Well I've had some time to play with it now, and a few more thoughts:
- This screen is fantastic. The text is super crisp and clean. Ghosting is practically non-existent, even when a full refresh is set to every 6 pages. The worst I've seen so far makes it look like you can sort of, just slightly see the text printed on "the other side of the page"
- The lighting is smooth and pretty even, from full brightness down to low. The only noticeable thing is the LED shadows at the bottom (which become more pronounced at lower brightness settings). I think this is a simple matter of physics, and without using more material (hiding screen extremities further into the bezel), I don't think it's something that's going to go away any time soon. That being said, it's easy to ignore it once you actually start reading and it's a minor inconvenience in an otherwise great implementation. Truthfully, the only reason it's
so noticeable is simply because the rest of the screen is so evenly lit. I do wish that the display could be even a little more dim than it is now on it's lowest setting.
- I've had no problems with the firmware so far. Page turns are very quick, PDFs render excellently and CBR/CBZ files look great. Zooming in PDFs is about as smooth as you can expect it to be on a non-capacitive touch screen. Haven't experimented too much with PDFs, though, as essentially everything I'll read is ePub/CBZ.
- Tried putting two fonts onto the device. Created a "fonts" folder in the root and installed Regular/Italic/Bold/Bold Italic variants of
Lato and a font I purchased for a few projects I worked on,
FF Tisa Mobi Pro. Both showed up on the device and work flawlessly. As others have mentioned, TypeGenius is only for the preloaded fonts.
I'm very pleased with this as my first ebook reader, and based on what I've read about the KP, the KG seems to be a
very strong competitor. The only advantage I can see Amazon having is the book selection, but that's a moot point if you don't live in the US, as their selection internationally is...lacking. The only other thing the Kindle has going for it is the ability to e-mail documents to your eReader. I'd
love it if I could get a <myname>@kobo.com to e-mail ePubs to my device.
I think Kobo has a fantastic implementation of the front-light technology and I'm very pleased with the speed and responsiveness of the firmware. As my first e-reader, I'm very happy with it and would recommend it to others without hesitation. I'm optimistic with the future of the device, too. It's very encouraging to see Kobo representatives on this board answering questions and listening to feedback.