Arc Tell Me About The Arc

[MorganM]

Hi,

I was interested in the Arc since it's a tablet and ereader combined and I want opinions on it from people who own and use one regularly. I currently have a KT which has been good to use and I also have a Motorola Xoom which can be heavy on the hands.

Does the Arc have any bugs? I heard the Vox is rather lacking and was wondering if its best to stick with the Arc?

[oj829]

The two Xooms I found the weight for online were 708g (25oz.) and 730g (26oz.). By Contrast, the Arc is in the neighborhood of 365g: half the weight of th3e 3G/4G Xoom.

(Also understand, though, the Arc screen is smaller: a 7-inch display vs. Motorola's 10.1" display. Some people do NOT like downgrading to the 7-inch tablet lifestyle at all once they've become used to the larger screen.)

The Kobo Vox is for all intents and purposes dead. The serious players in the 7" market right now are Google Nexus, Kobo Arc, iPad mini, and Kindle and Barnes and Noble offerings.

I didn't get the Nexus because the speakers are on the back of the device. The Kindle and B&N tablets are too much of a "walled garden" for my liking: you have to buy from their app stores and their app stores only, without hacking. And on the B&N in particular, the app store is notoriously limited. The iPad mini is nice and light, but I just didn't want to get back into the iTunes Death Star after leaving it behind several years ago. YMMV.

The Arc is relatively light (heavier than the mini and Nexus, lighter than the Kindle), is certified for use of the Google marketplace ("Google Play"), has a nice display, but you're probably eventually going to run into a problem with Kobo's "Tapestries" and "Discover" service, which seem somewhat bug-laden. There is a lot of chatter about them here on the boards, and I ran into a doozy my first day with my Arc. Had to install an alternate launcher out of necessity, not taste.

[mr_nihilism]

It seems everybody dislikes the "Discovery" aspect of the Arc (and I sorta did too at first), but I've found that after some time purchasing books and pinning my interests, it actually does give some good recommendations that I would not have found on my own. Of course, it isn't perfect. I kind of think of it as hit-and miss. It did behave buggy at first, but after a Kobo update it seems to be sorted out.

As for the hardware, well, it just works. I'm no gamer, but I do have Angry Birds Star Wars HD on it and it runs smooth as silk. Reading is great and apps like PressReader work great.

[kumaryu]

I have a Touch, a Glo and an Arc. I tend to hold my book/reader at eye-level and the Arc is a little too heavy for this style of use. If you read with the reader flat on a desk or table, this may not be an issue.

That said however, I think the Arc is an excellent bare-bones 7in Android tablet. The screen is quite pretty and the colours are quite contrasty. Arc's touch response is undoubtedly the best out of all three Kobo devices I have but for reading books, I prefer my Glo. Lighter and less strain on the eyes.

I'm not sure why there's such a fuss over the pesky "Tapestry" and "Discovery" apps. Any one of the alternative launchers available through Google Play will hide them from view and replace it with an arguably cleaner and more functional interface.

Here's a good intro to alternative launchers: http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/be...droid-tablets/

And a discussion hereabouts:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=205810

For a good measure, all Kobo apps can be disabled from Settings>Apps>ALL> But this will essentially turn Arc into a plain vanilla Android tablet. And as such, its really not bad at all!

[kimicocopop]

I love love love my Kobo Arc. I always wanted this device for the tapestries feature. This type of organization is really perfect for my ADD brain where lists, little icons, etc often fail.

Hst, I don't always want that type screen so I love being able to have another browser as my default. When I'm just wanting to do something the default browser serves well. But if I'm researching something or trying to learn something the tapestries browser is better.

The screen is also very nice for videos and it has a really good battery life. The discovery bar hasn't been incredibly helpful, but it's not too bothersome either.

I have a kindle fire too and I like the kobo sooooo much better.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by kumaryu

I'm not sure why there's such a fuss over the pesky "Tapestry" and "Discovery" apps. Any one of the alternative launchers available through Google Play will hide them from view and replace it with an arguably cleaner and more functional interface.

I actually thought it had a lot of potential and made some sense once you got into it, and I was looking forward to working in the Tapestry "paradigm" (sorry!) for a change. I even thought that the (empty) Discovery bar was not unattractive, and took up less space than it seemed it would from photos of busy Arcs.

But then, I uninstalled the Facebook app, and everything fell to pieces.

Tapestries crashed so fast and so repeatedly that it took me several tries to get my finger on the "Google Play" icon in the upper-right corner before the next crash. Once I FINALLY accomplished that tap, I downloaded one of the launchers recommended in a thread here.

Would've liked to play around some more, but it's obviously not, um, robust yet.

[kimicocopop]

Originally Posted by oj829

I actually thought it had a lot of potential and made some sense once you got into it, and I was looking forward to working in the Tapestry "paradigm" (sorry!) for a change. I even thought that the (empty) Discovery bar was not unattractive, and took up less space than it seemed it would from photos of busy Arcs.

But then, I uninstalled the Facebook app, and everything fell to pieces.

Tapestries crashed so fast and so repeatedly that it took me several tries to get my finger on the "Google Play" icon in the upper-right corner before the next crash. Once I FINALLY accomplished that tap, I downloaded one of the launchers recommended in a thread here.

Would've liked to play around some more, but it's obviously not, um, robust yet.

Well the good news is you can use the tapestries feature even while using another launcher. I normally always use a Go launcher but pin tons of stuff to tapestries I've made. Then when I want to find something I pinned I just change the default launcher and go into the tapestries one for whatever I'm after. Personally I think it's great the way it works currently (knock on wood that no problems develope).

Maybe if you do a reset you can get it working properly again. I deleted something when I first got mine and it caused all kinds of trouble. Fortunately a reset fixed it and I haven't had that problem again.