More Kobo Kindle Kwandaries (I mean quandaries!)

[windward]

Yes, yes, I know that this appears so often that it's becoming tiresome, but if you'll forgive me I'll throw some more random questions in the mix...

Is the Kobo Touch usable "out of the box" without registering or downloading the Desktop Software? I don't have any desire to go buying new books as I only want an ereader for old public domain stuff and PDFs that I already have on my PC, and I don't even have wi-fi anyway so all that Store/ Reading Life/ Facebook (God save me from Facebook!!!) nonsense will be no loss to me. But do you lose some basic functionality as well? (Like with the Kindle Collections?)

Also is the Kobo Touch as glitchy as it sounds on these Forums? I have had the chance to grope at a demo version a couple of times and I found the touchscreen to be a lovely thing. (When I tried again on another day it did throw a few error messages at me but of course that could be due to ignorant yet curious customers messing with things they shouldn't or Kindle fanboys sabotaging the opposition)
If it works as expected it would be a good buy methinks but all these posts about corrupted databases, missing sideloads, sdcard and double page flipping worries me a little. (I've booted the Sony T1 off my list due to that near-terminal page flipping bug. Have they sorted that out yet??) It feels a little foolish spending £100+ on something that doesn't work properly in the hope that it might work properly in a couple of months.

As for the Kindle, from reading various forums it does seem to be the most stable of the devices but exactly how easy is it to use that new one (the non-touch)? Having just those four buttons and the five-way does seem rather awkward with all those shortcuts and I've seen many a YouTube reviewer scrolling a PDF by holding this and pressing that and oops- there goes the keyboard again! And when I see that I think back to fondling that Kobo Touch with a tender swipe and a jaunty prod. (And the Amazon Monster and exclusive club of file formats is a bit of a downer in my eyes. I know you can convert them but I've had a go with Calibre and it's a chore at best.)

Also ... Batteries. How long does it take to charge both the Kobo Touch and Kindle 4? And how long to they take to drain? I know they both say "up to" a month in a strangely ambiguous way but how does that translate into real use by real people?

Hmmm, that's all I can think of at the moment and I apologise if all these are answered in a thread that I overlooked. All help and knowledge will be greatly accepted but being from the poorly-treated UK all suggestions of Nook, Fire and Kindle Touch willl be sadly irrelevant.

[ProfCrash]

Hopefully the Kindle Touch will make its way outside of the US soon. When the K3 was released there was such high demand that Amazon could not keep up with orders outside the US and there some pretty impressive delays. I think Amazon is doing a staggered release to avoid those problems. I am speculating here but I strongly suspect that the Kindle Touch will be available to the rest of the world in January. Like I said, pure speculation.

Many people love their Kobos and they seem to work reasonably well. They do seem to be a bit more glitchy then the Kindle but Kindle users are reporting some problems with the Kindle Touch. It is normal for a new device to have some bugs.

You might do well with the Sony T-1. I believe it is available in the UK and it has an organization system that people enjoy. You can drag and drop books on to it easily, it is touch screen, and Sony has a rep for building durable products. There are some glitches in the firmware but they will hopefully be resolved soon.

[robko]

Originally Posted by windward

Is the Kobo Touch usable "out of the box" without registering or downloading the Desktop Software?

In theory yes, but I would highly recommend downloading the desktop once and setting it up with the latest firmware since it brings some nice features to the table. Unfortunately with the latest firmware they seem to have changed it so that you have to register once to get it fully working. You don't need to provide a credit card and you can turn off the wifi and delete the desktop after you get it set up then drag and drop or use Calibre to but whatever you want onto it.

Originally Posted by windward

Also is the Kobo Touch as glitchy as it sounds on these Forums?

If it works as expected it would be a good buy methinks but all these posts about corrupted databases, missing sideloads, sdcard and double page flipping worries me a little.

Corrupted databases is an old issue you shouldn't see anymore. SD card usage is being worked on and they thought they had it fixed but it is still a little hit and miss. Some cards seem to work perfectly while others don't. Double page flip seems to be (IMHO) a combination of user and device. I run into it rarely (and I pretty much know when it's going to do it based on how I touched), but some people have more consistent issues. I think the majority don't find it a common issue.

Originally Posted by windward

Also ... Batteries. How long does it take to charge both the Kobo Touch and Kindle 4? And how long to they take to drain? I know they both say "up to" a month in a strangely ambiguous way but how does that translate into real use by real people?

It takes 2-3 hours roughly to charge a completely dead Kobo (assuming you're using a wall charger -- likely longer, but can't say since I've never tried it, if you're using a usb port). Battery life is hard to pin down. I charge mine about once a week, but I download a newspaper every day (Wifi eats a lot more battery than reading) and I always just put it to sleep rather than turn it fully off when I'm not using it. Sleep mode will always use a little bit of battery life where fully off will use virtually none (the benefit of sleep is that you get instant on to the page you were reading whereas if you turn it off it takes some time to get back to your page). Most of the battery life claims by the companies seem to be based on 1/2 hour per day usage and no wifi and turning the device completely off when not in use (totally unrealistic for most people).

Currently the only potential negative to the Kobo in my books is customer service (which can suck) but they have just publicly apologized and committed to improving. We'll see how that goes.

I've owned all three of their e-ink products and I would recommend the Kobo Touch.