A Brief Hands On Video of the Kobo Aura H2O
Reviews of Kobo's new waterproof ebook reader are still few and far between, so when this next video came across my desk yesterday I knew that everyone would want to see it.
I'm still working on my review of Kobo's new waterproof ebook reader, but yesterday Laptop Magazine posted a short hands on video.
From the background noise, I think they shot it at the launch party a couple weeks ago. The video was shot at IFA Berlin. It doesn't show much, but it does confirm that the Aura H2O has a way to detect water on the screen and warn you that the device got wet. It looks pretty cool in action.
The Aura H2O features a 6.8" Carta E-ink screen, and recently went up for pre-order in the US with a retail of $179. My review unit arrived a couple days ago, and I hope to have a review up next weekend.
I find it a little strange that the thing throws up a massive dialog box every time it gets a drop of water on it. I would expect a “waterproof” device to ignore water unless it was on the verge of failing. It doesn’t seem very bath-friendly if it interrupts reading with each arbitrary splash.
There is a setting to ignore water droplets on the screen; maybe it was disabled for the demo video.
The “IFA” lanyard around the presenter’s neck is a good hint that it was filmed at the IFA recently in Berlin. I think that post-dates the launch party.
I was confused that he also said it would read any *non* DRMed book from other stores. Well yes, but it’ll also read DRMed books from several other major stores that use proprietary Adobe DRM.
Yes, I missed that detail – twice. Thanks, for pointing it out.