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Old 11-05-2012, 05:37 PM   #1
Krykorya
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Which ereader: functional microSD compatibility.
Good morning. Long-time lurker, first-time poster hoping for some assistance replacing her K4B. I'm very fond of raiding Amazon's free books, the Baen Free Library, Project Gutenberg and the Patricia Clark Memorial Library. As a result, I have a large number of books - too many to fit in the very restrictive internal space provided with the K4B. I'm a hoarder who enjoys taking her everything everywhere (you should see the size of my handbag!).

As a result, I've invested in an 8GB microSD card and loaded it with as many ebooks as possible. Now I just need to find a reader which will support the card. (I am acquainted with Apprentice Alf, so Amazon-dependency is non-existent.) As I'm located in Australia and I do not want to spend over $200, my options as I see them are: Kobo Touch, Kobo Wifi, Sony PRS-T1 and Sony PRS-T2. (I would include the iRiver Story HD, but I have a microSD card rather than a full-sized SD card. I do not include the Kobo Glo because I'm not interested in front-lighting.)

I'd rather not get the Kobo Wifi, as it's now two generations old. I view the PRS-T1 and PRS-T2 as having totally negligible differences, as I will be purchasing whichever I can find in a brick-and-mortar store. So when choosing between Kobo and Sony, my question is this: which device is more capable of handling a microSD card and several thousand shelved books, without crapping out?

Thank you for any advice.
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Old 11-05-2012, 10:44 PM   #2
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I can't answer you question with respect to the Sony devices.

The Kobo Touch can handle thousands of books, but shelving then is impractical from the device. The calibre driver will do this based on columns in the calibre library. How practical this is, I don't know as I normally have less than 500 books on my Touch. I actually have over 200 shelves and extra 500 books on the SD card at the moment while I test something. The first time i did this the setup of the shelves took a few minutes, but syncing now is a lot faster.

You should also reconsider the Kobo Glo. The front lighting is the main thing mentioned, but it has a faster CPU (1GHz vz 800MHz in the Touch) and a higher screen resolution (1024*758 vs 800*600).
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Old 11-06-2012, 07:50 AM   #3
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Have a list of all those books and a link ? =)
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Old 11-06-2012, 05:49 PM   #4
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Originally Posted by DakaPhoenix View Post
Have a list of all those books and a link ? =)
Patricia Clark Memorial Library
Baen Free Library
eReaderIQ
Daily Free Books
Archive.org
Open Library
Project Gutenberg
Many Books
Amazon's Top 100 Free

I don't have a list of all of the books that I have (it'd take an awful long time to assemble!), but the free ones have all been acquired thanks to the above links.
Last edited by Alexander Turcic; 11-07-2012 at 04:39 AM. Reason: approved
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Old 11-06-2012, 05:52 PM   #5
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I can't answer you question with respect to the Sony devices.

The Kobo Touch can handle thousands of books, but shelving then is impractical from the device. The calibre driver will do this based on columns in the calibre library. How practical this is, I don't know as I normally have less than 500 books on my Touch. I actually have over 200 shelves and extra 500 books on the SD card at the moment while I test something. The first time i did this the setup of the shelves took a few minutes, but syncing now is a lot faster.

You should also reconsider the Kobo Glo. The front lighting is the main thing mentioned, but it has a faster CPU (1GHz vz 800MHz in the Touch) and a higher screen resolution (1024*758 vs 800*600).
Thank you for that. I do currently use Calibre to organise the collections on my Kindle, so if Kobo shelves books in a similar fashion to Kindle, then it will be just fine for me.

As far as the improved specs on the Kobo Glo - my eyes are bad enough that the increased screen resolution is unlikely to make any difference to me, but do you think that the increased CPU speed would improve performance when specifically reading from the microSD? I've heard that both Kobo and Sony devices experience serious slow-down when accessing the card.
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Old 11-06-2012, 08:43 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Krykorya View Post
Thank you for that. I do currently use Calibre to organise the collections on my Kindle, so if Kobo shelves books in a similar fashion to Kindle, then it will be just fine for me.
I've never used a Kindle, so I don't really know how the collections work there.

