[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Second impression…[...]

Third (and last) impression…

So I've had some time to do some actual reading on my [s]Clara[/s] Nova. I have a mixed opinion of the thing, but overall enjoy reading on it a lot.

Hardware: in my second impression post I said it was very comfortable to hold, and I do still agree with that, however...

Originally Posted by radbaddude

[...] This thing is damn slippery to hold though.

yes. The back is just hard plastic (unlike the velvety back of the Glo) with sort of perforated circular dents in it. I don't really understand why they'd put dents in it... maybe to attempt to give it a better grip? However, less surface area equals less friction equals... well... it's slippery. I never realised the velvety back of the Glo was functional as well as nice design until now. I have a ‘hard' time finding a comfortable grip on the Clara when reading on my back if I only want to use one hand for both holding and turning pages. The “thumb vertically along the edge of the side bezel & rock the thumb towards the screen to page turn”-method works perfectly, but I have to squeeze the device a little between my thumb and the fingers at the back to get enough friction so the device doesn't slide away. The device is noticeably lighter than the Glo in this position though, so while I need to squeeze harder to ensure no sliding, I might not actually be squeezing harder than I would the less-slippery Glo due to the weight difference. So I've dropped the device several times (on the settee and bed and myself) while reading on my back... and here's another advantage of capacitive screen: clothes, duvets and cushions went all over the screen, but nothing happened

Originally Posted by meeera

Or use your nose.

The on/off button is a little difficult to find when reading in the dark! I can slide my finger over the bottom edge to search, but because there's also a micro-USB port any rough/uneven area I feel could also be the port. And if I go by location (it's in the middle, duh!), it's hard to find the exact right angle to press in because I might be pressing the edge of the bezel rather than the button... so in the dark, I tend to press the button with my nail (yuk!).

The frontlight is lovely. For my sensitive eyes/taste it could have gone down even lower in brightness, but at maximum orange/yellow it is acceptable at 1% brightness in almost complete darkness. However I hardly ever read in (almost) complete darkness so I usually end up reading at about 3% brightness with a small light still on somewhere in the room. And yes, there is some ‘bleeding' onto the screen from some of the LEDs (along the right bezel near the bottom) which annoys me, but only when I look directly at it... which I never do while reading. (It might be annoying while reading for those who prefer no margin though.)

Firmware:

Note: I am using the Clara's factory firmware, 4.7.10733 (I have not let it update to 4.8.11090).

First of all, I haven't come across any (real) bugs at all. The sort-by-recent issue discussed earlier in this thread isn't present in this firmware. And:

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

[in 4.8.11090] [...]

• Changing light percentage (sliding finger up/down the left side of the screen) shows the percentage in the top margin. This should go away (and be replaced with book title if reading real Kepub) once I start reading again, but it doesn't. It just stays there however many pages I turn... (this was fixed after a restart)

Originally Posted by davidfor

I see this on my Glo HD. But, it is cleared the next time I do something to update the top of the screen. Tapping the screen to display the menus is enough to do this.

...in 4.7.10733 I don't have to do anything to get the regular header back. The brightness % stays visible for a second or two and then changes back to the book title. I don't have to go to the next page or bring up the menu. I think this is the way it should be working. The behaviour I saw in 4.8.11090 and in whatever firmware davidfor was running on the Glo HD must be a bug...

And while we're still on the light... I still find it difficult to get small changes in brightness percent when sliding my finger up/down along the left bezel. And even if I do get it exactly right and try to lift my finger off the screen without wiggling it, the percent still changes. It's easier to go by watching the light brightness instead of waiting for the percent digits printed on screen to catch up, but still, changing to an exact percentage isn't easy. So if I require an exact percentage, like 3%, instead of messing around in near darkness (soooo annoying if the light drops to 0% and your finger's already lifted away from the screen and you can't see what you're doing any more and you can't get the light back on!) I go through the frontlight menu instead. And now for a bug, I think: there's no response when trying to tap the small sun on the left... I have to tap the big sun on the right first, before the left small sun responds.

I really enjoy the auto natural light feature. Works great! Strange though, even if it is way passed the bedtime I set, the slider setting never goes all the way to the right (towards the moon): it is always one position to the left of the moon Bug? What I also find odd, is that the standard bedtimes you can select start and end at relatively late times: earliest selectable time is 21:00 (9:00 pm), and latest is 3:00 am. What about childrens' bedtimes, and bedtimes of people that get up at 3:00 am, or just an early bedtime setting for people who like reading the orange-y-ist natural light early in the evening (and also like the auto-setting to change to blue in the morning and during the day)? (Anyone know the config file line to add for customising this?)

Originally Posted by radbaddude

[...] the clara hd really zips. No delay issues at all. I recall the glo hd being a bit slower. [...]

Yes!

Originally Posted by haydnfan

[...]But the Clara HD is as fast and precise at turning pages, opening and closing options and menus as a Kindle.

Yes. However, I find that when I try to select a word (mostly for looking it up), more often than not it selects the word below the word I was trying to touch. I notice this most when I select with a finger on my left hand, but it also happens regularly with my right hand finger... even when I try to aim higher because I know it registers my touch lower than where I see the tip of my finger. (Funny: it even happened once when I was selecting a word on the bottom line. It selected the word 'below' the word I was pointing at... yes, a word on the first line of the next page. Teehee.)

So that's all the minor points I discovered moaned about*, but they're all quite minimal. Overall I'm very happy with the device.



*Except the missing games which I'm still hoping to get back when the patch thingies are magic-ed for Clara-compatible firmware by the much appreciated developery people around here.