[disconnected]

It started off well. The combination of the light weight, the asymmetrical bezel, and the rubbery surface make it amazingly comfortable to hold, even for my not terribly strong hands. I like my Oasis One but it actually feels too thin and my hands tend to cramp while holding it. I returned my Oasis Two because it seemed heavy, unwieldy, and slippery, and the front edges felt very sharp. The Forma feels just right.

I like fairly wide margins so the stripe, while visible, is no problem for me. The rest of the screen looked fine, with only a slight shift in brightness across the screen.

I loaded a few books from Calibre and read a bit, with and without the case. The power button was inconsistently sluggish but I figured I could live with it. Having to tip the Forma back and forth a couple of times on startup to get the orientation correct was a bit disconcerting, but not a big deal.

The problems began, possibly coincidentally, when I neglected to disable wifi (I usually keep it turned off on all my ereaders) and the latest update downloaded and installed.

The first sign of trouble was that it started freezing intermittently, requiring a soft reset to get it going again.

I thought I’d start again from the beginning so last night I did a factory reset. It went through the update process again and then I signed on and downloaded a few books directly from Kobo (I didn’t connect to the computer at all). Everything looked good but It was late by then so I disabled wifi and put it to sleep.

This morning I woke it up and it seemed fine at first. Until I switched hands and it locked up again. Soft reset. Same thing. Ok, soft reset again and try not switching hands for a while. Hmm, buttons are working but tapping the right side of the screen does nothing. Tapping the left side of the screen brings up the settings bar. I have it set to auto rotate and am holding it upright in portrait orientation. At some level it knows which end is up because the settings bar appears at the top; however at some other level of consciousness it might think it is in landscape mode and being held accordingly because it interprets a left side tap as a top tap? Ok, another soft reset and now it thinks I have no books downloaded. Sync and one book, the one I was reading, reappears. I re-download two more and open one of them. Buttons, fine. Taps, fine. Hold breath, switch hands. Still ok. Turn to landscape. Buttons fine. Top tap, fine. Right tap, fine. Left tap, nothing. Turn other way up, buttons fine, tap top, right, and left, all fine. Try portrait again. Left hand. Buttons fine, top tap nothing, right tap nothing, left tap, settings again. Right hand, all fine. Left hand, total freeze.

I guess it’s time to give up.