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Old 04-08-2012, 04:36 PM   #1
wastelander
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Can someone please list me the main DISADVANTAGES between the Kobo Touch & Kindle 4

Just the main DISADVANTAGES of each - I have been leaning towards the kobo recently because it supports epub and mobi formats but i have been seeing disadvatnages regarding the battery life not being so good and many errors due to firmware updates and the touch screen not respodning

whereas the K4 seems to be pretty reliable with a really long battery life and very few disadvantages

What do you say?
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Old 04-09-2012, 01:03 AM   #2
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The Kobo has no "Search" capability. This is a very basic feature which is one of the main benefits of an ebook over a paper book, and it's something I use frequently on my Kindle.
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Old 04-09-2012, 01:11 AM   #3
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The Kobo has no "Search" capability. This is a very basic feature which is one of the main benefits of an ebook over a paper book, and it's something I use frequently on my Kindle.
Uhm, but that's not true - Kobo Touch has a search function.

The search function on the Kobo Touch is in fact quite good. You can search the library and can also search in books, not only single words but phrases as well. Results show a part of the passages found containing your word or phrase as a preview in the search menu.

When you tap that preview, it takes you to the actual page, but leaves a menu open to return to the results if that was not what you where looking for, or to go to the next or previous result by tapping an arrow.

Also you don't have to type in words/phrases but you can highlight them in the text and select search.

Edit to add:

Main disadvantages of the Kobo Touch (for me - mileage my vary):

- No shelves (but search function is really good, so I haven't missed the shelves - have more than 500 books on my Touch). Shelves can be enabled by a plugin and will hopefully be supported naturally soon.

- Dictionaries are not very good. English-English is okay, German-German and Englisch-French, too, but the rest is not so good. And it's quite a few steps to open dicts. Also there's "translate" and "definition" instead of just "word lookup", which is annoying if you select the wrong one because you'll have to highlight the word again.

- I switch hands often and it takes 6 steps to change the tapping areas. Also, there are only three different ones, all of them vertical.

Besides of that, I am quite content with my Touch.

Last edited by Jaden; 04-09-2012 at 01:19 AM.
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Old 04-09-2012, 01:17 AM   #4
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My apologies - I must be getting it confused with another device, in that case.
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Old 04-09-2012, 01:28 AM   #5
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My apologies - I must be getting it confused with another device, in that case.
Is there really any? My 2002 PDA offers search functions in all of the text "apps" it has. As you've said, a search function is really basic.

Oh, now that I come to think about it, another thing that could be annoying (besides of what I added in the post above):

- There's no "go to page XY", but only a slider, and that's not very accurate. Takes you roughly to the page and after that it's arrows to browse.

I mostly use the search function for finding a certain page, but have done so with my PDA, too, so that just came to my mind. Might be annoying for some readers (another thing on the wish list).

If you read through the firmware request thread in the Kobo section, you might get an idea what people are missing most (though some things might have been implemented already).
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Old 04-09-2012, 05:07 PM   #6
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Some people have issues with touch screeen/errors on the Kobo Touch, but I haven't had those problems, so ymmv. Lack of bookshelf is probably the big disadvantage to me.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
My apologies - I must be getting it confused with another device, in that case.
It didn't have search in the original firmware. It was added a later firmware update which is probably why you were thinking it didn't have Harry.
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Old 04-10-2012, 09:36 AM   #7
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Thanks for the replies so far

What about battery life and freezing issues with each one? The more I have read, the more I see the kobo is potentially the less stable reader with a lot less battery life - what do you guys think?
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Old 04-10-2012, 02:34 PM   #8
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My Kobo only froze once, and that was my own doing (played around with the plugin, which is not official).

Battery life depends on wether you power off the Kobo or just let it sleep. Powering off will get you about 4500 page turns. That's not that much, but depending on how much you read that will last about 1 month.

If you can charge your battery about 500 times that would mean 500 months or 41 years (but the battery will start to lose capacity before that and I'm sure you'll buy another reader sooner than that, too).
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Old 04-10-2012, 02:55 PM   #9
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Griping about my kindle is not something that comes easy for me, I think its a great device, although I bought mine a little before the new models were introduced, however with some proding from the kobo owners I do have some gripes. My Kindle is great with english but when I had some french in one of the books it did not handle that quite as well, it could not display the acents below the c in francias. I would also preferr a user changeable battery and SD card slot to add external memory. Although forum members have told me that its more likely that I will die before my kindle's battery will, however I still like the ability to replace it if the need ever arises. It has gobs of memory, its just that I preferr to be able to add more myself.

That siad its a great little device that has outlived all three of the devices I had before the Kindle combined (Pandigital Novel and two Aluratek Libra Pros).
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Old 04-10-2012, 03:44 PM   #10
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My Kindle is great with english but when I had some french in one of the books it did not handle that quite as well, it could not display the acents below the c in francias.
The Kindle has excellent support for Western European languages, including French. If you didn't see the Cédille in français, something must have gone wrong during the creation of conversion of your book.

Last edited by Doitsu; 04-10-2012 at 06:12 PM.
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Old 04-11-2012, 09:09 PM   #11
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I had to give up my kobo. Footnotes drove me nuts. If there was one in the top row, it would call up menu. It was a cool little device but syncing with ios was so sporadic I got a kindle touch
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Old 04-12-2012, 09:06 AM   #12
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The Kindle has excellent support for Western European languages, including French. If you didn't see the Cédille in français, something must have gone wrong during the creation of conversion of your book.
Here's an example of French in the Kindle App, from one of the books I've created myself.
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Old 04-12-2012, 01:59 PM   #13
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I had to give up my kobo. Footnotes drove me nuts. If there was one in the top row, it would call up menu. It was a cool little device but syncing with ios was so sporadic I got a kindle touch
I think footnotes work better now with the 1.9.17 firmware. Used to be a PITA with some books to get them to open...
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Old 04-12-2012, 04:18 PM   #14
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I think footnotes work better now with the 1.9.17 firmware. Used to be a PITA with some books to get them to open...
I was reading Infinite Jest, which has dozens of notes and I wanted to throw it out a window. Slow is being generous. And, although I loved the achievement medallions, they NEVER got iOS sync right which was a nightmare. my KT syncs flawlessly every time with no closing app gymnastics needed. It just works. Perfectly. I'm cool with being on amazon ecosystem. I liked the nook st, but gave it to my wife and love the KT.
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Old 04-12-2012, 06:33 PM   #15
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I'm cool with being on amazon ecosystem.
Amazon will be glad to hear.

BTW Kobo ePubs (KePubs) have a very nice footnote system. If you click on the footnote, it is displayed on the screen, much like a dictionary entry. Only if the note is too long, you'll have to click on "more" (or something like that) to get it displayed on a separeate page (with a return button). It works very well and with KePubs, it's never difficult to use the footnotes.

I imagine it is as nice as Amazons system, though I can't say for sure since I don't have a Kindle.

ePubs, on the other hand, are very different and the formatting is not controlled by Kobo. So some will work perfectly well, others will be a little difficult. It all depends on how the publisher implemented their footnotes. Firmware 1.9.17 has improved the performance on footnotes in ePub, at least for me. Had no problem so far, even with ePubs that proved to be difficult before (concerning footnotes).
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