Amazon 1 Kobo 0

[civiliza]

Sit ye down and hear my tale of woe.

With a Paperwhite 2 on order, finally discovered the new Kobo Aura in a UK retailer last Tuesday.

Thinking that it would be useful for borrowing from a UK library and would serve alongside the Paperwhite I bought one and took it home.

It would not set up without connecting online, and with the MAC address not available until it was set up, I set it up by connecting to the laptop. Anyway, all went well, was able to get the MAC address, and added it to the whitelist on my Router.

Despite being whitelisted however it would not hook up with my WiFi network. Two days of adjusting settings on my WiFi router based on tips found on this and other websites followed during which time I found out that the Kobo Aura was a nice compact rereader with a much more customiable reading experience, but did not like my router.

Anyway, on Thursday night / Friday morning (after accidentally blacklisting all my MAC addresses instead of whitelisting them) I gave up on self diagnosing the problem and emailed Kobo's helpdesk.

Given the time zone differences, the new Paperwhite 2 arrived before I received a reply (1st day of the Super Saver window, and 1 day ahead of the estimate when it was dispatched - kudos). The fact that the reply contained a standardised set of troubleshooting questions the majority of which I had already provided answers to was unpromising, but I stuck with it.

Little was offered in the way of router setting suggestions, but the following email conversation culminated in a suggestion to try a public area with a strong WiFi signal.

On Saturday I went into the retailer from where I bought the Kobo, and with the assistant's help was able to connect to their WiFi. Emailed Kobo helpdesk with this information, and the reponse (filtered through my probably biased by then opinion) was that if it could connect to the retailer's WiFi, then the Kobo's WiFi was working, and I should take it up with my ISP.

Since throughout this experience the rest of my home devices had been connecting to my WiFi without problems (and the new Paperwhite hooked up without problems from the first), I decided that this was the last straw, and have returned the Kobo to the retailer this morning and received a refund.

So, the new Paperwhite may be bigger, less customisable, and have less memory, but it worked for me first time whereas the Kobo never hooked up with my WiFi and the Kobo helpdesk support was not helpful wrt solving the issue.

End result Amazon 1 Kobo 0.

(Rant over)

Since I spent the majority of the time either reading on or trying to connect with the Kobo during the last week, I never did a side by side PW2 vs KA comparison, both screens seemed ok to me, although I was able to turn the Kobo's lighting down to 35% as opposed to a brighter 12 out of 24 for the Paperwhite.

Interface wise, Kobo syncing via USB cable seemed very slow, and personally I found that the best way to return to the full screen book (without residual menus top and bottom) after a setting change was to return to the home page and reselect the current book. That could just be me not driving it properly though.

[Gilmartin]

What brand of router do you have? Just wondering if its the one Sky provide as I know someone who had to jump through hoops to get his smart TV connected to his Sky router.

[xendula]

Hi Civiliza,
In terms of software on the devices, and the screen and lighting evenness, which one did you think was better? Did your Aura have any pinhole problems?
I find the Aura intriguing because of its size, but there seem to be a lot of complaints about it on the kobo forum, and the abysmal customer service and - from what I hear - faulty software, have been keeping me away from even trying .

[slantybard]

I have both. Managed to pick up an Aura weeks ago and a PW yesterday.

Aura has:
-better customization of display fonts
-calibre integration is AMAZING. repeat AMAZING
-smaller and lighter form factor

PW has:
-BETTER SCREEN. Aura screen lighting is slightly more even BUT the contrast of the Kobo is much worse due to diamond diffraction pattern discussed on Kobo forum. Side by side, the PW shows better black lettering and whiter background
-easier to hold in one hand using amazon PW cover. Weird but true - the Aura, while lighter and smaller has sharp edges that dig into whatever finger/palm you are in contact with it. The edges of the PW are much more gentle in my hands.
-embedding fonts works well for me to get around the poor stock fonts

Note: my Aura suffers 3 small pinholes that are not noticeable unless searching for them. The PW I picked up does not appear to have any pinholes. There are some dust spots in both but not noticeable when reading.