For the Kobo devices, you define one or more columns to be used for shelves. The driver creates a shelf for each value in the columns and puts all books with that value on the shelf. For my configuration, I use a custom tag-like column and the series column.
Quote:
As far as the improved specs on the Kobo Glo - my eyes are bad enough that the increased screen resolution is unlikely to make any difference to me, but do you think that the increased CPU speed would improve performance when specifically reading from the microSD? I've heard that both Kobo and Sony devices experience serious slow-down when accessing the card.
I wasn't thinking of the SD card. I was simply thinking of the number of books in the library lists. The Kobo devices load the details of the books into an internal database. Everything except actually reading the books works off the database. The faster CPU will make going through the lists or searching faster. The comments I have seen for people with both the Touch and Glo say the Glo is "snappier".

As to performance from the SD card, I can't say I have seen a difference. I don't normally use one, but put one in to test at times. The initial load of the books into the library is no slower than from the main memory. About the only performance hit is with cover images. For books in the main memory, these are generated the first time you see them and saved in the memory. But, for books on the SD card, they are generated each time. This can make displaying the library list seem slow. But, if you are scrolling through the list you can go to the next page before the images are displayed.

Also, commenting on the SD card performance is interesting for another reason. The internal memory of the Glo and some of the Touch's is actually a micro SD card. Kobo might have optimised the access from the internal card, but I would expect it to be similar for both.
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Old 11-08-2012, 01:28 AM   #7
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For the Kobo devices, you define one or more columns to be used for shelves. The driver creates a shelf for each value in the columns and puts all books with that value on the shelf. For my configuration, I use a custom tag-like column and the series column.
As far as I'm aware, the Kindle works in the same fashion. At least, the UI has the appearance of what you've described - and I also use a custom column on calibre to organise and sort such shelves. So it sounds as though Kobo and Kindle are similar enough for Kobo to suit my purposes perfectly in the shelving respect.

Quote:
I wasn't thinking of the SD card. I was simply thinking of the number of books in the library lists. The Kobo devices load the details of the books into an internal database. Everything except actually reading the books works off the database. The faster CPU will make going through the lists or searching faster. The comments I have seen for people with both the Touch and Glo say the Glo is "snappier".
Point taken - thanks for elaborating. I'll see if I can withstand the front-lighting when we have some Glos in Australian brick and mortar stores. (I suppose I can always turn it off, though, can't I?)

Thanks for your help.
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Old 11-08-2012, 10:05 AM   #8
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I would include the iRiver Story HD, but I have a microSD card rather than a full-sized SD card.
Just to add that you can get micro-to-full SD card adapters pretty cheap.
I've used several, and had no issues at all. I've even used a micro SD card with a microSD->SD adapter inside a SD->CF adapter in an older camera that takes CompactFlash cards.
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Old 11-08-2012, 04:06 PM   #9
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sony, for whatever reason, works wonderfully for collections. So if you don't want to mess around with creating/editing collections, go with a sony.

I don't use a card myself because of the power drain [however small it might be]...
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Old 11-08-2012, 05:27 PM   #10
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Old 11-08-2012, 08:02 PM   #11
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Which Kindle is the K4B?
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Old 11-08-2012, 09:26 PM   #12
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Point taken - thanks for elaborating. I'll see if I can withstand the front-lighting when we have some Glos in Australian brick and mortar stores. (I suppose I can always turn it off, though, can't I?)
Yes, you can turn the light off. From the Kobo forum, a lot of people are keeping the light on full-time. They like the screen better even in reasonable light.

I have seen a post elsewhere that JB Hi-Fi will have them next week. And Harvey Norman have them on their site but no stock.
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Old 11-10-2012, 08:21 PM   #13
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Nooks can use Micro SD cards. Here's a thread about how to do it, if you're interested. http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/...d/td-p/1224626
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Old 11-10-2012, 11:47 PM   #14
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Nooks can use Micro SD cards. Here's a thread about how to do it, if you're interested. http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/...d/td-p/1224626
I live in Australia.
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