Retroillumination and formats

[Lucas Malor]

Indeed Wikipedia write "usb peripherals"... :-P

For the firmware I asked here, I hope I've not chosen an inappropriate thread

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by HarryT

When comparing the Kindle and the Kobo, one factor you really should consider is the stability of the device. The Kindle is rock solid, with very few bugs. If you look at the Kobo forum here at MR you'll see that there's widespread dissatisfaction with the Kobo. The firmware is reportedly very buggy, and new bugs are introduced with each new firmware update. I've no personal experience of this, but that's what many Kobo owners reports.

I don't think that's exactly fair.

I own both - a Kindle Touch and a Kobo Glo. I don't do much with the Kindle, because I bought it purely so I'd have easy access to Amazon-exclusive content and deals. Meanwhile, the Glo is my third Kobo device, and the one I spend all my reading time on.

My attitude with the Kindle is that what I've got is what I'm going to get. I have no expectation that reporting a bug or requesting a new feature is going to do any good. The Kobo, on the other hand...it makes a difference. They're actively working on improvements, and that makes me want to help them by pointing out things that could be better. The few things the Kindle does better are more than outweighed, IMO, by the better flexibility I get with a Kobo.

ETA: The one place where I'll give the Kindle dramatically higher marks is its integration with the Amazon store and your wishlist(s). The Kobo's rather lacking in that department; it has integration, but it's kind of clunky. The Kobo website also doesn't have a wishlist feature, and the wishlist function on the device is rather crude. However, as I usually wind up shopping and buying ebooks from a web browser, it's not so much of a problem for me; I wind up using my Amazon wishlists to track ebooks that I usually buy elsewhere.

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

Ah, that's good. For your experience, an ebook reader with built-in light that is turned off (as a Kobo Glo with shutted down light) is the same as an ebook reader without built-in light at all (as a "normal" Kindle)?

Originally Posted by twowheels

They're similar, but not quite the same. The light diffusion layer causes some loss of contrast and clarity compared to a naked screen.

For the record, when I switched from my Kobo Touch to a Kobo Glo, I did not see any such loss. In fact, I couldn't immediately distinguish a difference between the two with the Glo's light turned off. The Glo does have a higher resolution, so that may be offsetting the reported degradation.

One thing I did notice right away is that the Glo's screen feels more like paper. I don't know if that's the diffusion layer or something else at work, but I like it.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Rev. Bob

For the record, when I switched from my Kobo Touch to a Kobo Glo, I did not see any such loss. In fact, I couldn't immediately distinguish a difference between the two with the Glo's light turned off. The Glo does have a higher resolution, so that may be offsetting the reported degradation.

I have to agree with this. Comparing the Glo with the Touch, the Glo is a much better screen even when the light is off. That was why I upgraded rather than any real need for the light.

One thing I did notice right away is that the Glo's screen feels more like paper. I don't know if that's the diffusion layer or something else at work, but I like it.

I noticed that too and wasn't sure if I liked it. But, now there seems to be something missing when I use the Touch.

[Lucas Malor]

Thank you all for answers. About resolution, I must say Paperewhite also have a 758x1024 resolution. Furthermore for Paperwhite Amazon reports pixel density, Kobo on the contrary is a bit lacking in reporting tech specs...

The only problem of Paperwhite for what I read is its light can't be turned off completely and it have not an epub support (this is more a thing that I dislike very much that a real defect ^_^)

[Rev. Bob]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

Thank you all for answers. About resolution, I must say Paperewhite also have a 758x1027 resolution. Furthermore for Paperwhite Amazon reports pixel density, Kobo on the contrary is a bit lacking in reporting tech specs...

Same resolution, same physical size...that gives the same pixel density. In short, Amazon and Kobo are using the same e-ink screen from the same source.

[Lucas Malor]

Uops, you're right

[joblack]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Front lighting dramatically improves the readability of the screen; exactly the opposite of harming your vision.

Actually thats not true. The Kindle Paperwhite (and probably the Gloo, too) has an unfriendly LED light (think about uranium glowing ^^). The Kindle Paperwhite sidelight officially can't be completely disabled but with a jailbreak you can hack it so it is possible.

I strongly advise against enabled and included {front,back,side} lights. It's no fun for the eyes.

Originally Posted by HarryT

The Kindle doesn't have a card slot, but may I ask why it's a problem? I currently have 709 books on my Kindle Paperwhite, and am using about 40% of the storage space. How many books is it essential for you to carry around?

The 2 GBytes (where you can only use around 1.4 Gbyte) are full in a jiffy. Especially if you're using the RSS News function from Calibre. It really depends on how many ebooks you want to have and how big they are. E.g. ebooks with a lot of picture (screenshots, ...) are much bigger (10 - 20 mbytes).

The full text index search won't be usable (really slow) if you have a lot of e-books.

Despite that the Kindle Paperwhite is a great device if you disable the sidelight with a jailbreak (you can always enable it but in the smallest light level (0) it's actually disabled).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by joblack

Actually thats not true. The Kindle Paperwhite (and probably the Gloo, too) has an unfriendly LED light (think about uranium glowing ^^). The Kindle Paperwhite sidelight officially can't be completely disabled but with a jailbreak you can hack it so it is possible.

