[Cootey]

I loaded up some audiobooks onto my Elipsa and took them along for a drive. I thought it would be a good opportunity to test out my eReader’s new audio book feature.

It was a short test.

First, I paired the Elipsa to my car. The Nissan software was clunky to work with, but the Kobo software worked fine. A trip to Bluetooth settings, and moments later we were good to go.

Next, I noticed that the Kobo audio interface was sparse, lacking chrome and other UI elements. This isn’t necessarily bad, but I found the layout difficult to manage while driving. I gave up and had my daughter try to figure it out. No distracted driving!

The reason I couldn’t manage the controls while driving turned out to be because the audio app was sluggish and non-responsive. It was too much effort to figure out while busy doing something else. The audio began playing for us right away, so that worked, but getting the book to start at the beginning was a chore. Previous Chapter had no effect. Backward (misspelled “Backword” on the Kobo) had no effect. There’s no “stop” button, either. No timeline to scrub the play head. The audio book just chugged along without a worry in the world. Then about a minute later it restarted several times. Obviously, there was a lag—a quite serious lag—before the Kobo responded to our presses. Also, once the app was working, “Play” turns into “Pause”, but that didn’t transform initially for me.

However, instead of being happy that the book finally restarted for us, we were frustrated as the book stuttered and skipped during playback. It was intolerable, so we stopped our testing.

Later, I tested the audio book feature with some Bluetooth earbuds. They connected just fine to my Elipsa, but the audio book crashed, forcing me to power cycle my Elipsa. On my second attempt, the book still claimed it was playing, but tapping on “pause” produced no result. Eventually, the book began to play for me.

The playback with these earbuds was smooth as opposed to my Nissan Kicks. However, when I paused the book to write the two previous paragraphs, the Bluetooth connection was lost after a few minutes. Now I have to go back into Bluetooth settings and repair the earbuds.

A trip back into settings showed that Bluetooth was indeed turned off, though checking on it turned it back on, as others have posted about elsewhere. When Bluetooth had shut off on me, the play indicator still said “Pause” so I assumed the book was still playing even though nothing was listening, but when I reconnected my earbuds, opening the book started from the beginning.

My feeling is that this is early days for Kobo. Their barebones software barely does the trick. The UI is sparse and sluggish. I wanted to be a fan, but I’d rather load audio books into my iPhone. The Bluetooth connections are temperamental, which is inconvenient, but my stuttered experience with the car wasn’t repeated with my earbuds. Curiously, my iPhone has no issues connecting to my Nissan and plays smooth as silk. However, every time I pause too long, Bluetooth is shut off, requiring a visit to the Settings, and the book always starts at the beginning, no matter how long I listened before.

I’ve only tested with one book so far, but what has your experience been like?





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