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tschucha · 04-25-2023, 01:10 PM

Time for an Elipsa 2e review:

I was very unhappy when Kobo announced the Elipsa 2E for one reason and one reason only - the lack of a 300 DPI screen. The 300DPI screens on recent Kobos like the Forma and Sage are just a wonderful improvement over older readers. I really did not want to go back to anything less than 300DPI.

I'm a big hater of the user interface of Amazon Kindles. I've had a few over the years and never liked the user interface. The hardware was fine. In many ways the hardware was better than the Kobos they competed with. But Kobo eventually caught up with the build quality. Kindle software seemed to go out of it's way to make sure that you don't have many options. The way they handle margins and line spaces and font sizes is incredibly limited. But given the 300DPI 10.2" screen of their Scribe...... well I had to bite the bullet and get one.

So what did I find? The screen - simply gorgeous. I was blown away with how nice it looks. The device itself. No complaints about the speed or screen refreshes at all. The feel of the device - The body of the Scribe is made of smooth metal (aluminum?). Looks great but it feels very delicate when holding it. I was always scared I would set it down and put a dent in it. Speaking of the feel - it was awkward. Holding it for reading it just seems unbalanced. The weight is 433 grams. I've been reading a Kobo Sage in a cover with a combined weight of 390 grams. The added weight of the Scribe didn't seem too bad but the thing does feel unbalanced in your hand for whatever reason. Overall - I could have live with this. But.....

The Scribe interface is even worse than I remembered. I side load books and if you do this directly there does not appear to be a way to get the book covers to show - how hard could this possibly be - the damn covers are in the books? This problem can apparently be solved by sending the books through Amazon to the device. I'm just not going to do that. Why does Amazon need to know anything about what I have on MY hardware? And then customizing the settings. Ridiculously limiting. IIRC there were something like 3 margin and line height settings, no way to set the sleep timeout. All in all it was terrible. I played around with it for a couple of days and just couldn't live with it. Too bad. I sent it back.

After moping a while I re-read some of the Elipsa 2E reviews and saw that many people people didn't find that 227DPI vs 300DPI screen resolution that big of a deal. Then I found out that I could order a Elipsa 2E through Walmart and return it to the store if I didn't like it so I ordered one. I figured I'd give it a try. It arrived in less than a week.

Here's what I've found so far after two days usage. The most important thing on my list was the screen quality. To be honest the Kindle Scribe looked slightly better. But the operative word here is slightly. There isn't much difference at all. The Elipsa 2E screen is certainly good enough. Good enough may be an understatement, it is a nice screen. My belief is that the warmlight for night time reading on the Elipsa 2E is better than that of the Kindle Scribe. It certainly is more customizable. I may have been lucky but I have never had a problem with the light banding on any of my lighted eReaders. I didn't see any at all on either the Scribe or the Elipsa 2E. The Elipsa 2E has a body made of plastic which sounds cheaper but actually it has a much better feel. Maybe the weight distribution is more hand friendly or maybe the fact that the Elipsa is only 390 grams compared to 433 for the Scribe or maybe it's the plastic with texture on the back of the device but whatever it makes the Elipsa 2E a lot easier to hold and read. As always the Kobo user interface is far, far more customizable. It took nearly no time at all to copy my books onto the device and get it set up to my liking. I struggled and struggled with the Kindle Scribe and just couldn't get the device feeling the way I wanted it to feel. I am far happier with the Elipsa 2E.

You'll notice that I haven't written a word about the note taking abilities of either device. That's because I use the them as an eReader exclusively. If you use these things as note taking devices I'm not a good one to make recommendations.

Final thoughts. I've been looking for the perfect eReader since the days of the first Kindle. It doesn't exist yet. What I think I've learned from the Scribe and Elipsa 2E is that the perfect eReader is going to be bigger than the Sage (8") and a bit smaller than the Ellipsa (10.3"). Funny thing is that it may very well be that Amazon actually got it pretty close to right regarding screen size years ago with the Kindle DX with a 9.7" screen. It had an abysmal 150DPI screen and no lighting which was not bad for it's day but I suspect that somewhere between 9 and 9.7 inches would probably be the ideal screen size for an eReader at least for me. I'm liking that 10.3" Elipsa 2E screen very much though and it may be that 10.3" will end up being the perfect size. It just takes a little time to get used to all of that extra screen space.

