Fancy a bit of Sheldon in the shower? Baldacci in the bath? Kobo’s new Aura H2O is the eReader for you, with a water resistant body that can survive a dunking.
Kobo has just launched a waterproof eReader for enjoying your books in the bath, on the beach or wherever else there’s a risk that a sudden water dunking will ruin your reading session. The Kobo Aura H2O will cost £139 in the UK (€179 in Europe, $179 in the US), hitting British and worldwide stores simultaneously on October 1st.
The Kobo Aura H2O is IP67 certified, just like the Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone. In non-techy terms, that means it can survive being submerged in a metre of water for around half an hour, so you could even enjoy some Stephen King while snorkelling. Although a better choice might be Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, to really get the full atmosphere.
If you’re a beach reader, the Kobo Aura H2O’s dust-proof design and anti-glare screen should make it a handy lazy day companion.
As for the specs, the Kobo Aura H2O rocks a 6.8-inch Carta E Ink screen, packing 265dpi. There’s a 1GHz processor packed inside, while the 4GB of storage space can be expanded via microSD to carry a shedload of books on your hols.
Kobo also promises two months of battery life per charge, which got us wondering. If you spent two whole months in a bath, would you basically emerge as an enormous fleshy prune?
Kobo is one of Amazon’s biggest competitors in the eReader stakes, with its online Kobo book store boasting over 3.5 million titles. Like Amazon, Kobo has also released Android tablets geared around eBooks – athough we’re yet to see Kobo launch a smartphone, like Amazon’s Fire Phone.
We’ll bring you a full review after spending some time with the Kobo Aura H2O at IFA 2014.
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