I strongly advise against enabled and included {front,back,side} lights. It's no fun for the eyes.

I think it's fair to say that your opinion on this matter is not widely shared, Jo. Most people find that the front lighting makes the screen much easier to read.

The 2 GBytes (where you can only use around 1.4 Gbyte) are full in a jiffy. Especially if you're using the RSS News function from Calibre. It really depends on how many ebooks you want to have and how big they are. E.g. ebooks with a lot of picture (screenshots, ...) are much bigger (10 - 20 mbytes).

As I said in my previous post, I have a little over 700 books on my PW and it's less than half full. I'm sure that many people wouldn't find a "limit" of 1000+ books to be any real restriction.

[Lucas Malor]

I think joblack has no mandate and speak about his personal experience. Anyway I read some review comments that say devices with built-in light have usually a too much bright light, even if you set it at the lowest level. I'd never bought such a device if I can't disable that light, hacking the firmware or not.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lucas Malor

Anyway I read some review comments that say devices with built-in light have usually a too much bright light, even if you set it at the lowest level.

Absolutely not true for the PW. If you set the light on the lowest level, it's completely invisible in any form of daylight or artificial light, and barely visible as a faint glow in complete darkness.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think it's fair to say that your opinion on this matter is not widely shared, Jo. Most people find that the front lighting makes the screen much easier to read.

Actually that's not true. The Kindle Paperwhite Jailbreak with the sidelight patch is shared in this forum and is used by several users. And as most people can't disable the sidelight completely they can't compare it anyway.

A real paperbook doesn't glow, either. Let's just say you have no scientific proof that a sidelight is better than just ambient light. So your statement is at least as much an 'opinion' than mine.

And the sidelight from the Kindle PW is clearly visible, even in sunlight. If it wouldn't be the case the bright 'paperwhite' effect wouldn't be impressing reporters and reviewers.

But everybody who wants to ruin their eyes is welcome to use sidelights or an iPad.

[kyteflyer]

I bought a Glo a couple of days ago and am already enjoying the benefits. I find I am able to read for longer on that, than on any backlit device (although I still prefer my iphone as my going-to-sleep reader.. never read for long at that time so no biggie)

I like the light and most of the time have it on its lowest setting. When its off, it compares more than favourably with my Sony PRS-650. I don't think I will be keeping the Sony, there doesnt seem to be much point.

I like being able to load my epubs via Calibre, and have not noticed *any* battery issues as reported by others in "sideloading" non Kobo epubs.

[Lucas Malor]

Well, I've bought a Kobo Glo. I'll write my first impressions in a future. Thank you all

[Lucas Malor]

The device seems to be good, but I've some little problems with it. I don't know if Kindle is better, since I don't have one.

1. when you power it off, it displays the book cover. This is nice, but I'd prefer to see the last page I opened. The same when I re-power it on.
2. IMHO built-in light is useless... pages are highly readable even if the light is turned off. On the contrary it bother a little when it's turned on, even if I minimized it. I think it could be useful only if I can't have an external light, for example when I go by metro
3. the touch screen seems to be a bit unresponsive. Sometimes I must touch another time the screen, maybe with the little finger, since first touch is not acquired by the Kobo. I must say this is my first touch device
4. you can't resize the font using two fingers, as you can do with many touch tablets
5. you must wait 1 - 1.5 seconds before accessing to "text mode" (where you can use the dictionary, highlight text etc). It could be useful a button that switches to "text mode"
6. there's not an app that let you write text files (you can find one installing KoboLauncher )
7. there's not a way to disable annoying and useless achievements... even if I must say they appears for few seconds Yes, there is, thank you robko.
8. there's only one rotate button, if you rotate and you want to go back, you must rotate other 3 times
9. if the orientation is landscape only the document aspect will be changed, so you'll have menus at the left and right of the screen and you must click over the top of the screen to turn page
10. you can't change orientation in a epub document, so if you have images in the document you can't see them in landscape mode
11. device turns on when you charge it. This is bad for the battery
12. bookmarks are listed under the other annotations, so they are hard to find if you have many notes and highlights
13. when you select a word, also punctuation characters are selected. This is problematic when you perform a search
14. empty pages are displayed anyway, even if they are useful only for real books
15. if you search something in a book and go to one of the results, you can't see the page number, turn page or perform other actions like this without dismissing the search
16. there's a little bug with cbz comics
17. there's a little bug searching inside books
18. the fact you can bookmark pages is hard to discover... who reads manuals? :-D

What disappointed me a lot is the software:

1. there's no linux support, that's strange since Mac OS X is supported
2. you must install the software also on pc to install / update it on Kobo
3. searching books is extremely difficult, it's more simple to use the website and sync
4. the app seems to do a lot if hd I/O. I noted this because my windows partition is on a very old PATA hd

Fortunately I don't need it, and I can update the firmware by hand.

I also noticed that I have no preinstalled books and there's few free e-books. Instead Kindle is integrated with a bookstore with a lot of free e-books in my country. Anyway I think this is a problem related to the bookstore.

To sum up, I think Kobo Glo is a very good reader and I'm really satisfied, but I'd not recommend it to someone that want an esay-to-use device.