A love letter to my H2O

[cerem0ny]

I just need to post this, and get it out of me...

I've had so many ereaders, so many problems... Unclear screen, blotchy lighting, fractured screens, two-tone lighting, all of it. I'm the most pickiest bastard when it comes to these devices. Finally, I bought my H2O.

Wow, what a difference. I've had it for a few months now and I just can't believe that I own the most perfect E-reader I have ever owned. The lighting is uniform and such a beautiful cream colour. It is huge and the text is the crispest and clearest I've ever had. Every year I buy a new ereader in the hopes of finding the perfect one and am consistently disappointed.

My H2O changed my life. For the first time since digital books, I no longer feel the need to upgrade. There are times when I'm just reading a book and I am just blown away by how beautiful the device is - how the text appears on the screen, that gorgeous light, the gorgeous, clear fonts... I keep searching for literature online that agrees with me, that is as obsessed with their H2O as I am but I come up empty handed.

I love my H2O. It is the most beautiful device I have ever held in my hands. For the first time ever, I am comfortable and happy with my purchase and honestly feel no need to upgrade or change. All the reviewers saying that it's not so good and whatever can shut it - they are all wrong! The day my device malfunctions or dies will be a very sad day for me. Similar previous ereading experiences meant exchanging various models for 'good' models - models which are just slightly defected enough for me to ignore it. Not my H2O - first purchase, and 10/10 performance.

Thank you Kobo for this beautiful treat. I really needed to get this out of me just so I can actually come to terms with how happy I am with my device. I feel truly blessed, and often I feel as if I am in close proximity with the divine when I use this device... truly... Wow.

[darryl]

A good counter-balance to the current top of the charts thread about Kobo. I wish you and your H2O a long and happy life together. I hope that it is true and lasting love and not just a passing infatuation. I do think the H2O is a great ereader. Though, like any lover, you should treat your partner gently.

[booklover6]

What a nice letter. I hope I will feel the same about my Glo HD!

[treadlightly]

I could have written a letter similar to yours about my Glo. And then I bought my H2O for the larger screen. Although it feels like cheating on what was a faithful loyal device, I am absolutely head-over-heels in love with my H2O. It's a beautiful eReader!

[darryl]

I never realised there were so many true romantics on this forum!

[cerem0ny]

Originally Posted by treadlightly

I could have written a letter similar to yours about my Glo. And then I bought my H2O for the larger screen. Although it feels like cheating on what was a faithful loyal device, I am absolutely head-over-heels in love with my H2O. It's a beautiful eReader!

Haha, cheater! I couldn't dig the Glo that much because the nitpickiest nitpicker in me had a problem with how 'blue' the screen was. Nice to see my feelings shared here haha - am a little bit embarrassed by my PDA but I just can't keep my hands off her, and she deserves it

So strange when I look at all the reviews and comments about the h2o where nobody seems to realize that they've just been given the very best (and possibly unbeatable) device since e-paper, giving it a mediocre score and closing the figurative book on it. But then again, I doubt those people are the ones who would exchange an Aura (etc.) six times because a slight colour gradient was only slightly less irritating than a puffer fish in your shoe.

[simond]

I love my H2O having upgraded from the Glo -> Aura HD -> H2O, I wouldn’t go back, though I am keeping the HD as a backup device

[xtine]

I felt the same way about my first H2O, which unfortunately broke due to my own clumsiness. My second H2O, however, has a slightly pink tint to its frontlight which makes me wish a new version would come along so that I would have reason to upgrade and have another chance at a gorgeous creamy screen

[rashkae]

One of the things that bothered me with the Aura HD and H20 is that image rendering is woefully inadequate if the image contains gradients. Or so I thought. When I started using the extended Kobo plugin in Calibre to only upload Kepub's to the Kobo I found that to be fixed in the Access reader. Shaded gradients dither perfectly, and I can even double tap to open images in a pan and zoom image viewer.

It is a bit of a bother to have to convert to non-standard file format for the device (but certainly no different than the closest competitor, Kindles, needing AZW3 files to unlock all their functionality.)

I also found that the fonts included with H20 all seem to include a complete set of glyphs. In previous generations of Kobo, reading books with diacritic characters was limited to either Georgia or side-loaded/embedded fonts. (Without type genius support, that was further limited to modified side loaded fonts for reading E-ink.)

