[Cameronpaterson]

I recently bought one of the new Kobo models, a Kobo Arc 7HD. Physically it's fine - the design is a definite improvement on the original Kobo, lighter, better screen and pleasanter to hold in the hand. On the software side, they have ditched the useless discover bar and reimagined those iffy tapestries as 'collections', which might just work as a useful piece of software. 'Beyond' The Book' and 'Featured Collections' - both containing links and information about a particular author or book are pretty snazzy too. BUT - and yes, this is definitely a but - for some inexplicable reason they decided to leave out reading life. Yes, there are no awards, no reading stats, etc - even though these are present and correct on the new Aura (at least I think so!) and even though RL was featured on both the Vox and the original Arc.
For me, reading life award and stats have always been pretty central to the Kobo experience and I see little point in keeping this new Arc without them. What makes the omission even odder is there ARE notification settings allowing you to see "newly earned awards" and "other reading life events"! Yes, even they aren't included. I can only conclude that that Arc HD software was rushed and is unfinished (it's crashed several times for another thing).
Anyone else out there bought the new model?
And on another note, what has happened to this community? It used to be active and buzzy and a reliable source of information direct from Kobo reps etc. Now it's seems much sleepier and the Kobo reps are nowhere to be seen. The liveliest thread on here seems to be one about not upgrading....Maybe I'm being unfair, but that's the impression I've gathered. Correct me if I'm wrong!