MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Do not buy kobo ebook readers

davidfor · 11-12-2015, 05:55 AM

macsek: I'm curious, you make complaints about he Aura H2O, but, have you noticed that all the Kobo use the same firmware? OK, the official release for the Mini is behind the others*, but they all use the same basic firmware, with the same features and, unfortunately, the same bugs. Kobo have consistently done this for the last few years as they have added new devices.

Yes, there are bugs. Some minor, some major. Some get fixed with each firmware version, some don't and unfortunately some get added. Overall, I think the firmware is getting better. Features, stability, bugs improve with each version.

And as to the bugs, have you told Kobo about them? I have no idea how Kobo decides which bugs to fix, but the first thing is that they need to know the bug exists. Don't assume that any software development team knows about the bugs, tell them. And tell them in detail. The other reason to tell them about the bugs is it helps them to know which are the important bugs. All development teams will fix officially reported bugs before ones mentioned in some random online forum.

You also list some missing things. Yep, Kobo eredears do not do those things (well, you can zoom images in kepubs, and the browser can download books). But, these are design decisions. Kobo has decided what it wants the devices to do and what it doesn't want to do. Those decisions are probably based on what Kobo thinks its customers want and how much it will cost to do. And what they think will sell books and devices. Luckily, some of those things you want are done by other devices, so you have a choice of what is important to you.

The selection problems you see, I don't. I use them heavily to mark errors in books that I might want to fix. I can select words with or without punctuation in epubs and kepubs. The selection is designed to make it easier to select a full words and will include one punctuation character. This can make it harder to select two characters, but not impossible.

* Kobo have released firmware 3.18.0 for the Mini in Japan. While it isn't officially release for the Mini in the rest of the world, there is no risk to installing it.

11-12-2015, 05:55 AM	#9
davidfor Grand Sorcerer Posts: 24,905 Karma: 47303824 Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Sydney, Australia Device: Kobo:Touch,Glo, AuraH2O, GloHD,AuraONE, ClaraHD, Libra H2O; tolinoepos	macsek: I'm curious, you make complaints about he Aura H2O, but, have you noticed that all the Kobo use the same firmware? OK, the official release for the Mini is behind the others, but they all use the same basic firmware, with the same features and, unfortunately, the same bugs. Kobo have consistently done this for the last few years as they have added new devices. Yes, there are bugs. Some minor, some major. Some get fixed with each firmware version, some don't and unfortunately some get added. Overall, I think the firmware is getting better. Features, stability, bugs improve with each version. And as to the bugs, have you told Kobo about them? I have no idea how Kobo decides which bugs to fix, but the first thing is that they need to know the bug exists. Don't assume that any software development team knows about the bugs, tell them. And tell them in detail. The other reason to tell them about the bugs is it helps them to know which are the important bugs. All development teams will fix officially reported bugs before ones mentioned in some random online forum. You also list some missing things. Yep, Kobo eredears do not do those things (well, you can zoom images in kepubs, and the browser can download books). But, these are design decisions. Kobo has decided what it wants the devices to do and what it doesn't want to do. Those decisions are probably based on what Kobo thinks its customers want and how much it will cost to do. And what they think will sell books and devices. Luckily, some of those things you want are done by other devices, so you have a choice of what is important to you. The selection problems you see, I don't. I use them heavily to mark errors in books that I might want to fix. I can select words with or without punctuation in epubs and kepubs. The selection is designed to make it easier to select a full words and will include one punctuation character. This can make it harder to select two characters, but not impossible. Kobo have released firmware 3.18.0 for the Mini in Japan. While it isn't officially release for the Mini in the rest of the world, there is no risk to installing it.