Libra 2 Potential Libra 2 Purchase

[BookCat]

After reading that Amazon are possibly phasing out Transfer Via USB, I took a look at Kobo ereaders and fell in love with the form factor of the Libra 2.

Things I love about it:
The form factor. Its squarer shape and the buttons.
The gyroscope. I'm often switching between portrait and landscape mode. On my kindles, this involves faffing about with the page settings. I like the way turning the Libra 2 changes the mode for me.
The warm light. It appears much better than when I tried a Clara HD a few years ago. Had to send this back due to significant light bleed and bright spots.
Does anyone know if the Libra 2 has this problem? I haven't found any info about this.

Can I use the Libra 2 on permanent aeroplane mode? I don't have wifi (by choice) so need to download books to my laptop. I also need to be able to register the device without wifi. There's a possibility someone who lives over the road from me might let me use his wifi for registration, but he's been a hypochondriac since covid and hates having anyone in his house!

Does the battery hold its charge well? When I'm really into a book I read for two or three hours a day but don't like having to charge the battery every few days. My PW3 is beginning to lose charge even when sleeping, and its not indexing.

Is the Kobo site full of good cheap books? Do they often have freebies? Can I download them to my laptop to sideload?
Do you manage, while transfer via usb is available, to use Calibre and Alf to put books bought from Amazon onto a Libra 2?

After watching several videos, I really like the Libra 2, but I'm apprehensive after my experience with the Clara HD (this was a while ago, things may have changed.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BookCat

After reading that Amazon are possibly phasing out Transfer Via USB, I took a look at Kobo ereaders and fell in love with the form factor of the Libra 2.

Things I love about it:
The form factor. Its squarer shape and the buttons.
The gyroscope. I'm often switching between portrait and landscape mode. On my kindles, this involves faffing about with the page settings. I like the way turning the Libra 2 changes the mode for me.
The warm light. It appears much better than when I tried a Clara HD a few years ago. Had to send this back due to significant light bleed and bright spots.
Does anyone know if the Libra 2 has this problem? I haven't found any info about this.

There is no light bleed or bright spot.

Can I use the Libra 2 on permanent aeroplane mode? I don't have wifi (by choice) so need to download books to my laptop. I also need to be able to register the device without wifi. There's a possibility someone who lives over the road from me might let me use his wifi for registration, but he's been a hypochondriac since covid and hates having anyone in his house!

You can use Kobo Desktop on your computer to register your Kobo.
https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...ing-a-computer

Does the battery hold its charge well? When I'm really into a book I read for two or three hours a day but don't like having to charge the battery every few days. My PW3 is beginning to lose charge even when sleeping, and its not indexing.

Yes, the Libra 2 does hold a charge quite well.

Is the Kobo site full of good cheap books? Do they often have freebies? Can I download them to my laptop to sideload?
Do you manage, while transfer via usb is available, to use Calibre and Alf to put books bought from Amazon onto a Libra 2?

I've not browsed Kobo much so I cannot answer about the cheap books. But given that you are int he UK, I suggest also looking at eBooks.com as at ebooks.com, sometimes you can get some eBooks VAT free (as the Government intended). And there is also Google Play Books you can use. They do sometimes price match Amazon. And with Kobo, you can price match other stores such as Amazon if the price is lower.

Yes, it is easy to convert Amazon eBooks to ePub and read them with a Kobo. If Amazon was to take away Transfer & Install via USB, you could use an older version of the Kindle App for your computer to download KF8 eBooks from Amazon. What you need is the DeDRM plugin and Calibre to strip the DRM from Kindle eBooks and then you can convert and read on a Kobo. It's not difficult to get the DeDRM plugin and configure it to remove DRM from ePub and Kindle eBooks.

After watching several videos, I really like the Libra 2, but I'm apprehensive after my experience with the Clara HD (this was a while ago, things may have changed.)

The Libra 2 is a good reader. I have one and I do like it. The screen is quite nice and the buttons are not difficult to press. You can change which button is the forward and which is the back button so you can have it the way you prefer (if you are going to use the buttons).


[/QUOTE]

[Quoth]

My original Libra has had WiFi off a LONG time. Maybe nearly 2 years!
Ver 4.21.15012 Date 2020-05-13
2714 books 3G memory in use.

I've never bought a book off Kobo.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

My original Libra has had WiFi off a LONG time. Maybe nearly 2 years!
Ver 4.21.15012 Date 2020-05-13
2714 books 3G memory in use.

I've never bought a book off Kobo.

My H2O (no long over 6 years) has had the WiFi off most of the time and my Libra 2 the same. The only time I've really used WiFi was to update KOReader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Can I use the Libra 2 on permanent aeroplane mode? I don't have wifi (by choice) so need to download books to my laptop. I also need to be able to register the device without wifi. There's a possibility someone who lives over the road from me might let me use his wifi for registration, but he's been a hypochondriac since covid and hates having anyone in his house!