[Stingo]

I guess I'm in the love camp as well. Although I loved their infrastructure , for some time I had been upset with the limitations of the Kindle. I finally bought the H2O and a Kindle Voyage when they came out to compare. Although I thought that the Voyage was a very snappy and nice device, the screen had a bluish tint was just not as nice as that of the H2O. Also, once I got to use Kobo with its SD Card and Calibre the experience was so much nicer that I was willing to walk away from Amazon's excellent device integration. So far love my H2O without any regrets.

[brianca]

Thanks for posting this -- great to read how happy you are with it. I've been thinking about pulling the trigger on an H20 myself, but have just been a bit reluctant because it's not very easy to see one in person and try it out here in the USA. But this may have just pushed me over the edge to order one!

[MGlitch]

I have to add my love for my H2O as well.

For so long I had only bought Barnes and Noble Nooks, always stuck with their eink line. As features changed, or were removed, I shrugged it off. The models themselves were always upgrades to the previous generation, though their current Nook Glowlight is a very questionable upgrade to the Nook Simpletouch w/ Glowlight due to a lack of an SD card slot and limited storage built in.

Eventually things changed with B&N, they kept making choices and changes that seemed bent on controlling their customers experience, and my eye wandered.

I knew I didn't want to go with Kindle, their format choice alone was more than enough of a reason. I'd been aware of Kobo, I liked some of the things I had heard. But trying to find one in a store was next to impossible. I was a little afraid of ordering an ereader sight unseen, it's easy to get pictures to look fantastic, it's quite another to make sure every demo unit in stores is on par with what your claiming.

I bit the bullet after one last change in policy from B&N, my H2O was on its way. And though I had some less than great chats with Kobo CS about tracking numbers and delivery dates, my H2O arrived safely and fairly quickly.

It was love at first use, the customization possible with the H2O blew away the Nook. The built in fonts are great, but loading your own? The weight option, margins, line spacing, need I go on?

Then I discovered just how powerful Calibre and Kobo could be when combined, and Geoff's patches.

But Kobo wasn't done impressing me, they've released more updates in firmware in the short time I've had my H2O (since it launched) to now, than Barnes and Noble had for their last two eink devices. Sure there are bugs, and things don't always change the way users may want. But that's where the patches come in, with them you can really tweak things to your liking when reading.

I wont pretend my H2O is perfect, but it's giving me what I want and what I need.

[darryl]

I once had a CEO of a company, speaking of a rival, saying that if this rival had put him in charge of their operations in a particular region for 12 months with the brief to absolutely destroy it, he could still not do as good a job as their incumbent had. Every time B&N or Nook is mentioned, I think of this story. They were in such a good position, and had such a great opportunity, but made one bad decision after another. Kobo, on the other hand, now seem to have inherited many of the opportunities that B&N missed. The H2O is an excellent device, and it seems to me that the Glo HD is heading for real success. Kobo is offering a real alternative to Amazon. And though KIndle's are excellent devices the trend at Amazon seems to be to try to lock-down the platform even further.

Sometimes, however, I do get frustrated with Kobo. Their customer support is a disaster, both from my own experience and according to most of the accounts of dealings with them I have read on these forums. They seem to lack the visibility they should have in the US. Even buying a device from them has its problems, with Chapters providing a much better service. Their web sites have many sometimes mysterious glitches. Their EBook prices are also a mystery, and often uncompetitive without a substantial discount coupon.

Unlike many members here, I am a big fan of Amazon. I am grateful to them and certainly do not think they are the devil. But they do need good, strong competition, and I think Kobo is in the best position to give it to them in the longer term if they play their cards right. I wish them well.

[cerem0ny]

I read somewhere that the competition will forever be against Kobo, as long as the word 'Kindle' is synonymous with 'e-book reader'...

[murg]

Originally Posted by darryl

I once had a CEO of a company, speaking of a rival, saying that if this rival had put him in charge of their operations in a particular region for 12 months with the brief to absolutely destroy it, he could still not do as good a job as their incumbent had.

I ran into this in the real world.

The new CEO managed to alienate ALL of the customers (not that they had many to begin with), and run the business into the ground.

I was amazed that both this sort of thing could happen and that the board allowed it.