Hi,
I bought a Tolino Vision 3 HD last Saturday for 150 CHF. Previously I had a Kobo Aura for 2.5 years; that died this Summer so I replaced it with a Kobo Aura H2O. Unfortunately I managed to lose / have that stolen after aboutone month, and I was interested in giving a Tolino a go (also I can easily pick one up locally here in CH). As for case, I am using the one I used to use for my Kobo Aura (actually a Kobo Glo case picked up for a pittance from WH Smiths a couple of years ago).
Hardware
I love the hardware - the screen is really clear and the lighting is very good. Better than my old Aura (as to be expected), probably better than the H2O. The unit is light, and ergonomically I prefer it to what I had previously (very nice feel to it, the bevel is better than I though it would be for holding in various positions - feels great in my hands). I do appreciate that is waterproof (although my days reading in the bath seem to be in the past).
Reading Experience
As for the reading experience... I did use to use the advanced font (such as weight) settings on my Kobo (as long as I stuck to a native font). Of course the Tolino does not have that, but I miss it less than I thought I would. I generally use the publisher settings, but will override the line spacing preference to something more to my liking. Ocasionally I do change fonts, and I have installed bookerley (and another font whose name I cannot remember).
Turning pages is good (unless the epub is corrupt or there is something the Tolino does not like about the file), text selection is better than in Kobo and so far I find the dictionaries (mono-lingual and bilingual) better than on the Kobo; so overall I'm very happy but there are a few things that bother me:
- impossible to zoom in on images in an epub
E.g. a table, a picture of an image of text rather than text itself. This is a real problem for me, and might push me to obtain a new Kobo (the Tolino I'll keep for pure fiction, or for the family as it is good in many other repects).
- in book search is 'clumsy'
With my kobo, I would long-press a name or word to selct, and in the pop up would choose to search within the book. The results were displayed nicely, it was easy to go from result to result and get back to your starting place.
With Tolino, I have to type the word in the search box. Also it displays results from your point onwards in the book, and not from the start. Lastly it is difficult to get back to your original starting place.
+ Landscape / Portrait
Great Tolino feature which the Kobo does hot have with the stock Nickel reader.
Library Management
The Kobo excels here IMO - lots of sorting/searching options. What I *really* miss is being able to see the book summary (prepared in Calibre) as I used to with Kobo. I really do miss it! IIRC, Kobo search was also done on this description as well as book/author name. It also means that a trilogy I wanted to start I could not because I was not sure which book came first!
As collection organisation for Kobo with Calibre was so easy, I loaded quite a few books and used collections quite extensively. I now know it is possible with Calibre and Tolino (following instructions here form church mouse, or going to lesen.net), just have to find the time...
Stats
I had got used to Kobo's stats - how long left to read, how long reading etc. I also liked the feature that showed me how the book was made up (a bar chart showing lenght of each chapter). But I can live with that.
Bookstore / Front Screen
I do not like the Tolino approach whereby 1/3 of my screen is taken up by a book shop and I cannot change that. But I understand why they do it, and I do not care much more than that. I did buy a book form one of the participating retailers a few years back, will have to dig out the login information (so far I have not logged into a shop with the Tolino). Tolino cloud sounds interesting, but not yet tried it out.
I much preferred the Kobo screen.
Public Library
My local library partcipates in online lending (onleihe.net) and there seems to be a big regional collection where I am. But for pleasure I prefer reading in English... Although I am interested in reading some stuff in German (shame that neither Kobo or Tolino have the Vocabulary Builder that I have read the Kindles have).
Conclusion
I'm quite happy with the Tolino. Library management is quite primative, but I van get over that. The main issue I have is with images in epubs, in that I have not yet found a way to zoom in as I could with the Kobo. I might upload a screenshot form the Tolino to explain what I am talking about (actually I'll probably open a new thread on that).
I do read and write German, so will have at look at lesen.net. Not sure if I can be bothered to root the device or try to install an alternative reader (I liked having KoReader on my Kobo
