MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Kobo Glo HD vs Kindle Paperwhite 3

tbm · 12-13-2015, 04:41 PM

My wife and I decided to finally upgrade from the Nook Simple Touch. After quite a bit of research, we bought a Kindle Paperwhite 3 for my wife (Amazon ecosystem; good customer support) and a Kobo Glo HD for me (EPUB support; hackable; not Amazon).

After feeling excited about getting a Kobo, I now feel disappointed by the software and wish I had gotten a PW3 myself. I tested the Kobo with 3.18 and 3.19.5613. My use cases are: 1) Read non-DRM EPUB books (sideloaded via USB); 2) read newspapers/magazines (in particular The Economist, generated via calibre's download from the web function), and 3) given the 300 dpi screen, I was thinking of reading PDFs (textbooks).

Problems with the Kobo:

Highlighting is slow: I make a lot of highlights so this is a major problem for me. Highlighting text is slow and when I try to change what is highlighted the Kobo takes a second or more to react. I thought it might be an issue with the touch screen but KOReader is much faster (but has other issues). The PW3 reacts instantly.
Hard to press footnotes: when I try to press a footnote, I usually end up on the next page instead of the footnote.
Line spacing doesn't work with some sideloaded books (I know a patch is available on this forum)
The dictionary doesn't know about basic words, such as abandoning or retrenching.
PDF: when you use landscape mode, the menu is still displayed in portrait mode.
PDF: When you zoom so only half a page is shown, pressing the screen goes to the next page instead of the second half of the page.
PDF: When you zoom and align a page so it fits nice and go to the next page, the alignment of the page is lost.
No option for 24h time in English, but fortunately easy to change the config file to en_GB (thanks to this forum!)

In addition to these problems with the Kobo, the Kindle has some nice features I miss on the Kobo:

When reading a magazine, the progress bar shows "next article: title". I can easily skip articles with one click. On the Kobo, I need 3 clicks (open the menu; go to next chapter; close menu).
The table of content in magazines is much nicer.
You can highlight across multiple pages.
Clicking a footnote brings up a window.

One downside of the Kindle:

It often shows "loc" instead of page numbers (for sideloaded content).

One nice feature of the Kobo:

Multiple dictionaries by default.

So overall, I'm disappointed by the Kobo. It's strange because everyone on this forum seems so happy with their Kobo.

Are these known issues, are there any workarounds and how realistic is it that these issues will be fixed in a future firmware update?

I'd say the two issues that concern me most are the slow text highlighting and the missing "next article" for magazines. I can probably work around the PDF issues by using k2pdfopt to create PDFs optimized for e-book readers and I can live with the other issues.

12-13-2015, 04:41 PM	#1
tbm Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: Nook STR, Kobo Glo HD	Kobo Glo HD vs Kindle Paperwhite 3 - some impressions My wife and I decided to finally upgrade from the Nook Simple Touch. After quite a bit of research, we bought a Kindle Paperwhite 3 for my wife (Amazon ecosystem; good customer support) and a Kobo Glo HD for me (EPUB support; hackable; not Amazon). After feeling excited about getting a Kobo, I now feel disappointed by the software and wish I had gotten a PW3 myself. I tested the Kobo with 3.18 and 3.19.5613. My use cases are: 1) Read non-DRM EPUB books (sideloaded via USB); 2) read newspapers/magazines (in particular The Economist, generated via calibre's download from the web function), and 3) given the 300 dpi screen, I was thinking of reading PDFs (textbooks). Problems with the Kobo: Highlighting is slow: I make a lot of highlights so this is a major problem for me. Highlighting text is slow and when I try to change what is highlighted the Kobo takes a second or more to react. I thought it might be an issue with the touch screen but KOReader is much faster (but has other issues). The PW3 reacts instantly. Hard to press footnotes: when I try to press a footnote, I usually end up on the next page instead of the footnote. Line spacing doesn't work with some sideloaded books (I know a patch is available on this forum) The dictionary doesn't know about basic words, such as abandoning or retrenching. PDF: when you use landscape mode, the menu is still displayed in portrait mode. PDF: When you zoom so only half a page is shown, pressing the screen goes to the next page instead of the second half of the page. PDF: When you zoom and align a page so it fits nice and go to the next page, the alignment of the page is lost. No option for 24h time in English, but fortunately easy to change the config file to en_GB (thanks to this forum!) In addition to these problems with the Kobo, the Kindle has some nice features I miss on the Kobo: When reading a magazine, the progress bar shows "next article: title". I can easily skip articles with one click. On the Kobo, I need 3 clicks (open the menu; go to next chapter; close menu). The table of content in magazines is much nicer. You can highlight across multiple pages. Clicking a footnote brings up a window. One downside of the Kindle: It often shows "loc" instead of page numbers (for sideloaded content). One nice feature of the Kobo: Multiple dictionaries by default. So overall, I'm disappointed by the Kobo. It's strange because everyone on this forum seems so happy with their Kobo. Are these known issues, are there any workarounds and how realistic is it that these issues will be fixed in a future firmware update? I'd say the two issues that concern me most are the slow text highlighting and the missing "next article" for magazines. I can probably work around the PDF issues by using k2pdfopt to create PDFs optimized for e-book readers and I can live with the other issues.