,

does it have physical buttons, for page turning purposes?

Pricey?

Absolutely, but if waterproofness isn't a must, an Aura HD (like the H2O, just not waterproof) can be found online quite affordably (though generally only on the western side of the pond). Love the HD - it makes my previous Sonys look pretty dismal, to say nothing of the BeBook Neo I have in the closet as a 'spare'.

Reading in the bath

Surely I'm not the only one who does this... I put my (non-touch) Kindle in a clear sandwich bag :)

"Now that even the cheapest tablets are notching up increased battery life these days, it seems that the ever-ready e-reader could run the risk of becoming extinct."

Not by people that like reading - those who casually glance at a book may be served by a tablet, but those who read more than a couple of pages at a time will always prefer an ereader - eink is much better on the eyes, better is direct sunlight, and no distractions that you'd get from a tablet notifications.

But what do I know - I still think Netbooks are great...

kindle hack?

Is there any way to hack this so I can access kindle books as well?

No Amazon Lock-in is possibly the best feature.

You of course can use Kobo's excellent service (books are generally cheaper, and more plentiful than Amazon), but because it's an EPUB reader, you certainly aren't locked to Kobo for content. You have a world of choice.

Tried reading an ebook in the bath...

I got elocuted.

What's it like for annotating the text? Use my sony for proof reading and it's good for that. Plus sync to evernote is handy (when it works).

Not really the first one

I bought a Tolino Vision 2 instead, I prefer the smaller and lighter form factor and it is fully waterproof too!

The Hardware is Not the Problem

The problem lies with the content. It seems to me that publishers are not willing to expend any effort at all in producing high-quality electronic books. Books are frequently unavailable through legal channels and every single book I have ever purchased from Amazon's Kindle store is littered with blatant spelling mistakes and punctuation errors - the worst being the almost universal case of hyphens (often without *any* spaces) where em-dashes or properly spaced en-dashes should appear. (I am not being a pedant, this completely breaks the text because it makes a compound word out of something that should read like a very important comma) - or the loss of section breaks between scenes within a chapter, causing paragraphs that should be separated to flow together. I have compared some e-books to their printed editions and noted that these errors are not present in print.

If there was an e-reader that fixed poor content, I would upgrade.

(I originally thought this sort of error was common in pirated ebooks because they weren't officially published files. They are no less common in legally purchased, officially published ones.)

Even if Kobo have best hardware is not going to lure me back. I tried Kobo a while back, purchased a few books. One was riddled poor OCR mistakes which had never been proof read. Complained to Kobo and they refused to refund. I moved to the Amazon ecosystem and can can easily get a refund when a lazy publisher tries to pass off a poor eBook.

ereaders

the reason people like them over tablets is that trying to read on a phone or tablet is very difficult - the sheer output of the white light from the tablet does your eyes in pretty quick in the dark, also the weight of the device will do your hand in after a short while if you actually hold the thing while you are reading.

i used to be a complete book fanatic, i wouldnt countenance the idea of an electronic device because i like the feel of books and the err, gui experience??? its so simple.....just like that ikea ad for their catalogue - sounds a bit weird but there you go -

but since the very first time i used a kindle i havent bought another paper book.

i had an original kindle - no touch, no keyboard for years. its light, so your hand doesnt get cramped and the reading experience is just like a book. last for months, i have 1000 or more books on it. now my suitcase isn't half full of books when i go away

unfortunately, it is somewhere in Germany now....no idea where.

so ive ordered the new kindle voyage. but its not waterproof which is a bummer (sandwich bags aside). however, the amazon ecosystem is going to prevent me from going elsewhere as there are just so many titles available.

i also dont like the crap attention to proof reading that seems to be endemic in the ebook community, but you can live with it.

Buttons

I prefer my ebook readers to have physical buttons for page turning.

Ideally somewhere my thumb can access them while reading.

Unfortunately all the manufacturers have decided that touch screens are the way to go.

I guess it saves a few pennies to remove the buttons once you have a touch screen.

As a result, still using my Sony PRS-650 (although custom PRS+ firmware, epub/adobe format support and ability to group books up and manage them via Calibre on my desktop also means I don't want to switch to, say , a kindle)

for a 140 squid

it can (...) and die. Really

(obviously a fan of a competitive, but good-as-dead brand)

Got an aura HD already

Can't justify the waterproof bit, although since I mostly read outdoors it would save me worrying about dashing out to retrieve the book if it starts to rain. e-ink is simply so much better for reading long passages of text - tablets would kill my eyes and you can't use them in sunlight.

"Watersports-friendly e-reader: Kobo's Aura H2O is literary when wet..."

"Watersports"?

Are we talking about the thing that most people would understand as watersports, or are talking about the alan partridge kind of watersports...

"...you do know what whatersports are, don't you alan?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEXTkQA5YGI