played with new wifi kobo

[taming]

Originally Posted by viviena

I found the Sony devices attractive enough to pay the extra is that it was clear to me the 350's Pearl screen is much better than the Kobo's.

I didn't know they had the new Kobos with the 16 level gray scale available in Australia yet. Kewl. For sure the new Sony screen it should be better than the old Kobo screen.

[viviena]

Originally Posted by taming

I didn't know they had the new Kobos with the 16 level gray scale available in Australia yet. Kewl. For sure the new Sony screen it should be better than the old Kobo screen.

Oh I'm sorry, I should have clarified. I'm comparing the original Kobo to the new Sony models.

In any case, the new 16 level greyscale might make for an improvement in the rendering of text, although it would be even better for comics and manga, e.g. 16-level + 6" screen sounds wonderful to me. (Manga on the original Kobo's 8 level greyscreen wasn't as nice, especially when it came to text legibility -- it sometimes looked poorly anti-aliased.)

However, it seems to me that the new Pearl screens, in addition to 16 levels of greyscale, allow for text rendering which is a much deeper black, and stronger contrast. It also makes the K3 and the new Sonys look like they have lighter and paler backgrounds, though this is really only evident in certain lighting conditions -- sometimes the background still looks fairly grey, in others it looks almost off-white. This might account for the subjectivity of various accounts, and I'd think the Kobo's screen is still fine for many occasions. Just guessing, anyway.

[corona]

The new auto/manual sleep function is perfect!

[zoran]

Originally Posted by Malmic

The screen still has the grayish tint and while it is better than the old one the difference, at least to my eyes, is minor.

Finally, finally someone said it in plain words. "Old" screen is fine for me and
I see no reason to not say "yep, they are similar".

That being said, neither kobo or sony really compare with kindle when it comes to speed, screen quality (contrast) and character size options (plus line distance options). Kindle is a class above both. It would become an option for me if they would open to epubs but until then it's a no for me.

However kobo runs from this, people mostly think the same. The reason
I chose kobo (the First) was epub, open approach and friendly community.
For that I do not understand why we/me/whoever get only anouncements
of new product or help for syncing application problems. It is boring and
not that positive. I see multiple ways to speak of future and promise
nothing in fixed manner. Like: "K, guys and girls, we have our minds on <this>
or <that> and we have a plan to make it next week, but we have a new
party tomorrow and we have to wait to see if we have time for upgrade...".
Seriously, ignoring users and pointing only to new device is irritating to
old buyers. At least, I feel irritated every time I see some issue ignored
and answer going to the other side. I hesitate to look further on sqlite topic
since I know nobody cares if it could be debugged or not.

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by JPenguin

This probably wouldn't be too big of an issue. Now hearing that the new Kobo doesn't have an "Off" mode explains why I couldn't turn it off , I tried to see what the start up speed was but it was refusing to turn off.

Ummm, it doesn't turn off? Isn't that a bad sign? Wasn't the reason they put the auto-off feature into Kobo1 because we had battery problems? So now if the kobo2 *can't* shut off, does that mean the battery won't last as long?

[taming]

Holding down the power on button will still turn the Kobo off. Otherwise it stays in sleep mode. Like 1.0. When Kobo introduced the sleep for 15 minute and then turn itself off feature they said it would save on the battery, but it was, apparently, wildly unpopular. People asked for the ability to choose their own option/timing for on-sleep-off. It appears we got a roll back to the first way of doing things with the new option being having covers (or not) when sleeping.

[PeterT]

I think the point is that the unit now more reliably enters a hibernation state; ie not as LOW power as being fully off, but far lower power than being turned on.

So when the unit IS in sleep mode, it will be far quicker to start reading again (I seem to recall that many people were disappointed about the 15 minute shut down on the 1.4 firmware), and, if you DO want to turn the unit fully off, it is just a matter of holding down the power button.

[Pookeysgirl]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I think the point is that the unit now more reliably enters a hibernation state; ie not as LOW power as being fully off, but far lower power than being turned on.

So when the unit IS in sleep mode, it will be far quicker to start reading again (I seem to recall that many people were disappointed about the 15 minute shut down on the 1.4 firmware), and, if you DO want to turn the unit fully off, it is just a matter of holding down the power button.

The point of my post was to ask if the new kobo can be turned off. JPenguin made it sound like it couldn't be turned off at all.
I think it's fantastic that they got rid rid of the auto-shutdown feature. It drives me nuts that everytime I put my reader down for a few minutes to help one of my kids with their homework, or fix dinner, or whatever other thing I may have to do, I then have to wait for my reader to turn back on. For me 1 minute can be a very, very long time

[leighisme]

I picked up the wifi Kobo yesterday and I love what they've done with desktop loaded books. Text lines are closer together and there's the option to change the justification. Looks great!

