Which Kobo?

[Alpha o]

I just received a non-working Touch, it has to be returned.

I do need an ereader. I already have a 10" tablet, and don't want another. It's too heavy to read with. There's a stand, but it only connects in landscape and I prefer reading in portrait.

I have the original Nook Wifi. It won't load over 200 books, even on the SD card.

I did like the plain format. I don't need pictures of what I'm reading, reading charts for progress, other cutesy nonsense or even shelves. I had it sorted by authors and that was just fine. I have the same list on the Acer tablet, in tree file format. That works, too. It does show covers.

I'm looking at another Touch, Glo and Aura. How do you measure a screen? The Nook screen is roughly 4x5 but the outside measures 6x8. The extra is the color tabs to library, games, settings. I like the extra space. Don't need HD or H2O. How do they do in sunlight?

Found some info on sideloading - I like the Smashwords site.

We have no seller in town, where's a decent place to buy? Kobo itself? I'm in the US.

Thanks

[JSWolf]

Order a Kobo Aura H2O from Chapters. I did and I received mine in 4 days.

[robko]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

I'm looking at another Touch, Glo and Aura. How do you measure a screen? The Nook screen is roughly 4x5 but the outside measures 6x8. The extra is the color tabs to library, games, settings. I like the extra space. Don't need HD or H2O. How do they do in sunlight?

Any e-ink will do very well in sunlight (aside from the device overheating in very hot (mid to high 30C) conditions sometimes). More light makes it easier to read. I think they mostly use a diagonal measurement corner to corner of the screen and of course they include part of the screen that will be covered by the bezel.
I would go Glo or Aura because even if you think you don't care about the light you'll probably be glad you one with a light. Glo is infra-red touchscreen and the screen is slightly recessed. The Aura 6" is flat screen (some people fine that a challenge to know where to tap since there is no edge on the screen area) and capacitive touch.

Originally Posted by Alpha o

We have no seller in town, where's a decent place to buy? Kobo itself? I'm in the US.

Consensus on the board is that Chapters-Indigo Canada is your option for buying from the U.S. Faster shipping and better tracking options and with the dropping Canadian dollar might end up cheaper for you too.

[Alpha o]

Thanks - have been reading reviews on the Glo. Found out you can turn off that Reading tracking - I have no need. If it does come with installed books, can you delete them?
I don't do any fiction bestsellers. I have a few non-fiction bestsellers I like, but a lot are not in ebook form.

I tried a search through the science library, and either have the wrong flavor of science or the books don't exist digitally. The few I did see I already have the hard copy.

The library does have some decent Sci-Fi.

I've also seen that the browser's home page is Google. Can that be changed? I am trying to withhold as much info as I can from Google. I own an Android phone. That's enough.
The browsers I use on the phone allow Duck, Duck Go as a default. Otherwise, I'll just bookmark the search engine I want.

I'm not social, so the biggest laugh I'm having over the reviews of the Glo is no sharing, no social site links --- that's a plus for me.

I've never heard of Charters. Maybe I will try it. I have a relative living in UK and use Amazon UK and sometimes that can be rather interesting with exchange rates, etc. I've seen horror stories about security piling up packages coming in from Canada.

I also see that Kobo mixes both Kobo and independent books in your library. What happens if there is a recall of a certain book? Amazon and B&N have both seized the books. I'd be worried if my books from elsewhere got deleted. They are backed up, but it's the principle.

I need a reader, and the Glo is looking better and better.

[GERGE]

Software-wise all of the Kobo's are same. No difference. Choose according to the hardware.

I use a Glo, Aura models introduced minimal changes in the hardware so I haven't upgraded yet; but if I were to buy one now, I would buy Aura. Hardware is very good, and I don't like the bigger screen of H2O.

[dickloraine]

I have an aura. It's a very nice small reader. Nearly as small as my old sony prs 350. You need to register the device online. But you could use a trash email. I have wifi of all the time, since I use exclusively calibre to manage my books. The only little drawback on the aura: contrast is not so great like on the kindle paperwhite. That would be a very good alternative to the kobo, and if you sideload and only need author sort, that is a very nice device too.

[Alpha o]

I simply ain't believing this. Tried Chapters - no Glo but Aura for same price. Shipping was the killer.

Went to Kobo itself. Tried to order Glo - web page having trouble with orders. Kept getting declined. Call my CC company, they see charges, then charges credited. Finally called Kobo, very nice rep. They explained that they were having trouble processing orders and to try a different browser. I was using an FX clone which shows Mozilla as user agent. Switched to a Chrome clone, and order finally went through. Be a bit before I get it with free shipping.