04-25-2023, 01:10 PM	#1
tschucha Zealot Posts: 147 Karma: 52546 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Kobo Sage	Kindle Scibe vs Elipsa 2E Time for an Elipsa 2e review: I was very unhappy when Kobo announced the Elipsa 2E for one reason and one reason only - the lack of a 300 DPI screen. The 300DPI screens on recent Kobos like the Forma and Sage are just a wonderful improvement over older readers. I really did not want to go back to anything less than 300DPI. I'm a big hater of the user interface of Amazon Kindles. I've had a few over the years and never liked the user interface. The hardware was fine. In many ways the hardware was better than the Kobos they competed with. But Kobo eventually caught up with the build quality. Kindle software seemed to go out of it's way to make sure that you don't have many options. The way they handle margins and line spaces and font sizes is incredibly limited. But given the 300DPI 10.2" screen of their Scribe...... well I had to bite the bullet and get one. So what did I find? The screen - simply gorgeous. I was blown away with how nice it looks. The device itself. No complaints about the speed or screen refreshes at all. The feel of the device - The body of the Scribe is made of smooth metal (aluminum?). Looks great but it feels very delicate when holding it. I was always scared I would set it down and put a dent in it. Speaking of the feel - it was awkward. Holding it for reading it just seems unbalanced. The weight is 433 grams. I've been reading a Kobo Sage in a cover with a combined weight of 390 grams. The added weight of the Scribe didn't seem too bad but the thing does feel unbalanced in your hand for whatever reason. Overall - I could have live with this. But..... The Scribe interface is even worse than I remembered. I side load books and if you do this directly there does not appear to be a way to get the book covers to show - how hard could this possibly be - the damn covers are in the books? This problem can apparently be solved by sending the books through Amazon to the device. I'm just not going to do that. Why does Amazon need to know anything about what I have on MY hardware? And then customizing the settings. Ridiculously limiting. IIRC there were something like 3 margin and line height settings, no way to set the sleep timeout. All in all it was terrible. I played around with it for a couple of days and just couldn't live with it. Too bad. I sent it back. After moping a while I re-read some of the Elipsa 2E reviews and saw that many people people didn't find that 227DPI vs 300DPI screen resolution that big of a deal. Then I found out that I could order a Elipsa 2E through Walmart and return it to the store if I didn't like it so I ordered one. I figured I'd give it a try. It arrived in less than a week. Here's what I've found so far after two days usage. The most important thing on my list was the screen quality. To be honest the Kindle Scribe looked slightly better. But the operative word here is slightly. There isn't much difference at all. The Elipsa 2E screen is certainly good enough. Good enough may be an understatement, it is a nice screen. My belief is that the warmlight for night time reading on the Elipsa 2E is better than that of the Kindle Scribe. It certainly is more customizable. I may have been lucky but I have never had a problem with the light banding on any of my lighted eReaders. I didn't see any at all on either the Scribe or the Elipsa 2E. The Elipsa 2E has a body made of plastic which sounds cheaper but actually it has a much better feel. Maybe the weight distribution is more hand friendly or maybe the fact that the Elipsa is only 390 grams compared to 433 for the Scribe or maybe it's the plastic with texture on the back of the device but whatever it makes the Elipsa 2E a lot easier to hold and read. As always the Kobo user interface is far, far more customizable. It took nearly no time at all to copy my books onto the device and get it set up to my liking. I struggled and struggled with the Kindle Scribe and just couldn't get the device feeling the way I wanted it to feel. I am far happier with the Elipsa 2E. You'll notice that I haven't written a word about the note taking abilities of either device. That's because I use the them as an eReader exclusively. If you use these things as note taking devices I'm not a good one to make recommendations. Final thoughts. I've been looking for the perfect eReader since the days of the first Kindle. It doesn't exist yet. What I think I've learned from the Scribe and Elipsa 2E is that the perfect eReader is going to be bigger than the Sage (8") and a bit smaller than the Ellipsa (10.3"). Funny thing is that it may very well be that Amazon actually got it pretty close to right regarding screen size years ago with the Kindle DX with a 9.7" screen. It had an abysmal 150DPI screen and no lighting which was not bad for it's day but I suspect that somewhere between 9 and 9.7 inches would probably be the ideal screen size for an eReader at least for me. I'm liking that 10.3" Elipsa 2E screen very much though and it may be that 10.3" will end up being the perfect size. It just takes a little time to get used to all of that extra screen space.