[JPenguin]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

The point of my post was to ask if the new kobo can be turned off. JPenguin made it sound like it couldn't be turned off at all.
I think it's fantastic that they got rid rid of the auto-shutdown feature. It drives me nuts that everytime I put my reader down for a few minutes to help one of my kids with their homework, or fix dinner, or whatever other thing I may have to do, I then have to wait for my reader to turn back on. For me 1 minute can be a very, very long time

Maybe I was doing it wrong but I really couldn't get the instore demo units to turn off? I'd old the power button down, if I only held down for a little while then it went into sleep mode (with the cover), if I held it longer then it would reboot (Kobo logo with the boxes). I suppose my confusion could be with the on/off behaviour for the cover changing again, perhaps what I thought was "sleep" was "off". Sorry if I've confused you guys but I guess I am a little confused here myself

[timlegge]

Originally Posted by JPenguin

Maybe I was doing it wrong but I really couldn't get the instore demo units to turn off? I'd old the power button down, if I only held down for a little while then it went into sleep mode (with the cover), if I held it longer then it would reboot (Kobo logo with the boxes). I suppose my confusion could be with the on/off behaviour for the cover changing again, perhaps what I thought was "sleep" was "off". Sorry if I've confused you guys but I guess I am a little confused here myself

The device I tried will power off if you hold the power button for a few seconds and release.

The newspapers are kind of cool.

The dictionary works quite well. I did not test it on a calibre loaded epub yet.

Typing an eight word WPA phrase sucks. However, I only have to do it once, I typed it correctly the first time, you can get it to reveal the password and you can move backwards without deleting characters.

The text entry in the search boxes on the shopping site is acceptable.

Tim

[dos]

JCKobo (or another Kobo employee): Will the new Kobo firmware for original devices have all the features as the new one minus the wi-fi options, or will it be cut down?

I understand that new units have a faster processor and more memory, so I'd like to know what features are simply too taxing to have on the old machine.

My big issue is graphics in Kobo format ebooks (not ePubs). I prefer to use the Kobo format since it syncs with my desktop and iphone and any other devices that have a Kobo app and remembers what page I'm on, and also seems to have nicer formatting than ePubs (it feels like the "right" way to read on the Kobo reader). However, the lack of any kind of graphics really put me off (see my thread regarding Snow Crash).

It's really cool to see in this thread that the new Kobos do display graphics in the native format, but I'm worried that this functionality won't appear on the original Kobo in 1.5

It would be nice if you could give a technical explanation of why original readers may not get graphics in this format, surely it can't be that taxing on the CPU since the Kobo displays graphics in ePubs very nicely.

I'm worried that I just bought my device a week ago and now it's obsolete. I knew there was a new model coming out, but the speed of page turns on the original device never bothered me, I see no need for Wi-Fi or a dictionary or more shades of grey, I like the color scheme of the original better, and I like saving money. I assumed that Kobo would try to provide the same amount of support for both devices since it said that on the FAQ on the Kobo website, it seems like I'm right about that but I'd really like to know just what's the deal with this graphics thing. It's really my only major problem with the device, everything else has been pretty great and the Kobo is everything I need in an ebook reader.

[JCKobo]

Originally Posted by Pookeysgirl

Ummm, it doesn't turn off? Isn't that a bad sign? Wasn't the reason they put the auto-off feature into Kobo1 because we had battery problems? So now if the kobo2 *can't* shut off, does that mean the battery won't last as long?

You absolutely can shut the device off - just press the power button for 3 seconds or more and it will turn right off.

In regards to the battery life - we did some additional testing both with the Kobo Wireless Reader and the original Kobo Reader. It turns out the difference of letting the device sleep versus turning it off is much smaller than we had originally understood.

We've left it in your hands - if you want to turn it off, turn it off. If not, it'll happily dream of the next time you want to read in sleep mode.

[JCKobo]

Originally Posted by dos

JCKobo (or another Kobo employee): Will the new Kobo firmware for original devices have all the features as the new one minus the wi-fi options, or will it be cut down?

I'd love to give you the final answer, but we are still testing it. We want to deliver the full native ePub experience on the original device, but we also need to make sure a) it performs well (the new Kobo Wireless Reader's CPU is about twice as fast) and b) it has enough RAM (the new Kobo Wireless Reader has twice as much RAM as the original).

Once we're satisfied with the performance, we will push it to everyone as soon as we can. I'm not 100% sure this will be in our next firmware release or the one afterwards, but it's a priority for us.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by JCKobo

You absolutely can shut the device off - just press the power button for 3 seconds or more and it will turn right off.

In regards to the battery life - we did some additional testing both with the Kobo Wireless Reader and the original Kobo Reader. It turns out the difference of letting the device sleep versus turning it off is much smaller than we had originally understood.

We've left it in your hands - if you want to turn it off, turn it off. If not, it'll happily dream of the next time you want to read in sleep mode.

The question all of us Ko1 owners are keen to know is whether the new power settings are being included in firmware update 1.5