Quote:
Originally Posted by GA Russell
If I'm standing in a Borders and on a budget, I think I'd rather go for the Aluratek Libre for $99.
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Since neither unit has user replaceable batteries (at least officially), I would say that paying slightly more for the Kobo might make the most sense in the long run.
The reason is pretty simple. I have (close to being had) a Jetbook which is more or less identical to the Libre. I found that when I first bought the unit, I was able to get about 20 hours or so of reading from the device. In practice, this meant I needed to charge it every 3 or 4 days.
The Kobo on the other hand, if it is at all similar to my wife's PRS-505 in terms of Battery Life (and since they both are basic e-Ink readers with no wifi or other battery draining features I expect it is), then you might well go two or more weeks between charges.
This difference is important because Li-Ion batteries (Which both units have) generally can be recharged 300-500 times before they stop functioning well. So, if we assume a minimum reharge cycle of 3 days for the Libre versus 14 days for the Kobo, at the end of two years, the Kobo has been charged between 50 and 60 times while the Libre has been recharged well over 200 times!.
In my personal experience after about 21-22 months with the Jetbook, the battery life had dropped by close to half and I was recharging every two days. Thus, I would expect to get about 3 years of life (at most) from a regularly used Libre.
Now, if we looked at merely the recharge cycles, we might expect the Kobo to last 10 years or more! In practice though, Li-Ion batteries do age independent of the charge cycles. Still, I would expect that the Kobo might well last 4 or 5 years before the battery made the device unusable (maybe longer, if the length a charge lasted dropped by 90% the Libre would need to be charged every 2 hours (i.e., not great if you like to read for an extended period) while the Kobo might still last more than a day of reading.
So, in the long run, if you choice is between these two devices, the Kobo might be the better value.
Just my thoughts on the matter.
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Bill