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mkozlows · 10-23-2021, 12:26 AM

My Sage arrived today. A few thoughts:

1. I bought this thing for one reason and one reason only: USB-C. If they had made something exactly like the Forma, except instead of MicroUSB, it had USB-C, I would have bought it. I have USB-C chargers scattered around the house; when I travel, I pack a USB-C charger. Having this one single weird device that used a wacky obsolete charger has been driving me nuts. So mission accomplished right there, but it turns out this isn't just a Forma with a better USB port.

2. I was pretty skeptical of alleged Carta 1200 improvements, but supposedly this is more contrasty than previous einks. And... it is. Held up next to the Forma, it's clear that this looks more contrasty. And usually contrast improvements with eink have come in the form of whiter whites, but this time around, it's the black that's gotten darker. Is it a big deal? No. If you weren't holding them side-by-side, you might not even notice. But it's real.

3. Performance with this thing should be massively improved, since it's a quad-core CPU instead of the ancient single-core thing in the Forma. I wasn't sure how much this would matter, but it turns out to be a significant. All kinds of operations happen noticeably faster; really, it just turns a corner to actually feel responsive. Operating the UI isn't like pushing on molasses, where you tap a thing and there's a delay before anything responds. Page turns are noticeably faster, too -- I held the Forma and the Sage side-by-side at the same position in a book, and every page turn on the Forma was just clearly and visibly slower than on the Sage. (Caveat on performance is that I'm using KOReader, not the built-in stuff, which I didn't bother looking at.)

4. The page turn buttons are better. Here, I actually wanted a bigger improvement. Given that these buttons are like your main point of interface with the device, I want them to be luxury buttons -- crisp, precise travel, maybe formed of ceramic like the Nexus 5 volume buttons (still my reference for the best buttons I've ever encountered on a device). These aren't. They're still plastic, they've still got some mush to them, but they do have less deadzone travel than the Forma rocker buttons, and are noticeably crisper. Not where I'd want it to be, but a big improvement.

5. The power button is _much_ better. The Forma had this terrible small button on the edge that was a nightmare to push; this one has (as most of their other readers have had for a while now) a big round recessed button on the back that has a clear click when pressed.

So that's all the positives. The negatives are smaller:

1. It's heavier and thicker than the Forma. These are already big readers, with their 7.8" screens, and adding more mass isn't ideal. But at the same time, it's not enormously heavy or anything -- like 20% more than my phone -- and the weight is mostly toward your hand, so there's less torque from the weight than if it were evenly distributed. It's fine. But it is a step back from the Forma, which was noticeably lighter (due partially to using a Mobius screen with plastic instead of glass) and even more weighted toward the hand.

2. It's magnetic. I assume this is for the case you can buy for it, but it's sorta weird, in that it means the ereader ends up sticking to my (steel) nightstand.

The biggest unknown to me right now is battery life. It seems to be draining quickly, but I remember the Forma drained quickly at first, too -- I think it has to run some initial indexing or something? So we'll see where this ends up. Unless it's a complete disaster, though, I don't think it significantly will matter: Like, even if it only lasts 1/4 as long (which seems like a real worst case scenario), I'd rather have an e-reader that I recharge twice a week with USB-C than one that I recharge every two weeks with MicroUSB, tbh.

10-23-2021, 12:26 AM	#215
mkozlows Enthusiast Posts: 28 Karma: 937152 Join Date: Oct 2012 Device: Kobo Sage/KOReader	My Sage arrived today. A few thoughts: 1. I bought this thing for one reason and one reason only: USB-C. If they had made something exactly like the Forma, except instead of MicroUSB, it had USB-C, I would have bought it. I have USB-C chargers scattered around the house; when I travel, I pack a USB-C charger. Having this one single weird device that used a wacky obsolete charger has been driving me nuts. So mission accomplished right there, but it turns out this isn't just a Forma with a better USB port. 2. I was pretty skeptical of alleged Carta 1200 improvements, but supposedly this is more contrasty than previous einks. And... it is. Held up next to the Forma, it's clear that this looks more contrasty. And usually contrast improvements with eink have come in the form of whiter whites, but this time around, it's the black that's gotten darker. Is it a big deal? No. If you weren't holding them side-by-side, you might not even notice. But it's real. 3. Performance with this thing should be massively improved, since it's a quad-core CPU instead of the ancient single-core thing in the Forma. I wasn't sure how much this would matter, but it turns out to be a significant. All kinds of operations happen noticeably faster; really, it just turns a corner to actually feel responsive. Operating the UI isn't like pushing on molasses, where you tap a thing and there's a delay before anything responds. Page turns are noticeably faster, too -- I held the Forma and the Sage side-by-side at the same position in a book, and every page turn on the Forma was just clearly and visibly slower than on the Sage. (Caveat on performance is that I'm using KOReader, not the built-in stuff, which I didn't bother looking at.) 4. The page turn buttons are better. Here, I actually wanted a bigger improvement. Given that these buttons are like your main point of interface with the device, I want them to be luxury buttons -- crisp, precise travel, maybe formed of ceramic like the Nexus 5 volume buttons (still my reference for the best buttons I've ever encountered on a device). These aren't. They're still plastic, they've still got some mush to them, but they do have less deadzone travel than the Forma rocker buttons, and are noticeably crisper. Not where I'd want it to be, but a big improvement. 5. The power button is _much_ better. The Forma had this terrible small button on the edge that was a nightmare to push; this one has (as most of their other readers have had for a while now) a big round recessed button on the back that has a clear click when pressed. So that's all the positives. The negatives are smaller: 1. It's heavier and thicker than the Forma. These are already big readers, with their 7.8" screens, and adding more mass isn't ideal. But at the same time, it's not enormously heavy or anything -- like 20% more than my phone -- and the weight is mostly toward your hand, so there's less torque from the weight than if it were evenly distributed. It's fine. But it is a step back from the Forma, which was noticeably lighter (due partially to using a Mobius screen with plastic instead of glass) and even more weighted toward the hand. 2. It's magnetic. I assume this is for the case you can buy for it, but it's sorta weird, in that it means the ereader ends up sticking to my (steel) nightstand. The biggest unknown to me right now is battery life. It seems to be draining quickly, but I remember the Forma drained quickly at first, too -- I think it has to run some initial indexing or something? So we'll see where this ends up. Unless it's a complete disaster, though, I don't think it significantly will matter: Like, even if it only lasts 1/4 as long (which seems like a real worst case scenario), I'd rather have an e-reader that I recharge twice a week with USB-C than one that I recharge every two weeks with MicroUSB, tbh.