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Old 05-01-2010, 03:09 PM   #1
SensualPoet
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Let's Share Kobo First Impressions

I'm a Kindle 2i user since Nov 2010 when Amazon first shipped to Canada. I really like the Kindle as a device, its functionality, customer service, depth of content, and the ability to put many other kinds of books on it using dead simple conversion software Calibre. The snag: I had to buy the thing "on faith" without touchy-feeley and, at US$259, by the time shipping and taxes were added, it was Can$340, taxes and case included.

So why do I need another reader? Well, the short answer, as I have already explained to my husband, is "I don't". Still, the Kobo's price is attractive: Can$169, taxes included, no case (no mains charger either which is a pain if travelling since it plugs into a computer to charge); shipping was free (I walked to the store and back).

I have to say I am impressed. The screen real estate is identical to the Kindle 2 -- 6" and just as crisp. Ah, and a second font -- a sans serif (I like the Kindle's serif font better). The "ugly blue button", which is used for most navigation, isn't as ugly in real life as it appears in the videos and is as easy to use as the Kindle's five-way thumbstick. So far I am not having trouble pressing up, side or middle. The other four buttons, along the left side, are more confusing strictly because of my "Kindle training": the buttons are on the side, not the front; I have found myself pressing the printed word "home" on the front instead of the button on the side (I'll get over it). There two odd things: a power button (what's that for?) and the charging light (No 8 on your diagrams) which is really buried under the plastic so unless it is lit (I've seen red and blue so far), you don't know it's there.

The user interface is str8-forward; experienced e-reader users will pick it up instantly and newbies won't take too long as there isn't much you can do. The 100 books that come with it give you lots to play with and sample as you test your skills. I do find some of the default font sizing -- like the button labels or the text on the "Plugged in" screen -- pretty small. The designer obviously thinks everyone has sharp eyesight but 6 pt is still only 6 pt. I will add that many of these touches, however, make the device look smarter and well thought out. And the "quilted" back is comfy (my Kindle is in a "book open" leather case so this will be a new way to "hold" a book for me).

I know I will miss the extras I get with the Kindle 2: the built-in ever-present dictionary; the occasional use for text-to-speech; 3G wikipedia (that really rocks); and the comfort that Amazon is going to continue to upgrade the platform and has shown a willingness to add new features to existing devices with firmware upgrades. But then, life is full of trade-offs, right? The Kobo is pretty much half the price.

There are a dozen e-readers on the market that are more or less available widely through stores and mail order; the simplicity and elegance of the design is quite appealing. And the entry level features are nicely matched by an entry level price. When you consider you'd pay 3 or 4 times as much for Apple's latest gizmo the iPad, which is supposed to dominate e-reader devices in the way Apple cornered the mp3 market ... yah, well, I don't think so. The Kobo is a great example of building in all the stuff you need, and no more, and price it accordingly.

Next month Borders is supposed to get this unit and there are no other $150 e-readers in sight from a major vendor. I think B&N might actually have a run for its money, having taken the other route -- the higher end touch screen Android flavoured hybrid ... for about twice the price. And given the really basic, tried and true approach of the unit, as scale grows, it's not hard to imagine Kobo has more room to hit $125 or $99 and still have a viable device on its hands than any other widely distributed device on the market today.

So, kudos to Kobo!
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Old 05-01-2010, 07:30 PM   #2
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I bought the Kobo today from the Chapters store. This is my first ebook device, though a couple of days ago I laid my hands on the Sony PRS 600 that belongs to my coworker.

Compared to the PRS 600, the Kobo's screen is crisp and doesn't have that annoying reflection/glare. But the Kobo is slow in a) processing new content (after you copy them from the computer), b) and opening/navigating books. Yet, going to next/prev page is acceptably fast. So I can live with that.

There is no dictionary. I was willing to pay an extra $150 to get the dictionary feature, but the glare and low-contrast prevented me from buying the PRS 600.

Overall, I am satisfied with Kobo and hoping that the company will also make a "premium" model with better performance and a built-in oxford dictionary.
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Old 05-01-2010, 07:43 PM   #3
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I've heard complaints that the converted epub files have very small print, which you can't adjust, is that right?

Also how well does it handle PDF? It would be nice not to have to convert the PDF's I already have.
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Old 05-01-2010, 07:54 PM   #4
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I've been using Palm PDAs for a long time to read; and have become acustomed to small pages and multiple hits of the next page button. With the demise of the PDA in favour of Smart Phones, my days of using the Palm to read were limited. Battery life has gone way down

The Kobo is a refreshing change, although I know I will have to find some accesories for it. I will in the short term miss the back light and the ability to read in bed. Some form of case will be needed; I am accustomed to taking the Palm with me to Tim Horton's or Starbucks and reading there.

Of course, it will also be nice when some of the ePub text size issues are resolved.

PDFs I don't really care about; to me, I want a format that adjusts to the device being used.
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Old 05-01-2010, 08:52 PM   #5
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I dropped into my local chapters to check this item out. I have a bebook 6" and have been using it for some time now to read mostly PDFs.

The stock books, as expected, displayed well. But I brought along my sd card (call it my library) to see how they looked. The helpful and informed Chapters agent was thrilled at this because they had not yet had a chance to try SD cards out. My first mistake was bringing my main sd card with a lot of books on it because the Kobo "synch"s them. This took a long time. A long long time. What was it doing? Indexing? Cataloguing? Ordering concert tickets? Doing my laundry? The second time I popped the same card in only took seconds, so whatever it was doing it saved some information.

