Kobo Aura One EReader Review

Once upon a time you would always find me with a nose in a book forever reading. Then as I got older I fell out of love with reading a bit, particularly when I went to university when I had to read a lot of journals for my dissertation, reading for pleasure just wasn’t enjoyable anymore. Recently I’ve been trying to get back into reading again, particularly as I have a bookcase full of books that are just sitting waiting to be read, so I set myself a goal to read a book in September. Not only did I read one book, but I actually managed to read two, and something that helped was the Kobo Aura One.


The Kobo Aura One is a revolutionary waterproof ereader, designed to help you enjoy a good book and relax. I’m terrible at staying up all night watching Netflix or looking at phone, and I’m sure as a result of this, I have problems sleeping. I’m not very good at taking time out to relax, so while I had the Kobo Aura One for a two week trial I made sure I spent my evenings reading rather than staying up all night looking at pictures of cats on the internet.


The first thing I noticed about the Kobo Aura One is how nice it is to hold. I know that might sound a little strange, but it was really comfortable to hold so you know you’ll be comfortable sat reading away. It was also really easy to use, once you’ve unlocked the screen you’re greeted with a dashboard which shows you the books you’re reading, as well as a selection of related, and recommended books. What I liked is how it told me how far through a book I was, and how much time was left in the book, I just like to know these kind of things so this really pleased me! It would also give you awards as you went along reading, which for someone like me would definitely encourage me to read more! I used the Kobo Aura One with the default settings as these worked for me, but you could adjust the settings with over 50 font sizes and 11 font types. You’ve also got the option to bookmark certain pages that you want to go back to, and you can even share quotes and comments from the book onto your Facebook timeline which was pretty nifty.

What was nice to know as well was just how much storage the Kobo Aura One had available, 8GB to be exact, that’s around 6,000 books! I remember when I used to go on family holidays many moons ago and I used to pack a whole suitcase of books to get me through the holiday, imagine now only having to take away this small eReader instead! It’s also got a battery life of one month, and I used this quite a lot over the two week trial and the battery had only just made it past the half way point.



One of the great features of the Kobo Aura One is that it includes an enhanced front-light technology, meaning you can stay up and read without the blue light of a screen affecting your sleep quality. You could set the light settings to your own preference, or what I liked to do is set a bedtime hour and the device would start to fade itself. This was great for reading just before I went to bed, as the light would dim on the Kobo Aura One it would help to make feel sleepy, helping me to drift off to sleep.


I’m terrible that once I’ve finished a book, I don’t know what to read next. I can scroll through Amazon’s recommended lists for hours, but I can never settle on the next thing to read. The Kobo Aura One has a recommended for you feature, where it can recommend books to you based on other books you’ve read. There’s also the option for you to connect your Kobo Aura One with local public libraries and search through to borrow or buy new books.


I really enjoyed my two week trial of the Kobo Aura One eReader, especially as it got me back into reading again. I got through two books in two weeks, when that’s probably all I’ve read for the last year! It retails for £189.99 which is slightly more on the pricey scale of eReaders, but I can say after using it for 2 weeks I thought it was worth that price. It has many great features, and is even waterproof so you could escape and read in the bath for ultimate relaxation. I’d certainly recommend this if you were looking to buy a new eReader, I’ve even stuck mine on my Christmas wishlist to hint to the boyfriend!

* I was sent the Kobo Aura One for a 2 week trial, views are all my own

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