[rogerinnyc]

So, in part spurred by this thread and in part by my partial dissatisfaction with my new KV (coming from a PW2), I went and ordered a Kobo H2O for comparison's sake. Bottom line? I prefer the Kindle Voyage -- and may even end up sticking with the PW2.

Some details.

1. The Kobo has great font type, font weight, font sizing, line spacing and margin options. Really good stuff. Downside? If you're sticking with the Amazon ecosystem and sideloading epubs, the line spacing and margin options don't work. You have to do a lot of extra effort in Calibre to make sure that the conversion for each book comes out exactly as you want. And, to boot, the sideloading process is quite slow (once you disconnect your Kobo, it needs to process the new files for a fair amount of time)

2. The Kobo's IR screen turning system just isn't as responsive as the KV's capacitive screen. More than I would like, I find myself having to re-tap a page on the Kobo to get it to turn. More importantly, whether you set the screen refresh to every page or every six pages (or somewhere in between, which the Kobo allows), the page turn is noticeably slower than either my KV or my PW2. Less snappy is how I would put it.

3. Even though the Kobo offers you 4 different tap zone set ups, none of them mimic the Kindle set up and, for my tastes, none of them are particularly good. The latest software update added a 4th choice for one-handed reading, with the bottom one-third of the screen devoted to page forward, but it's evenly balanced with settings in the middle and page back at the top, whereas, again only IMO, it needs to be something closer to the entire 2/3rds of the bottom of the screen being page forward to be really useful.

4. Unless you hack your Kobo (which is pretty easy and a plus, for sure), the extra space of the 6.8" screen is eaten up by the header and footer (when using kepubs) and by the footer when using sideloaded epubs (no header for those). Hacking (or Patching in their forum) fixes this, but not everyone will want to do that.

5. I love that the Kobo gives you the bookcover of your current title as the screensaver (and you can optionally choose to include a small overlay with reading stats). I get this on my PW2 with NiLuJe's screensaver hack, but so far nothing is available for the Kindle Voyage in this regard and there may never be.

6. Speaking of screens, all three devices are really good, with, IMO, the KV and the H2O at the very top and the PW2 only slightly -- very slightly -- below. I agree with others that the KV has more of a bluish, cold tint, and the H2O is more yellow and warm. I'm honestly not sure which I prefer. And, unless I am looking at it side-by-side with the KV, I would have thought it would be hard to beat the PW2 display -- especially using the font hack (thanks again, NiLuJe) to put Georgia on it (again, not a current possibility for the KV, but available as one of the font choices on the H2O). There are those who have said the PW2 text looks like it is under glass, whereas the KV text looks like it is floating right on top, and I think there is some truth to this.

7. I wasn't sure I was going to prefer it, but I now like/prefer the flush bezel of the KV, as compared to the inset of both the H2O and the PW2. Obviously, this is totally subjective.

8. I was someone who was upset when Amazon discontinued having buttons on its readers. But I adapted and now find the touchscreen method to be unobtrusive to my reading. But I certainly liked the idea of the pressure points for page turns on the KV -- the execution, not so much. Again, this is personal preference, but for how I hold my Kindles, my thumb naturally falls higher up on the bezel than where Amazon has placed the page forward zones on the KV. It's much easier to move my thumb to the screen then to move it down and align with the pressure point. So I've turned them off.

9. Similarly, I like the idea of auto-dimming on the KV in concept -- but in execution I found it didn't adjust enough for my tastes, so it too is now turned off. One nice H2O feature is the ability to adjust lighting by sliding your finger up and down on the screen's left margin. It's also only two taps to turn wifi on and off on the H2O (but there's no 3G option if you care).

10. I have found battery life on the H2O and the PW2 to be significantly better than on the KV. With relatively heavy use and leaving wifi/3g on, I'm having to recharge the KV every 2 to 3 days. it would be a close call lasting a long weekend.

11. Size and weight are very personal preferences -- and I'm not sure where I come out. The KV is the smallest and lightest and, initially, I thought it was too small (in terms of bezels and ability to hold) as compared to the PW2 -- but with some use and getting accustomed to it, I no longer feel that way and enjoy its feel and small size. The H2O is obviously larger and heavier -- certainly you can still read it with one hand, but you probably will not be able to fit it into a jacket or pants pocket -- and you can definitely tell the weight difference when holding it. Nonetheless, I can also see preferring the dimensions and heft of the Kobo -- it's closer to a trade paperback.

So those are my main comparisons. I think the Kobo is going back and I'll most likely keep the KV -- although I could also (primarily because of the screensaver and font hacks) see myself just sticking with the PW2.