I'm going to assume that your laptop is using a wired connection? If so and your laptop runs Windows or MacOS, you could use the Kobo desktop app to register your Kobo. You might be able to stay outside the neighbour's house and connect to his wifi depending on router location and signal strength.

Originally Posted by BookCat

Is the Kobo site full of good cheap books? Do they often have freebies? Can I download them to my laptop to sideload?
Do you manage, while transfer via usb is available, to use Calibre and Alf to put books bought from Amazon onto a Libra 2?

The Kobo site does have a good selection of inexpensive or free books. You can use the download option from My Books to download them to your laptop, the DRM free ones will download with odd filenames (they look like a GUID) while DRM encumbered one will need ADE or calibre with the DeACSM plugin (likely, you would want to add the DeDRM plugin as well).

I have used transfer via USB a couple of times but at this time, I'm still using K4PC with the batch file to block KFX downloads. That solution may be an issue soon since the latest K4PC (1.35) breaks the batch file.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by DNSB

That solution may be an issue soon since the latest K4PC (1.35) breaks the batch file.

Oh, I am glad I spotted that tiny comment. I'll avoid updating.
Thanks @DNSB

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'm going to assume that your laptop is using a wired connection? If so and your laptop runs Windows or MacOS, you could use the Kobo desktop app to register your Kobo.

Yes, I use a powerline connection. The computer is Windows 7. I hope the Kobo desktop app will still run on this, because Kindle 4 PC doesn't.

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by DNSB

the DRM free ones will download with odd filenames (they look like a GUID) while DRM encumbered one will need ADE or calibre with the DeACSM plugin (likely, you would want to add the DeDRM plugin as well).

ADE confuses me. What does it do? I haven't heard of ACSM before, though I'm familiar with DRM. Will Alf deal with ACSM?

[BookCat]

Thanks everyone for the help. I think I'm going to take the plunge and iron out the wrinkles as I go along. I might be popping by to ask for help.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Yes, I use a powerline connection. The computer is Windows 7. I hope the Kobo desktop app will still run on this, because Kindle 4 PC doesn't.

Yes, Kobo Desktop will run on Windows 7.

Originally Posted by BookCat

ADE confuses me. What does it do? I haven't heard of ACSM before, though I'm familiar with DRM. Will Alf deal with ACSM?

ADE is Adobe Digital Editions. It's used to display ePub and to download DRMed ePub. The .acsm file is the file that gives ADE the instructions for downloading the ePub. It's easy to setup and use. If you need help, pleant of us here to give you a hand.

DeDRM (NoDRM version) will deal with the ePub once it's downloaded.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BookCat

ADE confuses me. What does it do? I haven't heard of ACSM before, though I'm familiar with DRM. Will Alf deal with ACSM?

ADE is Adobe Digital Editions. It's the application used by many people to download/read epubs. ACSM is Adobe Content Server Message. When you download an epub, in many cases, what you will get is a <filename>.acsm file. This file is used by ADE or the DeACSM calibre plugin to download the epub file. In Kobo's case, you will see the .acsm file when downloading DRM encumbered files.

DeDRM does not deal with .acsm files but will handle the .epub files downloaded using that file.

[BookCat]

It sounds complicated, but I'm sure this will all become clear.

I've bought the Libra 2 from the Kobo site. Hopefully it won't take long to arrive. Looking forward to reading on my new toy.

[Sirtel]

A word of warning. The latest Kobo update (4.31) is rather buggy, especially with sideloading. Fortunately you can downgrade a Kobo device to a previous firmware version, unlike a Kindle.

I won't go into details right now, but if you experience freezing, rebooting, corrupted database and so on, let us know and we'll instruct how to downgrade. Of course it's possible Kobo will have released a fix by then, but we have been waiting for it a while now...

[Tawn]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Does the battery hold its charge well?

It went dead on me overnight way too soon the first few cycles, but so far it's doing fine since then.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BookCat

It sounds complicated, but I'm sure this will all become clear.

Basically, when you buy an epub from any store, when you download it, you will either get the epub directly without any DRM or you get the ACSM file.

For the epub, you can just put it on the device.

For the ACSM file, you just let ADE handle it and it will download the epub. Then, ADE can let you read the book or put it on the device.

Just about everything else mentioned about this is something that isn't needed. You can do this with ADE or manually with no problems. Using calibre is a good idea if your library is large, but, it is not necessary. And I always recommend using the new device for a bit to get used to it and deciding what you do and don't like and then what you want to change.

I've bought the Libra 2 from the Kobo site. Hopefully it won't take long to arrive. Looking forward to reading on my new toy.

I'm sure you will enjoy it.