Comparison of e-readers: A significantly better reading experience with electronic paper

The design of the Kobo combines Canadian and Japanese design expertise.

Kobo Aura

Canadian Kobo (an anagram of the word book) is one of the leading manufacturers of e-readers, and the readers of its Aura series are listed among the best e-reader devices in the lists of AVPlussa as well. So it is no surprise that Aura also sparked positive reactions in the AVPlussa readership.

The soft-edged but streamlined design of the Aura is comfortable to hold, and its rounded rear provides a firm grip for the fingers holding the book. The reader is lightweight at 174 grams and doesn't weigh down the wrist.

The Auron user interface is intuitive. Many e-readers have small buttons on the screen for turning the page. The Auron has only a power button; otherwise, the device is controlled using the touchscreen.

Turning the page is done by swiping the screen. Pressing the center button opens a menu from which you can, among other things, change the book and go to the online bookstore. The menu also includes a statistics section that shows how much of the book you have read and how many hours of reading experience you still have left. It is possible to set a pause on a key page, which would be useful, for example, when reading course literature.

The calibration of the device’s touchscreen is a bit different from what the hand that is used to smartphones and tablets is used to. When typing, you had to press a slightly different spot than you would expect, but fortunately typing isn’t the device’s bread and butter.

It should be mentioned that Aurasta also has an online browser, but I cannot recommend browsing even the most graphically-rich pages from an e-paper.

The front light has a stepless adjustment, and of course you can also completely turn it off if you wish. At first, the device’s way of flashing the entire e-matrix display in black for about seven pages was somewhat confusing. However, this is a programmed feature to ensure the reliability of the display, preventing the appearance of ghost images during longer periods.

A reader in a relaxed state wakes up after pressing the power button in about a second and continues from where they left off. With a fully charged Aurora, the battery drained about a fifth in the two-week test period, even that. So the acclaimed battery life of e-readers is not just a ploy to attract advertisers.

The aspect that raised suspicion in Auran’s user experience was its apparent lack of protection. While folding front covers and pouches are available for the device, the usability of the inherently compact device was so pleasant that one wouldn’t want to make the device any heavier with third-party covers. The display screen, on the other hand, is slightly recessed below the device, so in home use the unprotected Auran can be placed on a tabletop without fear of scratching the screen.

Letto Frontlight 2 and Bookeen Cybook Saga – like two peas in a pod.

The mouse's leather protective case provides a good tactile feel even during longer sessions of typing.

Bookeen Cybook Muse Cybook

The Muse is very similar to the Aura from Kobo: a plastic shell and lightweight e-reader with a six-inch display, with adjustable front light and a functional touchpad.

Instead of the Canadian finesse of the Kobon, however, there remains a French twist. Or rather, the lack of it, as Bookeen has sought to add personality by cutting the bottom of the device to resemble a notch reminiscent of a mouse pad.

The mouse also has a touch screen, in addition to which there are two buttons on the edge of the screen that rotate the display. The buttons are on opposite sides, so the button that rotates the screen backwards feels more like a symmetrical addition.

At the bottom of the screen is a button that opens the main menu. The power button is located a bit awkwardly at the bottom of the device, which requires you to use your thumb to pry it out. The power button isn’t the most sensitive either, so you might have to waste another press to wake the device up.

A bit surprisingly, Muse turned out to be underpowered. It might have taken several seconds to start up, and the menu sometimes worked with a significant delay. Reading the comic in Muse was almost unbearable, as the page updates on Fingerporin took a full minute at worst. In the meantime, of course, one had already begun to suspect the usability of the flip button; pressing it again, well, you know the rest.

With ordinary text, there was no slowdown or neck strain. As I immersed myself in Mark Twain’s words, the experience was not interrupted, at least not by the hardware.

The Muse gets off to a slow start with its heavy workload and clunky buttons. As a basic reader, however, the device does its job. The plus point is also the aesthetically pleasing leather case that comes with the device, which not only provides a firm grip but also protects the device and its display from scratches on the bottom of the backpack.