The PDFs displayed but the deal breaker for me was that they did not resize well. Normally I would expect it to reflow the PDF so that when I change size I see less words on the screen, and the words are bigger. In this case I would just page more. In the Kobo case I have a virtual window on the page and use the blue button to move around within the page. This I find annoying. Especially when my existing bebook does this for me.

What did display displayed well, but since my card is 1 gig I found the performance on the card slowed all the operations down to the point of it being unusable. Was this because I had a lot of files on the card or because I was accessing document from the card? I don't know. Either way the speed on card was too slow for me. I would be interested to know if others have similar card issues.

As far as the PDF reflow is concerned does this mean that I have to use their PC based software to modify or convert every file I want to read on the device? This too would be a pain.

Otherwise I like the form factor and the feel. The price is good too.
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Old 05-01-2010, 08:54 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Bittybye View Post
I've heard complaints that the converted epub files have very small print, which you can't adjust, is that right?

Also how well does it handle PDF? It would be nice not to have to convert the PDF's I already have.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...72&postcount=6

Rename the EPUB to ZIP, remove the CSS, rename it back, and you're good to go.
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Old 05-01-2010, 09:24 PM   #7
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https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...72&postcount=6

Rename the EPUB to ZIP, remove the CSS, rename it back, and you're good to go.
??????

Sorry, but huh? I am not to computer savvy. Plus, this sounds like a lot of work, but maybe it's only because my computing skills are...check emails.
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Old 05-01-2010, 11:00 PM   #8
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EPUBs are just ZIP files. Rename the EPUB to ".zip", open it with 7-Zip or whatever you use, delete the ".css" file, and rename it back to ".epub".
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Old 05-02-2010, 01:34 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by garthoid View Post
I brought along my sd card (call it my library) to see how they looked. The helpful and informed Chapters agent was thrilled at this because they had not yet had a chance to try SD cards out. My first mistake was bringing my main sd card with a lot of books on it because the Kobo "synch"s them. This took a long time. A long long time. What was it doing? Indexing? Cataloguing? Ordering concert tickets? Doing my laundry? The second time I popped the same card in only took seconds, so whatever it was doing it saved some information.
You are creating a non-normal condition -- absorbing a library instead of one new book. As you point out, once "digested", the Kobo performed well the second time it "saw" the card. That tells me it actually performs well under "normal" conditions.

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The PDFs displayed but the deal breaker for me was that they did not resize well.
Keep in mind this is 6" form factor device. PDFs created for trade paperback or A4 or 8-1/2 x 11 format are going to be "small" by definition. The great attraction of pdfs is they preserve the page markup intact. If you reduce the screen size by 50%, yes, it's going to be small. Pan and zoom help in a pinch, but what's really needed is ePub not pdf. This applies to all readers, not just the Kobo.
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Old 05-02-2010, 05:51 AM   #10
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EPUBs are just ZIP files. Rename the EPUB to ".zip", open it with 7-Zip or whatever you use, delete the ".css" file, and rename it back to ".epub".
Ok, this is going to sound stupid, but how do I rename it?

And do I have to do this individually? I have more than 60 ebooks all but a few in HTML. Since I can do the converting in bulk, it wasn't a problem, but if I have to do this one by one....it's just not worth it.
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Old 05-02-2010, 06:40 AM   #11
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their PC based software to modify or convert every file I want to read on the device?
They have a converter?!!!
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Old 05-02-2010, 11:02 AM   #12
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When reading a book, does Kobo display the total number of pages? All the pictures I have seen, it just displays how many pages in the chapter.
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Old 05-02-2010, 11:20 AM   #13
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They have a converter?!!!
They have some kind of desktop software on the device (I cannot find a separate web download for it) which the sales person mentioned did something but its not clear to me what that would be and I have no other information. So that is why I asked the question.
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Old 05-02-2010, 11:24 AM   #14
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You are creating a non-normal condition -- absorbing a library instead of one new book. As you point out, once "digested", the Kobo performed well the second time it "saw" the card. That tells me it actually performs well under "normal" conditions.
Well this is normal for me as I do carry part my library around with me for reference material. I am not complaining about the fact that it took a long time and I am glad it remembered the card. However, its internal cache will be a finite resource and I am wondering how much information it will store before it is forced to reindex.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SensualPoet View Post
Keep in mind this is 6" form factor device. PDFs created for trade paperback or A4 or 8-1/2 x 11 format are going to be "small" by definition. The great attraction of pdfs is they preserve the page markup intact. If you reduce the screen size by 50%, yes, it's going to be small. Pan and zoom help in a pinch, but what's really needed is ePub not pdf. This applies to all readers, not just the Kobo.
I have a 6" bebook now that handles pdf reflow reasonably. But I will check out the epub. I may convert some examples (using calibre?) and show up the demo booth with a card (with only a couple of books on it to save synch time
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Old 05-02-2010, 01:14 PM   #15
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I just redownloaded all the Baen books and collections I have bought over the last 8 years in ePub format and synced them over via ADE. So far, the ones I have looked at seem fine.

Of course, there was a longish pause when I unplugged the USB cable and it processed 59 books in one go.
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