Kobo Touch $129

[robko]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

it remains to be seen about the battery. nooks claim of a month is with wifi off and we dont know how kobo calculated the 2 weeks it claimed. at least as far as ive read today

more than likely they have the same battery and same processor...

I did some math tonight and assuming 2 pages/minute reading (which I would say is really fast) and 30 minutes per day is only 3600 page turns over 2 months. Based on my experience with Kobo I would say you are probably right that's it's good marketing on Nooks part, but likely not much actual difference in battery performance.

[maianhvk]

it looks nice!! much much much better than kindle! touch screen! and cheaper!
(oh wait, what about battery?)

why did they announce this so late

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

it remains to be seen about the battery. nooks claim of a month is with wifi off and we dont know how kobo calculated the 2 weeks it claimed. at least as far as ive read today

more than likely they have the same battery and same processor...

The new Nook has an 800 mhz TI OMAP CPU...the Kobo has a relatively new/unused freescale CPU...hard to tell which is faster.

Originally Posted by anabolina

I agree Green Monkey(and love your avatar, both the evil and good Kosh were great characters). I bought the PRS-350 back in January and while I love having a touchscreen, and haven't bought a non-touchscreen piece of technology in more than 2 years, I like the buttons at the bottom of the page reader and use them more often then the screen. In fact, the metal coloring is wearing off the bottom buttons so I've been reading using Aldiko on my phone so as to balance out the wear. Still, this reader gives me a serious case of the "I want that"s. I love the colors and quilted back. The Sony is a bit more... utilitarian.

Thanks, can't go wrong with some Kosh.

I think the Kobo is a nicer looking device, the statistics are better than the social networking B&N is trying to push.

I'm going with the new Nook when I upgrade, mainly for the physical page turn buttons. But the new Kobo looks nice too.

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

The new Nook has an 800 mhz TI OMAP CPU...the Kobo has a relatively new/unused freescale CPU...hard to tell which is faster.

thats too funny. I was thinking this whole time that the nook reminded me of a reference design from one of the chip folks that i had seen in last year. i just started thinking it might have been TI and was going to look through some pics to see if i could find it. im pretty sure ive held the new nooks "mother" before.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by soondai

looks like the nook has a better battery and twice the memory. Throw in the fact it has an active hacking community and it's almost surely worth the extra 10 bucks.

I think Kobo should aim for 99 bucks, but that might not be practical.

The Kobo doesn't stand a chance in the US. It's designed to be sold in markets where the Kindle and Nook are absent. Sales of all three in the same market will see the Kobo take a distant third.

[Latinandgreek]

I'm sure that the new kobo device will do well in Canada, as the Nook is not sold here at all. I don't really like the bezel on the new Nook, the new Kobo seems more appealing to me esthetically. I can't wait to play with the new Kobo at Chapters when it comes in.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

The Kobo doesn't stand a chance in the US. It's designed to be sold in markets where the Kindle and Nook are absent. Sales of all three in the same market will see the Kobo take a distant third.

What is the basis for these conclusions? I would think Kobo can/will do pretty well in the U.S. although I do agree it would be #3, not #2 or #1.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by rhadin

What is the basis for these conclusions? I would think Kobo can/will do pretty well in the U.S. although I do agree it would be #3, not #2 or #1.

Based on the feature sets and price points of the Kobo WiFi, Kindle 3, and Nook Classic. It wasn't until the last several months that Borders dropped the price of the Kobo to $100. Even then, I'd still opt for a K3 at $139.

[RockdaMan]

I'd buy the Kobo, but I'm conflicted about breaking the DRM on my Kindle books...I have not bought many, but I still have some free ones I want to read.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

it remains to be seen about the battery. nooks claim of a month is with wifi off and we dont know how kobo calculated the 2 weeks it claimed. at least as far as ive read today

more than likely they have the same battery and same processor...

I think that the pdf scrolling will be the one that really drains the battery. I mean the eye sees continuous movement if the frame rate is 25 fps, and from the video in the article linked in the OP, I would say that it looks almost continuous, maybe not perfect, but it might reach 20 fps. So if you scroll around for 10s it is the same as refreshing the screen 200 times. So if the battery last 2 weeks even if you read pdf files, I would say that the battery is amazing, and they optimized the screen refresh as well.

[taming]

Originally Posted by soondai

looks like the nook has a better battery and twice the memory.

There is a bit of a controversy over the amount of available space for storage on the Nook. Kobo has 1 Gig for books and documents. I've been told that Nook includes the space for everything in its calculations. Someone will have to have both readers to know anything definitively about both this issue and the battery life.

I hope both of them do well. I would not like to see the dedicated reader disappear and these devices are important.

[PKFFW]

I'm glad I wasn't able to get a Sony 650 now. Not sure if I'll go the Nook or Kobo but it will be one or the other. Will probably wait till some hands on reviews are out to make my decision but I do like the look of the Kobo over the Nook.

[MechR]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Based on the feature sets and price points of the Kobo WiFi, Kindle 3, and Nook Classic. It wasn't until the last several months that Borders dropped the price of the Kobo to $100. Even then, I'd still opt for a K3 at $139.

I'd say the game has changed with the new Kobo and Nook models (even if that change turns out to be the Kindle widening its lead). Ironically, with the former's improvements and the latter's stripdown, the two have come out strikingly similar: Touch-centric with few physical buttons, no browser, no 3G, no audio, soft backside, social-media gimmicks...

If only B&N had known, they could've just kept making fancy Nook models, and entered a distribution deal with Kobo to catch the simple-reader market (Well, provided the Kobo/Borders deal is non-exclusive.)

[Anthem]

Way to go Kobo! I'm all in. I've got my 129 dollar bills stacked up and ready to go.

[stickybuns]

Originally Posted by rhadin

What is the basis for these conclusions? I would think Kobo can/will do pretty well in the U.S. although I do agree it would be #3, not #2 or #1.

It is a fairly widely held misconception that Borders owns Kobo since that's currently the primary (only?) place to purchase one in the U.S. Fear that the "owner" will no longer exist in the near future is likely to make people weary about purchasing. If Kobo is going to stay competitive in the American market, it needs to get its products into a wider range of stores. Once consumers see the Kobo in a BestBuy or Target without any reference to Borders, it will hopefully become clearer that Kobo is not presently in any financial danger.