Letto Frontlight 2

The Letto reader, marketed by Adlibriksen, is not only a good and sturdy e-book reader, but also surprisingly completely identical to the product sold by Elisa, Bookeen Saga. The difference between the devices that were tested was only the logo printed on the cardboard case. The manufacturer of Leto was revealed to be the French company Bookeen in the small print of the manual, so it is apparently just a product manufactured with different licenses, of which no functional differences were found in the testing environment.

Compared to its two lighter competitors, Letto differs primarily in its sheer mass. Letto isn’t quite as heavy as the Kobon, but it’s not much heavier either. The durability comes from the impact-resistant rubber protective case, which is equipped with a magnetic cover clip.

The intelligent front cover automatically puts the Leto into sleep mode when it is in place and starts it up again when it is opened. The cover also magnetically attaches to the back of the device, staying out of the way when it is not needed.

The functionalized shell is also the only problem with the Letto Frontlight 2. The thick rubber casing adds so much mass to the device that in the comfort comparison, the heavier Letto loses out to the lighter Kobol. On the other hand, the 320-gram weight of the Letto is not very significant when compared to a slightly thicker model, so in use the device is significantly more ergonomic than the book.

In addition to the touchscreen functionality, Letoa has three small buttons located on the right side of the screen that can be used to turn the page and open the device menu. There is also a button on the left side for the front light function.

A French engineer has come up with a good idea when investing in a device that allows the reader to change the orientation of the e-book. In other experiments with e-readers, the page is turned forward either by swiping the right side of the page or by pressing the button on the right side of the screen. In Leto, the forward and back buttons are always on the same side of the screen, so when turning the device upside down, the control point also moves to within reach of the left thumb. Tyranny of the lower right hand!

Overall, the Letto Frontlight 2 / Cybook Saga left a strong and high-quality impression. It is a sturdy reading device that will surely last for years of heavy use.

The library is easy to navigate

Adding a book to an e-reader is, in its simplest form, really easy. The device has access to the bookstore app via Wi-Fi, where the desired opus is transferred to the shopping cart with a tap. The operation can also be accomplished by transferring the book's contents in a classic way via a USB connection from the computer to the reader's memory.

Future material

Alongside e-readers, e-paper has not yet achieved full-scale commercial success. If we are to believe the prognosticators, the situation will change in the coming years. Electricity-saving e-paper, blessed with virtually zero power consumption, is well suited for, for example, price information in shops, posters, and notice boards.

There are also major technological breakthroughs on the horizon. The CLEARink company has promised to bring to market an electrophoretic display with over 4,000 colors this year, which is also capable of reproducing real-time moving images. The company’s prototype was awarded the Best Display of the Year at the 2017 Display Week exhibition.

Electronic paper also doesn’t necessarily need a heavy frame around it. There are cost-effective electronic paper displays that are thin, flexible, and rechargeable again and again. The technology is also very cheap to implement, and the sizes of the sheets are on the rise. Thus, for example, newspapers could very well arrive in the near future in a disposable electronic paper format.

More to read!

Publishing a book electronically is of course more cost-effective than starting a printing press, and new domestic literature can also be found in electronic format in practice. For example, Elisa and AdLibris offer extensive selections of new e-literature in the Finnish language, and an electronic book is often more affordable than a printed copy.

The most popular foreign online bookshops are, of course, the industry market leader Amazon. However, what is noteworthy about Amazon’s online bookstore is the company’s own Kindle format, which other manufacturers’ devices do not generally support.

Kindle readers are available for Android-based devices, and third parties have enabled conversion between different electronic formats. The ePub format has become a de facto standard in the industry; practically all readers, including Kindle ones, understand it. PDF and the most common text formats are also supported by most reading devices.

In addition to the electronic bookshop, a public lending service is also available for e-books. Libraries currently offer temporary lending of e-books that can be downloaded to a reading device, but which are subject to the same time-limited restriction as physical books under the lending license. After the loan period ends, the book ceases to function or disappears.

For those who are hooked on e-books, there is indeed a free lunch too. For the classic novel lover, Project Gutenberg is a worthwhile destination, offering tens of thousands of e-books on its website whose copyrights have expired. Kafka, Arthur Conan Doyle, Poe, Jung, Wilde and Machiavelli; the canon of Western literature awaits the bibliophile equipped with an e-reader just a click away.