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civiliza · 10-13-2013, 07:27 AM

Sit ye down and hear my tale of woe.

With a Paperwhite 2 on order, finally discovered the new Kobo Aura in a UK retailer last Tuesday.

Thinking that it would be useful for borrowing from a UK library and would serve alongside the Paperwhite I bought one and took it home.

It would not set up without connecting online, and with the MAC address not available until it was set up, I set it up by connecting to the laptop. Anyway, all went well, was able to get the MAC address, and added it to the whitelist on my Router.

Despite being whitelisted however it would not hook up with my WiFi network. Two days of adjusting settings on my WiFi router based on tips found on this and other websites followed during which time I found out that the Kobo Aura was a nice compact rereader with a much more customiable reading experience, but did not like my router.

Anyway, on Thursday night / Friday morning (after accidentally blacklisting all my MAC addresses instead of whitelisting them) I gave up on self diagnosing the problem and emailed Kobo's helpdesk.

Given the time zone differences, the new Paperwhite 2 arrived before I received a reply (1st day of the Super Saver window, and 1 day ahead of the estimate when it was dispatched - kudos). The fact that the reply contained a standardised set of troubleshooting questions the majority of which I had already provided answers to was unpromising, but I stuck with it.

Little was offered in the way of router setting suggestions, but the following email conversation culminated in a suggestion to try a public area with a strong WiFi signal.

On Saturday I went into the retailer from where I bought the Kobo, and with the assistant's help was able to connect to their WiFi. Emailed Kobo helpdesk with this information, and the reponse (filtered through my probably biased by then opinion) was that if it could connect to the retailer's WiFi, then the Kobo's WiFi was working, and I should take it up with my ISP.

Since throughout this experience the rest of my home devices had been connecting to my WiFi without problems (and the new Paperwhite hooked up without problems from the first), I decided that this was the last straw, and have returned the Kobo to the retailer this morning and received a refund.

So, the new Paperwhite may be bigger, less customisable, and have less memory, but it worked for me first time whereas the Kobo never hooked up with my WiFi and the Kobo helpdesk support was not helpful wrt solving the issue.

End result Amazon 1 Kobo 0.

(Rant over)

Since I spent the majority of the time either reading on or trying to connect with the Kobo during the last week, I never did a side by side PW2 vs KA comparison, both screens seemed ok to me, although I was able to turn the Kobo's lighting down to 35% as opposed to a brighter 12 out of 24 for the Paperwhite.

Interface wise, Kobo syncing via USB cable seemed very slow, and personally I found that the best way to return to the full screen book (without residual menus top and bottom) after a setting change was to return to the home page and reselect the current book. That could just be me not driving it properly though.

10-13-2013, 07:27 AM	#1
civiliza Member Posts: 22 Karma: 5022 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: UK Device: K3, PW2	Amazon 1 Kobo 0 Sit ye down and hear my tale of woe. With a Paperwhite 2 on order, finally discovered the new Kobo Aura in a UK retailer last Tuesday. Thinking that it would be useful for borrowing from a UK library and would serve alongside the Paperwhite I bought one and took it home. It would not set up without connecting online, and with the MAC address not available until it was set up, I set it up by connecting to the laptop. Anyway, all went well, was able to get the MAC address, and added it to the whitelist on my Router. Despite being whitelisted however it would not hook up with my WiFi network. Two days of adjusting settings on my WiFi router based on tips found on this and other websites followed during which time I found out that the Kobo Aura was a nice compact rereader with a much more customiable reading experience, but did not like my router. Anyway, on Thursday night / Friday morning (after accidentally blacklisting all my MAC addresses instead of whitelisting them) I gave up on self diagnosing the problem and emailed Kobo's helpdesk. Given the time zone differences, the new Paperwhite 2 arrived before I received a reply (1st day of the Super Saver window, and 1 day ahead of the estimate when it was dispatched - kudos). The fact that the reply contained a standardised set of troubleshooting questions the majority of which I had already provided answers to was unpromising, but I stuck with it. Little was offered in the way of router setting suggestions, but the following email conversation culminated in a suggestion to try a public area with a strong WiFi signal. On Saturday I went into the retailer from where I bought the Kobo, and with the assistant's help was able to connect to their WiFi. Emailed Kobo helpdesk with this information, and the reponse (filtered through my probably biased by then opinion) was that if it could connect to the retailer's WiFi, then the Kobo's WiFi was working, and I should take it up with my ISP. Since throughout this experience the rest of my home devices had been connecting to my WiFi without problems (and the new Paperwhite hooked up without problems from the first), I decided that this was the last straw, and have returned the Kobo to the retailer this morning and received a refund. So, the new Paperwhite may be bigger, less customisable, and have less memory, but it worked for me first time whereas the Kobo never hooked up with my WiFi and the Kobo helpdesk support was not helpful wrt solving the issue. End result Amazon 1 Kobo 0. (Rant over) Since I spent the majority of the time either reading on or trying to connect with the Kobo during the last week, I never did a side by side PW2 vs KA comparison, both screens seemed ok to me, although I was able to turn the Kobo's lighting down to 35% as opposed to a brighter 12 out of 24 for the Paperwhite. Interface wise, Kobo syncing via USB cable seemed very slow, and personally I found that the best way to return to the full screen book (without residual menus top and bottom) after a setting change was to return to the home page and reselect the current book. That could just be me not driving it properly though.