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Originally Posted by 6charlong
I also disagree with the sometimes expressed notion that kePub formatted books are not good. To me, it is the opposite, they are the first presentation of an eBook on an eInk screen that really duplicates the best practices of traditional publishing. I have many ePub books and many kePubs, and it is apparent that some publishers do better than others when they publish, but you have to blame the publishing house for that. When the publisher does their job right the resulting kePub is fabulous.
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Kobo, at least in the beginning, not sure about now, made the kePub's themselves and often they are missing basic formatting such as italics and stuff (something lost in the conversion). When books like these are reported to Kobo they do nothing to make them better and even when they acknowledge a problem continue to offer them for sale. Some of the ePub's they sell also have screwed up formatting NOT from the publisher, but due to the way the books were handled by Kobo, or as they were known at the time Shortcovers. This has been verified through at least two publishers and it took Kobo over six months to fix titles after someone else, me, did the legwork with the publisher. The publisher re-sent the files within a week of being contacted. If I have any beefs with kePub it's those older books (& don't get me wrong it's not all older books, just some) and also the books they sell as kePub only, but don't tell you that ahead of time.
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Kobo sells their books in plain vanilla ePub OR in kePub format although to get the kePub version you need an eReader capable of rendering kePub, which means a Kobo reader.
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It's generally not an either or thing. Most books they sell get you both the ePub and kePub versions. The problem comes in when folks buy a book expecting both formats and only get kePub which they can't use without a Kobo device or app. Wasn't a huge deal with their old site as they told you if you got an ePub or not in the books details, but on the new site they don't do that. I personally usually prefer kePub's on my Aura HD, but still want to be able to download a regular ePub as well.
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I'm excited to discover whether my old Sony books will be available for download to my Aura HD in kePub form.
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I'd assume so. When Borders closed down and folks transferred to Kobo you got what ever it was Kobo offered that matched the closest for that title (either kepub & epub or kepub & PDF). Just as I assume if it's one of those older screwed up titles that was fine at Sony you'll now have the messed up version from Kobo.
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Their newest and best eReaders, the Auras, are state of the art--presently a generation ahead of Kindle.
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They're nice devices, but not so sure about them being a generation ahead. If you mean the flush screen I think I've seen as many complaints as I have praise for it. I don't think I'd call their buggy firmware a generation ahead at all.
Their CS definitely seems to have gotten better no doubt and they certainly seem to be trying.