Quote:
Originally Posted by Mememememe
People who get ePubs from other sources are not necessarily "techies". They're people who shop from a variety of sources. It doesn't take technical know-how to download an e-book.
I am far from a techie, and I shop around for e-books ... because there's no reason why I should have to restrict myself to one company's pricing and selection. In fairness, Kobo has been pretty good ... so far ... but there's no reason why I should make one company my soul source for books.
One of the selling points of the unit -- and Kobo actively used it as a selling point -- is that it is supposed to support a variety of formats, and other ePub sources. That, aside from the price point, is what is supposed to separate it from Kindle.
If you can only effectively use ePubs from Kobo, that's a black mark on the unit, and a reasonable concern for anyone looking to buy a reader.
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The Kobo is not sold as "supporting a variety of formats". In fact, it is a
basic reader and supports only pdf and ePub. Pdf is problematic on ALL ereaders under 10"; pretending that "reflow" is a good thing for pdf completely misses the point of what pdf is designed for: creating a fixed typographic presentation that DOESN'T change because of delivery mechanism.
So -- Kobo really supports just ONE format -- ePub. That's not a "concern" -- it's a feature. I can resize the font, change the font family, bookmark my place, switch titles and read something else for a while, and return where I left off with ePubs under Kobo. It easily hits all the highlights for the price.
Nor does Kobo rope you into buying solely from Kobo -- that's the promise of ePub, actually, that it's a "universal" standard. The only thing you cannot do is load non-Kobo books using the Kobo bookstore software.
Well, slap me silly and say "duhhhh"! But, hey! any ePub NOT sourced from Kobo can be added and deleted using Adobe Digital Editions. It covers DRM and non-DRM seamlessly.
I have bought a couple of Kobo book store books but most of the books I have loaded onto (and read on) the Kobo came from the public library, from Fictionwise and from other ePub sources. ADE manages the Kobo without any techie knowledge at all.
Yes, I could pay more for a
smaller screen from Sony and be given access to a bookstore (which I have anyway with Kobo) where most of the titles say "US only" ... but why would I do that? Kobo, at $149, delivers what it promises.