[Lyn2012]

Having had the PW1 and now the Aura, I have to say that I find the Aura far more comfortable both to hold and to read on for long periods. The form factor and weight of the Aura is perfect, and mine has no sharp edges at all. The Aura with the light off does have a darker screen than the PW at lowest light setting, but as I always read with the light on sufficiently to give a white but not obviously lit screen, this isn't a problem. The Calibre integration with the Aura is IMO normal, probably as in the past I have had many Sony readers and they all had the same level of integration. I was shocked when I bought the PW1 last year, my first Kindle, to find that the Calibre integration was so poor, needing jail breaking and hacks to allow any kind of collection transfer. In fact this, together with the lack of font customisation, led to me buying the Aura. I very much doubt whether I'll ever buy another Kindle as for me personally, (never use wifi and always sideload my liberated books purchased from various sources), their limitations far outweigh the benefits. Ideally I'd like a reader with white screen, black text and no front lighting, but until eink technology can do this, I am satisfied that the Aura is my best option.

Civilisa: you probably don't need to know this now, but to return to full page reading after changing settings, all you have to do is touch the centre of the screen.

Xendula: I have no pinpricks on my Aura - the first one I bought - and so far have had no software problems either. If you like the form factor and usually read with the front light on, I would definitely try an Aura - even better if there are any shops selling them in your country as you can open it in the shop and check the screen first.

[civiliza]

Apologies for not replying earlier, I hovered over this thread for half an hour after posting, then with no replies gave up and watched TV.

To answer:
@Gilmartin, I have a Linksys WiFi router connected (eventually) to Virgin Media, not straightforward admittedly, but everything else in the household has no problems with it.

@Xendula, I'm afraid that with less than perfect eyesight, I found no defects with either screen. The wider bezel of the Paperwhite did need more screen lighting to compensate for the larger black area, but since both were a step up from the K3, I was happy with what both offered. The Kobo's Menu "problem" (thanks for solving that @Lyn2012) was bugging me, but generally I liked the Kobo apart from the experiences of trying to connect it and download / sync content.

Unfortunately with the Kobo comfortable at a lower illumination level, it would be unfair to compare the screens - at it's higher brightness the paperwhite was whiter, but who's to say I could not have turned the Kobo up to a similar level and seen equal whiteness? At 35% lighting I did see two cones of shadow at the bottom of the Kobo screen, but they didn't spoil the reading experience in any way.

As a reader, the Kobo was a nice device, but it's connectivity was a total bust for me personally, and the Kobo desktop app was positively glacial as a sync'ing tool. By comparison using Adobe Digital Editions to sideload epub's on it was a delight (spent the majority of my time rereading an epub version of an old sci-fi book). I just wasn't prepared to risk the wear and tear of plugging in the USB cable each and every time I wanted to download a book.

On my limited and less than ideal run in with Kobo, I would say that I have seen nothing from Kobo that contradicts their less than perfect reputation on this forum. I was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt, but my WiFi and Customer Service experiences are eerily similar to disparaging threads in the Kobo section of this forum.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

The funny thing is that I never use the wireless on my Aura HD - in fact, it's always turned off unless there is a firmware update!

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

The funny thing is that I never use the wireless on my Aura HD - in fact, it's always turned off unless there is a firmware update!

I don't either, but when I do it generally causes problems. First every book I've purchased since the last time I sync'd feels the need to download to the device whether I want it to or not and whether I've already side-loaded the ePub version or not. Then there's the fact that almost every time I sync some glitch or bug pops up and causes aggravation. Whereas Kindle's give none of that aggravation (at least none I've encountered).



As to the OP not being able to connect to WiFi. Is it a newer router (does it offer N) or something older (G or A/B only)? I know some newer devices have problems with older routers. What type of security/encryption are you using on it? If you temporarily disable the security will the Aura then connect?

EDIT: Nevermind, I missed the part in your first post where you said you'd already returned it. Although the questions I posted are some their CS should have asked to help you try and troubleshoot. Maybe they did and you'd already tried that?

[civiliza]

The router is a Linksys WRT160N, and I must have tried just about every permutation of settiings change including (briefly) two attempts with disabled security and where possible reducing any mixed / dual mode settings down to their simplest form.

At the end of the day I returned to WPA2 with Mixed B&G mode.

My opening post to them detailed most of this (at the time I had not moved away from WPA2) which might have been why they refused to engage re router settings.

Never tried WEP comes to think of it, but as you say all too late now.

[xendula]

Thanks for your replies; I had forgotten about the diamond pattern.

Can Calibre send books to the Aura wirelessly?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by xendula

Can Calibre send books to the Aura wirelessly?

I have a Glo, not an Aura, but I can't see any reason why there would be any general problem using the Calibre Content Server with the Aura's browser.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by xendula

Can Calibre send books to the Aura wirelessly?

Originally Posted by meeera

I have a Glo, not an Aura, but I can't see any reason why there would be any general problem using the Calibre Content Server with the Aura's browser.

That works without a glitch with the Aura HD.