MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - More Kobo Kindle Kwandaries (I mean quandaries!)

windward · 12-02-2011, 08:09 PM

Yes, yes, I know that this appears so often that it's becoming tiresome, but if you'll forgive me I'll throw some more random questions in the mix...

Is the Kobo Touch usable "out of the box" without registering or downloading the Desktop Software? I don't have any desire to go buying new books as I only want an ereader for old public domain stuff and PDFs that I already have on my PC, and I don't even have wi-fi anyway so all that Store/ Reading Life/ Facebook (God save me from Facebook!!!) nonsense will be no loss to me. But do you lose some basic functionality as well? (Like with the Kindle Collections?)

Also is the Kobo Touch as glitchy as it sounds on these Forums? I have had the chance to grope at a demo version a couple of times and I found the touchscreen to be a lovely thing. (When I tried again on another day it did throw a few error messages at me but of course that could be due to ignorant yet curious customers messing with things they shouldn't or Kindle fanboys sabotaging the opposition)
If it works as expected it would be a good buy methinks but all these posts about corrupted databases, missing sideloads, sdcard and double page flipping worries me a little. (I've booted the Sony T1 off my list due to that near-terminal page flipping bug. Have they sorted that out yet??) It feels a little foolish spending £100+ on something that doesn't work properly in the hope that it might work properly in a couple of months.

As for the Kindle, from reading various forums it does seem to be the most stable of the devices but exactly how easy is it to use that new one (the non-touch)? Having just those four buttons and the five-way does seem rather awkward with all those shortcuts and I've seen many a YouTube reviewer scrolling a PDF by holding this and pressing that and oops- there goes the keyboard again! And when I see that I think back to fondling that Kobo Touch with a tender swipe and a jaunty prod. (And the Amazon Monster and exclusive club of file formats is a bit of a downer in my eyes. I know you can convert them but I've had a go with Calibre and it's a chore at best.)

Also ... Batteries. How long does it take to charge both the Kobo Touch and Kindle 4? And how long to they take to drain? I know they both say "up to" a month in a strangely ambiguous way but how does that translate into real use by real people?

Hmmm, that's all I can think of at the moment and I apologise if all these are answered in a thread that I overlooked. All help and knowledge will be greatly accepted but being from the poorly-treated UK all suggestions of Nook, Fire and Kindle Touch willl be sadly irrelevant.

12-02-2011, 08:09 PM	#1
windward Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: none?	More Kobo Kindle Kwandaries (I mean quandaries!) Yes, yes, I know that this appears so often that it's becoming tiresome, but if you'll forgive me I'll throw some more random questions in the mix... Is the Kobo Touch usable "out of the box" without registering or downloading the Desktop Software? I don't have any desire to go buying new books as I only want an ereader for old public domain stuff and PDFs that I already have on my PC, and I don't even have wi-fi anyway so all that Store/ Reading Life/ Facebook (God save me from Facebook!!!) nonsense will be no loss to me. But do you lose some basic functionality as well? (Like with the Kindle Collections?) Also is the Kobo Touch as glitchy as it sounds on these Forums? I have had the chance to grope at a demo version a couple of times and I found the touchscreen to be a lovely thing. (When I tried again on another day it did throw a few error messages at me but of course that could be due to ignorant yet curious customers messing with things they shouldn't or Kindle fanboys sabotaging the opposition) If it works as expected it would be a good buy methinks but all these posts about corrupted databases, missing sideloads, sdcard and double page flipping worries me a little. (I've booted the Sony T1 off my list due to that near-terminal page flipping bug. Have they sorted that out yet??) It feels a little foolish spending £100+ on something that doesn't work properly in the hope that it might work properly in a couple of months. As for the Kindle, from reading various forums it does seem to be the most stable of the devices but exactly how easy is it to use that new one (the non-touch)? Having just those four buttons and the five-way does seem rather awkward with all those shortcuts and I've seen many a YouTube reviewer scrolling a PDF by holding this and pressing that and oops- there goes the keyboard again! And when I see that I think back to fondling that Kobo Touch with a tender swipe and a jaunty prod. (And the Amazon Monster and exclusive club of file formats is a bit of a downer in my eyes. I know you can convert them but I've had a go with Calibre and it's a chore at best.) Also ... Batteries. How long does it take to charge both the Kobo Touch and Kindle 4? And how long to they take to drain? I know they both say "up to" a month in a strangely ambiguous way but how does that translate into real use by real people? Hmmm, that's all I can think of at the moment and I apologise if all these are answered in a thread that I overlooked. All help and knowledge will be greatly accepted but being from the poorly-treated UK all suggestions of Nook, Fire and Kindle Touch willl be sadly irrelevant.