The Telegraph review is scathing, titled 'Kobo e-book store makes Amazon look good':
Quote:
There’s nothing much about Kobo to distinguish it from the more mainstream stores, such as Waterstone’s and WH Smith. There are a few recommended reading lists – a good way to help people ‘browse’ an online bookshop, which is otherwise very difficult – but this is nowhere near enough. As I suggested 18 months ago when I wrote about the Waterstone’s e-book store, why not be more creative with categories and help people find books they didn’t know that they wanted?
Aside from finding titles, most people’s concerns will be about price and availability. I took the seven titles listed as Just Released on Kobo’s front page and compared their price and availability at Waterstone’s, WH Smith and Amazon. Waterstone’s sells just four of the seven titles, while WH Smith sells five.
Amazon, however, stocks all seven books and sells four of them for less than Kobo. (Though Amazon books are sold in dollars, so I’ve based these prices on today’s exchange rate.)
Next I took Waterstone’s top seven sellers and compared them across the four stores. WH Smith stocks all seven but is slightly more expensive in every case. Kobo stocks just two, though those are cheaper. Once again it’s Amazon that impresses: they stock five of the seven titles and all of them cost less than at Waterstone’s or WH Smith.
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I like Kobo's web UI, but I guess pricing and availability trumps everything else.