I like tinkering with my devices, and love the excitement of finding out what will be broken next by each new firmware update. I'm also a huge fan of the cover lottery to see if I win.
But seriously. This is what I like about the KA1 compared to my KPW1:
- *Much* more text on-screen at the same font size (especially after enabling and fixing the unofficial full-screen function)
- A lot more font-sizes than the Kindle. The KPW1 is often too small on size 4, too big on size 5, and everything below 4 and above 5 is unusable. (For me.)
- Ability to give fonts the weight I want. I don't want them bold, but I often find Baskerville and Palatino on the Kindle too thin, and Caecilia too thick.
- Ability to make the front-light less blue and more neutral
- The fact that Calibre can automatically manage collections using the KoboTouchExtended driver
- Because of the large screen (69% more space), it feels less cramped and more book-like than the Kindle. It feels much more like reading a book. It fits only 9-10 lines less text than a very large hardcover.
With regard to the last point, I'll give you an example. With my settings, and using a font size comparable to the one in a book, this is the result:
- Lord of the Rings, Alan Lee Illustrated Edition, 2005: 67 characters line width, 41 lines high, 2747 char/page. Text area is 12cm wide x 19.5cm high.
- KA1: 60 characters line width, 32 lines high. 1920 char/screen. Text area is 11.5cm wide x 15.3cm high.
So for an e-reader, the KA1 fits *a lot* of text, even compared to a *very large* hard cover. Comparing sizes:
Book: 16.8cm x 24.1cm, 2.5kg
KA1 (in cover): 12cm x 19.7cm, 372gr
So the KA1 fits 70% of the text of a *huge* hardcover page into a package that is only 58% of the size, and 15% of the weight of the hardcover. I think that's pretty darned good.
(If you think choosing this hardcover is unfair because it's an illustrated edition: I have hardcovers that are just as large as that, and one even larger, that are not illustrated.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pajamaman
I can see bigger fonts would help a smallish sector of readers, but I find it hard to believe that that is the reason most people buy it.
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I offered to lend my mom my old Kindle. She's not tech savvy, so I put the books on there for her. She finally decided to try the Kindle, after confessing that she stopped reading many years ago because the fonts in the books were getting too small, even with reading glasses. (In the past, she read Harlequin romances by the dozens.)
I can certainly see older readers using e-readers (or tablets) especially because of the adjustable fonts and font sizes. (Especially if the device is managed for them, which, with an e-reader, comes down to putting some books on it every few weeks.)