MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

franklekens · 06-30-2021, 07:49 AM

Assuming some people will be curious about the Elipsa, here's my experience so far: it's rather heavy. The only thing I can compare it with is the Onyx, and that does feel a bit lighter. The sleepcover alone that comes with the Elipsa already feels as heavy as the Kobo Forma (without cover), and then you haven't put the Elipsa in yet. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to detach it from the sleepcover, and certainly easy to click it back in.

I miss the physical buttons of the Forma, although I admit it would hard to find a placement for those buttons that will please everyone, since it's so large: they'll always be out of reach of *somebody*'s thumb (depending on which way up you hold the device. Still. It does have a broad bezel on the side, or how do you call it -- which is perfect for a hand grip. But all that space for buttons, and nothing there. Just one rather difficult to press on/off button on the side.

Can't say anything about the stylus or drawing or writing on it. My artistic skills are nil and I just don't use that functionality.

Now as to reading pdfs. That's a bit of a disapointment, so far. And hardly any options or settings to steer this right, that I could find at least.

Some pdfs look okay from the get go. (E.g. one pdf of an actual print book downloaded from archive.org.)

But here's a pdf that doesn't look so fine. Granted, this might be one I could convert to epub, but that's not the point. Suppose it wasn't, this is how it looks like on the Onyx (to the left) versus the Kobo Elipsa:

Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments.

Most of you can't read Dutch, but you'll see and probably agree the font is far too small to be legible on the Kobo. I've forgotten whether I had to tweak anything on the Onyx to get it to display the book the way it looks now, but I don't even think so. And it's zoomed to the optimum size to be legible *and* stil display one whole page per screen. Perfect.

So we zoom, you'd think. If I go to Zoom on the Kobo, I get this screen.
Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments.

You'd think the plus button would increment the zoom in small steps. No, I pressed it looked like this:
Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments.

Zoomed way too far in, not even fitting a single line on the screen anymore. So you have to zoom out, but for that you have to slide the slider manually. And the Ellipsa is faster than the Forma. (E.g. if you turn it upside down, the page immediately flips; on the Forma, it feels like I have to wait ages for it to do so). But not so fast that it still isn't an ereader: these operations are much more sluggish than on an average tablet.

So okay, as if by magic I find a sweet spot on the slider with which I can get the entire page of text to fill one screen and still be legible, like so. Fine.

But what happens if i go to the next page? Don't worry, it does keep the zoom level, you don't have to zoom all over again. But... the reader doesn't understand that all I want to read is the text, not the margins.
Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments.

So it displays the page from the top left, and I have to drag the text back to the middle. And this for every page. And did I mention that this is rather sluggish?

So basically, as far as I can see, for reading some PDF's the Elipsa is pretty rubbish. And that's not an inherent limitation of PDF reading per se (much as I hate PDF and would simply like to blame that file format for everything that's wrong with the world). Because Onyx does seem to get that right. (There's plenty the Onyx doesn't get right for me, don't worry. But it does this thing.)

Or am I overlooking something or simply doing something wrong on the Elipsa? Let me know.

Otherwise, maybe a firmware update will improve this.

06-30-2021, 07:49 AM	#1
franklekens Addict Posts: 398 Karma: 3421956 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: various Kobo's, Onyx Note2, Pocketbook 360, Kindle Keyboard	Elipsa: reading pdfs Assuming some people will be curious about the Elipsa, here's my experience so far: it's rather heavy. The only thing I can compare it with is the Onyx, and that does feel a bit lighter. The sleepcover alone that comes with the Elipsa already feels as heavy as the Kobo Forma (without cover), and then you haven't put the Elipsa in yet. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to detach it from the sleepcover, and certainly easy to click it back in. I miss the physical buttons of the Forma, although I admit it would hard to find a placement for those buttons that will please everyone, since it's so large: they'll always be out of reach of somebody's thumb (depending on which way up you hold the device. Still. It does have a broad bezel on the side, or how do you call it -- which is perfect for a hand grip. But all that space for buttons, and nothing there. Just one rather difficult to press on/off button on the side. Can't say anything about the stylus or drawing or writing on it. My artistic skills are nil and I just don't use that functionality. Now as to reading pdfs. That's a bit of a disapointment, so far. And hardly any options or settings to steer this right, that I could find at least. Some pdfs look okay from the get go. (E.g. one pdf of an actual print book downloaded from archive.org.) But here's a pdf that doesn't look so fine. Granted, this might be one I could convert to epub, but that's not the point. Suppose it wasn't, this is how it looks like on the Onyx (to the left) versus the Kobo Elipsa: Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments. Most of you can't read Dutch, but you'll see and probably agree the font is far too small to be legible on the Kobo. I've forgotten whether I had to tweak anything on the Onyx to get it to display the book the way it looks now, but I don't even think so. And it's zoomed to the optimum size to be legible and stil display one whole page per screen. Perfect. So we zoom, you'd think. If I go to Zoom on the Kobo, I get this screen. Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments. You'd think the plus button would increment the zoom in small steps. No, I pressed it looked like this: Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments. Zoomed way too far in, not even fitting a single line on the screen anymore. So you have to zoom out, but for that you have to slide the slider manually. And the Ellipsa is faster than the Forma. (E.g. if you turn it upside down, the page immediately flips; on the Forma, it feels like I have to wait ages for it to do so). But not so fast that it still isn't an ereader: these operations are much more sluggish than on an average tablet. So okay, as if by magic I find a sweet spot on the slider with which I can get the entire page of text to fill one screen and still be legible, like so. Fine. But what happens if i go to the next page? Don't worry, it does keep the zoom level, you don't have to zoom all over again. But... the reader doesn't understand that all I want to read is the text, not the margins. Click here for image because inserting it in the message makes the image too big and the forum won't let me upload attachments. So it displays the page from the top left, and I have to drag the text back to the middle. And this for every page. And did I mention that this is rather sluggish? So basically, as far as I can see, for reading some PDF's the Elipsa is pretty rubbish. And that's not an inherent limitation of PDF reading per se (much as I hate PDF and would simply like to blame that file format for everything that's wrong with the world). Because Onyx does seem to get that right. (There's plenty the Onyx doesn't get right for me, don't worry. But it does this thing.) Or am I overlooking something or simply doing something wrong on the Elipsa? Let me know. Otherwise, maybe a firmware update will improve this. Last edited by franklekens; 06-30-2021 at 08:02 AM.