Earlier this week, Toronto-based Rakuten Kobo announced the release of the Kobo Aura One, a new ereader which is light, thin, resistant to water and easy on the eyes. The new offering will be available on sale in the US and Canada for a price tag of $229 and $249 respectively. Countries like France, Germany, Japan, Spain and the UK will also get it on the same day.
The high-end Kobo Aura One is the largest ereader from the company yet and the bigger display size allows for larger fonts and wider text spacing, as well as cutting down on page turns. It sports a 7.8-inch Carta E Ink touchscreen display resulting in a pixel density of 300ppi.
Although the display is already designed to be easy on the eyes for reading, the company has included the ComfortLight PRO to reduce the effects of blue light on the user and there is also an ambient light sensor onboard, to regulate screen brightness in accordance with the daylight.
Despite the screen size, it manages to remain very slim (paper thin) and light on the hand. It weighs 230 grams, measures 195.1 x 138.5 x 6.9 mm in dimensions and is IPX8 certified, meaning it should fare properly when submerged in up to two meters (6.5 ft) of water for about an hour.
Although the Kobo Aura One has the same experience as the other Kobo devices, it promises better performance. It relies on a 1GHz CPU paired with 512MB of RAM, 8GB built-in storage space, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, micro USB port and runs on a simplistic OS.
On the software end, users have access to both the library and store whilst also allowing annonating words and looking up the meaning like on the Amazon Kindle OS.