Rep said she'd send emails, and promptly did. Reply far politer than some US firms.

I'll keep reading. I can be a bit of a pest as I want as much info as I can get before I purchase.

[Ripplinger]

I have both a Paperwhite 2 and a Glo, and I have to say the Glo has much better contrast on it. On the Glo you can adjust the weight of the font making it thicker and darker, as well as line spacing and margins. There is no weight or contrast settings on the PW2.

I don't use the browser at all, but if there's a way to change the default page from Google, you should ask in the Kobo forum about it for an answer.

I love the Glo and prefer it over the Aura for several reasons (infrared touch is much better for me, and I prefer the slightly recessed screen and soft matte bezel of the Glo). I've also read a few posts in comparing the 2 readers that the text isn't quite as sharp on the Aura as it is on the Glo. I don't think you could go wrong with either reader though and you'll be happy. The H2O is just too big for me, I carry my reader with me every time I leave the house, so the small size of the 6" screen is perfect.

I use Calibre only to send books to my readers, so you have the choice of sending which format you prefer, straight epub (my choice) or Kobo's kepub or a mix of both. So I don't know if Kobo ever "recalls" books or not. I prefer to do my purchases from my PC only and keep all my books in one spot in Calibre. I'm not into any of the social aspects they toss in either like you, and they're easy to turn off and not be bothered by them.

Kobo did include a few sample books and yes, you can just delete them. A few were in different languages, and they never showed up on the reader for me. I just deleted them while connected to the PC via USB.

[dickloraine]

Don't have a glo, but the contrast should be better on the pw. Of course, using the nice font weight settings on the kobo, one can make a font very readable, more then offsetting the slightly lesser contrast.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by Alpha o

Tried to order Glo - web page having trouble with orders. Kept getting declined. Call my CC company, they see charges, then charges credited. Finally called Kobo, very nice rep. They explained that they were having trouble processing orders and to try a different browser. I was using an FX clone which shows Mozilla as user agent. Switched to a Chrome clone, and order finally went through. Be a bit before I get it with free shipping.

I'm kind of amazed that they haven't fixed this. I had the same problem ordering my Kobo Aura from them probably 6 or 8 months ago. They were also having problems with their customer service request page and it took me nearly 2 weeks of trying to finally get to talk to a rep.

I finally did and he was very helpful. A different browser didn't help in my case. I had to open a new account with a different email but that did the job and he sent the Aura.

Unfortunately it took 2 weeks to get her and then when it did it had a defect. After all those problems I decided to live with the defect rather than to put myself through that again. It's not a bad ereader but I have to be careful not to press too hard on the bezel near the bottom or it'll start turning pages fairly quickly. Other than that I like it.

Frankly if their system wasn't so poor I'd have probably also bought a Kobo Glo. I've heard it's screen is a lot better than the screen on the Aura, which is mediocre at best. But they're just too much trouble to do business with.

You'd think they'd have fixed all that by now. I wonder how long a company can keep that sort of shoddiness up and survive.

Barry

[Alpha o]

I got through to the customer rep page almost right away, as soon as I figured out which requests to enable in NoScript and Ghostery. I had called credit card company first. Got the phone number for Kobo, and called. Was answered on the first ring.

I was beginning to think I wasn't supposed to be able to order a Kobo.

I've converted a few books with Calibre, but I'm not crazy about the UI. Why on earth does it always want to call home? My firewall alerts me.

I'm going to read that section of the forum to see what I can find out.

I kinda wish the Kobo had also listed PRC. That's the old Palm format. I still have stuff from the PDAs. Calibre does do that one. Well before drm.

[Ripplinger]

Calibre is constantly being updated, improvements made, bug fixes, etc., usually weekly. So the phoning home is to get what new version might be available in case you want to update. You don't have to update every version, I only do it when something new is added that I want or maybe after 6 months or so.

[GERGE]

Contrasts are like this:

Paperwhite 1 < Glo < Paperwhite 2

[Alpha o]

I don't care about the comparisons. I shop at Amazon, the Kindles don't have SD cards, and it's none of Amazon's business about what books I buy. The same goes for B&N.

I have an Android phone, so no Google books, either.

I don't fill out or post any demographic info. I don't want loads of "suggestions" about what someone "thinks" I should read.

Kobo's taking over Blinkbox Books.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...ustomer-lists/

[dickloraine]

Every ebook shop knows, what books you bought. Be it amazon, apple, google, kobo etc. To be clear: you don't even "buy" an ebook but a reading license.