new kobo coming soon

[mamasue]

Originally Posted by sabredog

I would like to see the Kobo reduced to sub AU$150 here to encourage even more competition. However, I doubt it will ever get to the magic amount of US$99 here.

Here! Here!

How good would that be!

But our $ is soooooooo good at the moment, it's tempting to buy another one for me!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by SameerH

Yes, it will support WPA.

wifi but no keyboard? Why?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JCKobo

We definitely experimented with some less orthodox keyboard configuration. One member of our team tried to convince us that with the D-Pad we could build an innovative 'Quaternary search' (that's a 4 way binary search).

When we tested it with actual people, they all were able to enter text faster with a good old QWERTY keyboard than anything else.

Here's a sneak peek of a user actually using it. (and a bit more candy to go with it)

WOW! That looks so annoying to type. And K3 users are complaining of the numbers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Ghoda

I imagine you wouldn't need to type the whole title, just the first few letters or key words and then choose from a list of results

Type a long title and find you have a typo at the first letter after you finish. No way to go back and fix it without erasing it all and starting over. I can easily see the reviewers blasting this D-Pad keyboard all to pieces and I would not blame them at all.

My wifi password is a combination of letters and numbers. Typing it would be really annoying. Sorry, but there is no way I can recommend a wifi Kobo at this stage of the game with such an inefficient keyboard.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wrenn1

I took my Kobo with me to the Sony store to compare the PRS 650 (and to buy one for my daughter.....had a hard time handing it over) and I couldn't believe how much sharper the text was on the Sony. Almost made the Kobo look washed out.

I wonder if that has improved on the new Kobo?

That looks like the original Vizplex screen and not the new Pearl screen. So if I am correct, it's no better then the Kobo you have.

[taming]

16 levels of gray scale should be waaaay better than the current Kobo.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

WOW! That looks so annoying to type. And K3 users are complaining of the numbers.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Type a long title and find you have a typo at the first letter after you finish. No way to go back and fix it without erasing it all and starting over. I can easily see the reviewers blasting this D-Pad keyboard all to pieces and I would not blame them at all.

My wifi password is a combination of letters and numbers. Typing it would be really annoying. Sorry, but there is no way I can recommend a wifi Kobo at this stage of the game with such an inefficient keyboard.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

That looks like the original Vizplex screen and not the new Pearl screen. So if I am correct, it's no better then the Kobo you have.

Strewth

Do you actually have anything positive to contribute?

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Type a long title and find you have a typo at the first letter after you finish. No way to go back and fix it without erasing it all and starting over. I can easily see the reviewers blasting this D-Pad keyboard all to pieces and I would not blame them at all.

How do you know that? Just because you can't see any arrow keys on the keyboard doesn't mean you can't move around in what you're typing. There could be left/right keys on the numeric/punctuation keypad, which presumably will appear when you click on the "?123" button. Or maybe they will let you press Up while on the top line of the keyboard to put a cursor in the edit field box, and then pressing left/right will allow you to position the cursor.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

My wifi password is a combination of letters and numbers. Typing it would be really annoying. Sorry, but there is no way I can recommend a wifi Kobo at this stage of the game with such an inefficient keyboard.

But surely the Kobo will remember the password, so entering it is only a one-time exercise. This is how my smart phone works.

[moffattm]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Strewth

Do you actually have anything positive to contribute?

I agree, lots of negative comments there, especially since no one has actually had one to play with and can tell us exactly how it all works.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by moffattm

I agree, lots of negative comments there, especially since no one has actually had one to play with and can tell us exactly how it all works.

All we have to go with is what we see and what we see is not all that wonderful looking. The Kobo staff have not said anything to the contrary yet.

I know the Kobo will keep wifi passwords. But it still doesn't make typing any easier.

[viviena]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All we have to go with is what we see and what we see is not all that wonderful looking. The Kobo staff have not said anything to the contrary yet.

I know the Kobo will keep wifi passwords. But it still doesn't make typing any easier.

The ease of using the keyboard for typing is a valid concern, but your point about it being more difficult to type in a password is nitpicky. Finding books in their store will be more of a pain, yes, but frankly this is a basic ereader with an integrated bookstore. It's not misleading you by promising bells and whistles where they don't exist.

I do envy you that you have enough choices to make the Kobo pale in comparison. However, many people overseas don't have such choices, and for some, buying a competitively priced ereader with a bricks and mortar presence and local support is even better than ordering a Kindle from the USA. This is putting aside the fact that the original Kobo already provides a pretty decent reading experience, although it's possible you would disagree.

[JPenguin]

I'd say the differences between the new WiFi enabled and the older Kobo don't really justify the $150 price. I don't see the new WiFi feature making the new Kobo much more useful than the original, it will still be a fairly basic no-frills eReader (which is something many people are looking for, they don't want web-browser, IM apps, games, etc on their reader, they want something simple that gets the job done!).

Do I think the new Kobo is better than old, yes, WiFi will be more useful than the Bluetooth module that only works with [select] BlackBerry smartphones. If we had a Pearl screen then the price would be worth it and I'd be ordering one today. A faster processor is another great perk.

Is the new Kobo worth more than the old? Yes. Is the new Kobo worth more than a Kindle 3? No. But I'm not switching to a Kindle 3 or a new Kobo, I'm quite happy with my current Kobo. I don't think the current price of the Kobo in Canada is particularly competitive but it is still a fine eReader.

As to the keyboard, I personally would rather deal with klunky typing for book purchases or WiFi passkeys (especially annoying for me, 50+ random characters, I hate it on my smartphone with a full keyboard) than have a larger device to fit a full qwerty keyboard for the little use it really needs on a consumption device. There are plenty of methods they could use to get around editing text without resorting to the backspace button, even that would be a somewhat minor inconvenience the few times I needed it anyway.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by viviena

The ease of using the keyboard for typing is a valid concern, but your point about it being more difficult to type in a password is nitpicky. Finding books in their store will be more of a pain, yes, but frankly this is a basic ereader with an integrated bookstore. It's not misleading you by promising bells and whistles where they don't exist.

I do envy you that you have enough choices to make the Kobo pale in comparison. However, many people overseas don't have such choices, and for some, buying a competitively priced ereader with a bricks and mortar presence and local support is even better than ordering a Kindle from the USA. This is putting aside the fact that the original Kobo already provides a pretty decent reading experience, although it's possible you would disagree.

Could not agree more. Some members tend to forget that some avid readers of ebooks do not have choice, have to buy overseas for their ereaders and pay premium prices even so. We have four ereaders in this house. Three of them were sourced from overseas which saved me a lot of money and those three do not have valid warranties, because I live in Australia.

The Kobo does and has a damn fine support system for it.

It is also a very good ereader.

[Achan]

While I'm waiting for my very first ereader to arrive (i pre-ordered the kobo), I'd just like to add that Kobo probably can't do much better than pricing it the same as when Kobo 1 first came out since they're still selling the Kobo 1. If they lower it any more than say, 10 or so dollars ($150 here in Canada), Amazon will probably swoop in with another price cut so there really isn't any point in their perspective. But this is just my guess and I'm no business major. As a side note, and this may be just me, but it seems like their employees are much more active in the forums than the other companies (in a good way).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by viviena

This is putting aside the fact that the original Kobo already provides a pretty decent reading experience, although it's possible you would disagree.

Actually, I would not disagree. No with the current firmware. If you were talking the original Kobo firmware, I would disagree. But be that as it may, the original Kobo is a no-frills readers that does what it says it does.