NST to ---> Kobo or Kindle?

[RHWright]

I am contemplating upgrading my e-reader from my stand-by NOOK ST to another type of e-reader. For a variety of reasons, I'm not considering another NOOK device.

It really comes down to Kobo or Kindle, likely a Glo HD or Paperwhite.

My big concern is my existing B&N library. ~500. I know some conversion will be needed, and have no problem with that, but I wonder which is the least PITA to deal with for the best end result?

I am leaning Kobo, but I have no experience with their devices or them as a company. How is there customer service? How is their store experience, both online and on-device?

This will be a back-up reader, mostly, as I mostly carry my Nexus tablet with me. (Comixology app and all.) So, conceivably, I could use the apps on my tablet for all other formats and move forward with whatever device/store I move to. I have very few Kindle books at this point, so that's not much of a factor.

Kobo is a nose better on pricing for the device.

Thoughts?

[Rizla]

The Kindle is faster than the Kobo. It has better customer support.

The Kobo is more flexible. It will organize side-loaded books better than the Kindle. It is better at reading multiple formats and doing generally interesting stuff (read manga on a 6.8" screen?). Get it from a store if possible to save messing with mail returns.

[eschwartz]

Kobo -- can organize collections from calibre. Can customize the layout -- fonts, margins, etc. Has lousy dictionaries, and if you ever need to deal with customer service, it can apparently get extremely frustrating.

Kindle -- stable and simple. If it works, it works very well. On the rare occasion that I have needed customer service, Amazon has been a pleasure to deal with. The store Just Works, and the prices are usually a little better than Kobo. Limited to no customizability (unless you jailbreak, which is hard now) but the defaults suit many people perfectly. However, it is a dealbreaker for many others.
You can email your old books to your Kindle as PDOCs, and they will sync with annotations across all your Kindle devices/apps.


Something to consider... where do you plan on getting books from, going forward? For new books, being able to sync them directly on the device is something very nice to have.

[DuncanWatson]

I recently just made this transition myself. I chose Kindle. The cleaner overdrive integration (library system), clean bookstore and the ui decided me.

I converted about 787 books. I was lucky enough to have an android device with the older nook app and so I reset the nook app user, then downloaded all ebooks onto the tablet. Then used Calibre to convert/alf the books. I did use nook study to get my key but to use it for 500 plus books is painful. If you have a rooted android device you may be able to access the ebooks from the nook app even with the latest version though I haven't gone that way.

I emailed my books into the kindle from calibre over a period of days so I could keep everything in the cloud.

I find the collections in the Kindle are fine for what I need. I use collections to manage my reading not to keep books sorted by Genre. So I have collections called "unread", "reading", "finished mm/yy", "abandoned".

[invention13]

For me, the extra 0.8" of screen size does make a difference. It just feels better to read. My one remaining objection to the kobo - not so great pdf handling - was removed by installing koreader (now I really like it).

[HarryT]

For me the extra size is a disadvantage; my Kindle Voyage is much more portable than the Kobo H2O. I also had issues with poor accuracy of the touchscreen on the H2O.

[barryem]

I have both, a Kindle and a Kobo. Actually more than one of each. I prefer the Kindles but not by a lot. There's a lot to be said for the Kobo's. I suspect whichever you get you'll be happy with.

Amazon customer service is great. Kobo customer service is very difficult to reach but once reached they're pretty good. If that's important to you Amazon wins by a wide, wide margin.

The Kobo feels better in my hand. I have both a Kobo Glo and a Kobo Aura. I don't have the Glo HD. Of the two the Aura is the most comfortable to hold for extended periods. In fact it's easily the best ereader in terms of comfort holding it.

The Kobo's have far more adjustments. I have a lot more control over the fonts but no matter what I do with them they never look as good as the Kindles. Kindles just have better screens and better fonts. Of course this only matters when comparing them. When reading I'm happy with whichever I'm using.

Kindles are less buggy. Kobo's have a lot of little problems. Sometimes something works on one book and not the other. But there aren't any serious problems. No show stoppers. Most of the time I just read. Sometimes I have to deal with a problem. Kindles rarely have problems.

If you compare the various stores, Kindle book prices are considerably lower than Kobo book prices. I'm told they have a better selection as well but both have pretty much everything I want so that isn't really an issue.

I like to be able to look up things I read about on Wikipedia as I read and that's trivial on the Kindle. On the Kobo it's iffy, if I can do it at all. Also I get the Kindle with 3G so can do that on the go.

Their dictionaries seem equally good although using them is sometimes easier and the displays are sometimes cleaner on the Kindle. The Kobo has a nice feature in the dictionary that the Kindle lacks: if the definition has a word I don't know I can long tap that and look it up. The Kindle let's me do that in the dictionary when it's full page but the Kobo lets me do that right on a page of the book I'm reading. That's a very nice feature.

Kobo's translation feature isn't as good but it doesn't require an internet connection so it can be used any time, any place. I have 3G so that's also true of the Kindle but without 3G the Kobo's translation feature has a big advantage.

I began with Kindles and I prefer them. I suspect if I'd begun with Kobo's I'd prefer them. They're both excellent platforms. It really won't matter which you get; you'll get the right one.

