Your impressions of Kobo Clara HD?

[Calenorn]

My NOOK Glowlight 3 is a nice piece of hardware, but trying to use it with side-loaded content is getting on my last nerve. I'm about ready to jump ship for a Kobo Clara HD.

Has anyone used the Clara with large numbers of side-loaded epub files? (Say 1,000 plus.) How does it behave? Does having that many files in the memory slow down the performance of the device? Is there a risk that transferring large numbers of files from the PC will corrupt the memory? Does it accomplish the transfer quickly and cleanly? If you use collections (shelves), are they stable when other side-loaded content is added later?

You can tell by the questions what my problems have been with the NOOK. But any feedback about the Clara is welcome, even if it doesn't touch on a specific question.

Thanks in advance!

C.

[Mrs_Often]

Take a look at this thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...295964&page=24

skim through it for several reviews from about page 24 onwards.

On the whole I'm very happy with my Clara HD and don't see any of the issues you seem to have been having with your Nook... though I don't think I have 1000 sideloaded books.

[dordale]

I can't speak for the Clara, but I have an Aura One with well over 1000 books loaded. It works fine without any slowdowns. It did take a while to load the books, but once my initial books were loaded, I haven't had any problems deleting books or adding additional books.

[anacreon]

I have almost 4000 books on my Clara, for more than 3 Gb, and uploading them all needs to be done in batches, so takes time. Once done though, there are no performance problems and no problems with collections - I use Calibre of course.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by anacreon

I have almost 4000 books on my Clara, for more than 3 Gb, and uploading them all needs to be done in batches, so takes time.

Why do they need to be done in batches? I've done more than 3000 books on my Glo HD and Aura ONE with no issues (after a signout). It took an hour or so (I wasn't attention), but there were no problems.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Why do they need to be done in batches? I've done more than 3000 books on my Glo HD and Aura ONE with no issues (after a signout). It took an hour or so (I wasn't attention), but there were no problems.

Because there are enough books who fail on first try that it's worth sending in batches of 100 or even 50. I'm not saying disconnecting the reader every batch.

[Calenorn]

Thanks, folks!

Does the Clara HD let you know when it has finished copying over a batch of new side-loaded epubs? This was one of the problems with the NOOK; the PC says you are safely ejected but the NOOK was (apparently) still moving files.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by anacreon

Because there are enough books who fail on first try that it's worth sending in batches of 100 or even 50. I'm not saying disconnecting the reader every batch.

You are sending books in small batches from calibre but not disconnecting the device to let them be imported? And because of errors? What sort of errors?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Calenorn

Thanks, folks!

Does the Clara HD let you know when it has finished copying over a batch of new side-loaded epubs? This was one of the problems with the NOOK; the PC says you are safely ejected but the NOOK was (apparently) still moving files.

For all Kobo ereaders, you sideload the books and disconnect. The device then imports the details of the books into an internal database. This is done in a single process and you can't use the ereader for anything else while it happens.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You are sending books in small batches from calibre but not disconnecting the device to let them be imported? And because of errors? What sort of errors?

I don't know - I chose "silently ignore" whatever (I don't remember which plugin does that, one of yours I think). What I know, is that most books ignored work at second or third try. I usually convert the rare ones that don't.
And I've had the problem with all my kobos I think - I converted from Sony with the Glo.

[radbaddude]

No problems with the Clara HD.

Everything works great.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by anacreon

I don't know - I chose "silently ignore" whatever (I don't remember which plugin does that, one of yours I think). What I know, is that most books ignored work at second or third try. I usually convert the rare ones that don't.
And I've had the problem with all my kobos I think - I converted from Sony with the Glo.

The "silently ignore" option is in the KoboTouchExtended driver. Turning it on means that if there is an error doing the conversion to kepub, the book with the errors will not be sent.

If books are working on the second try, then there is something else happening. Unless you change something in the book, it should fail again. Opening the book in the calibre editor, checking for errors and fixing them should be enough to sort them out. Doing a conversion will usually sort it out as well.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The "silently ignore" option is in the KoboTouchExtended driver. Turning it on means that if there is an error doing the conversion to kepub, the book with the errors will not be sent.

If books are working on the second try, then there is something else happening. Unless you change something in the book, it should fail again. Opening the book in the calibre editor, checking for errors and fixing them should be enough to sort them out. Doing a conversion will usually sort it out as well.

Well it does work without changing anything, and it has worked that way for years. For the very rare instance when it hasn't, I did convert to solve the problem.