Barry

[NickyWithNook]

I love my Kindle Paperwhite. It's my outdoors and long-battery-life reader. I don't know much about conversion but from it seems like there was a really long thread about how hard it was to convert nook books at all to anything. Hopefully someone will remember what's up with that. I just have a different reader for nook books than kindle books so I don't have to convert.

[cocopuff]

I recently had the same dilemma. I have personally had two ereaders a kindle with keyboard (1st or second gen I think) and a Nook simple touch with glowlight. The kindle died after a year and my sister who bought the same model had the same experience so while I have read that the current kindles are of a higher build quality, I will always be leery of them. I have loved the NSTw Glowlight as it is simple to use, includes page turn buttons, and is still going strong after 4+ years of use. However, I didn't consider the newer glowlight because it is a few years old and I wanted a more premium ereader. This all being said I narrowed my choices down to a few ereaders Voyage, Aura h2o, paperwhite 3, Glo HD, or original aura. I personally would have loved to get a voyage if only for the page turn buttons. The cost was too prohibitive though (219+tax=240ish). The aura looked nice but again it is a few years older and I wanted something with a carta screen after reading the background was "whiter," if I was looking for something sub 100 this would be my choice though (order from chapters canada and it is $90 with shipping).

So the remaining contenders were the h2o, glo hd, and pw3. I read some reviews that said the glo hd was very slow on page turns and the lack of sd slot (I swap books with my family and neighbors via sd cards) made me think the h2o was a better choice out of the kobo line. The paperwhite 3 looks like a very well made device, but since I live in TN amazon charges me tax so it would come to $150ish. Ordering from chapters canada I got my h2o for $151, the larger screen and same price as paperwhite 3 sold me on it.

Now much of this decision was based on my particular circumstances: TN charges sales tax for Amazon so kindles get a 10% increase in price
Ordering a kobo from canada dropped the price almost $20 compared to kobo.com because of the current strength of the dollar. Anyways thats just my 2c for anyone buying in the US, I'll post a review of my h2o once I get it. I can't imagine not being pleased given that I've been perfectly satisfied with my NST w glowlight just passed it on to a family member.

US Pricing for Kobos (with shipping from chapters.ca)
Aura- 90ish
Glo HD - 110ish
H2O - 151.35 exactly
thanks to the members of this forum who posted about buying from chapters I was able to get a much nicer ereader than I had originally planned on ;-)

[Sonist]

I've had really bad experience with my Kobo Aura HDs, three screen failures out of four units.

Kobo automatically blames any substrata lines on the customer and refuses to honor the warranty, even though the device was not dropped or mishandled.

IMO, the Kobo Aura is poorly designed and made (poor tolerances and fit and finish), which results in structural problems.

I personally would stick with a Kindle. I gave the last remaining Aura HD to my wife, since she really does not like reading on a 6" screen (too small for her) and I use a Voyage now. The Voyage has less glitchy software than the Kobo, but it is also much better made. Amazon's customer support is also infinitely better than Kobo's.

I really hope Amazon comes up with a 7", or better, 8" screen -- I personally find the reading experience more immersive with a larger screen.

Good luck, whatever you decision.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I've had really bad experience with my Kobo Aura HDs, three screen failures out of four units.

Kobo automatically blames any substrata lines on the customer and refuses to honor the warranty, even though the device was not dropped or mishandled.

Can you give an example of this happening (including a photograph) when the lines were not indicative of a physically broken glass substrate - for example, issues with the screen controller?

[chitrodhar]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The Kindle is faster than the Kobo. It has better customer support.

I agree. Kindle FTW Kobo is sluggish IMO

[chitrodhar]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I've had really bad experience with my Kobo Aura HDs, three screen failures out of four units.

Kobo automatically blames any substrata lines on the customer and refuses to honor the warranty, even though the device was not dropped or mishandled.

Yep, as poorly created as Kobo is, its customer service (or lack of it thereof) is a big turn off

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I've had really bad experience with my Kobo Aura HDs, three screen failures out of four units.

Kobo automatically blames any substrata lines on the customer and refuses to honor the warranty, even though the device was not dropped or mishandled.

IMO, the Kobo Aura is poorly designed and made (poor tolerances and fit and finish), which results in structural problems.

I personally would stick with a Kindle. I gave the last remaining Aura HD to my wife, since she really does not like reading on a 6" screen (too small for her)

What you don't get is that your wife now has a Kobo Aura HD and it is not broken. You had a three HDs and they all broke. Maybe that should tell you that it was something you did that caused all three to break.

I've been in possession of six different Readers and not one of them ever had a broken screen. One of these is a Kobo Aura H2O.

We've been through this in another thread that it was something you did. Nobody else has ever had three Readers spontaneously have screen breakage. Just resign yourself that you did it and it's not Kobo's fault.

[JSWolf]

If you want a Reader with a larger screen than just 6", the H2O is quite nice. As for it being sluggish, the latest firmware has noticeably sped up page turns for ePub. Please ignore these naysayers when they say Kobo Readers are of poor build quality. They are wrong.

I've seen the new Kindle Paperwhite and it's build quality is no better than the H2O. Meaning both are good. If you go for a Kobo or a Kindle, you won't have to worry about build quality as long as you use a good case and treat it kindly remembering that they both have a glass substrate. Not the same glass as your phone or tablet.