Convince me to go with a Kobo Wireless or Touch

[filmo]

If better performance and easy use is important buy Kobo Touch. If Cheap is more important Kobo Wifi is for you. All e-readers have unhappy users complaining they want more features and problems fixed. Buy now most of Kobo Touch and Kobo Wifi software problems are fixed or being fixed and requested features are delivered with more to come.

Sony's latest touch e-reader has different way of doing things some that I like including choice tree that pops up when word in book is selected. Can't tap side of screen or use buttons to change page but must swipe page which works good.

Nook simple touch is also good.

Really should try before buying as even quick test will help your decision. Unfortunately store demo e-readers often have old software or just shows slide show.

[The Terminator]

If you like social reading the KT is perfect, you can share passages and notes to facebook and get awards posted also. If you search "Reading Life" you'll find that feature.



Pulse is supposed to come to the KT soon but nothing happening in that area right now.

[EscapeVelocity]

Im not really into Facebook or any of that type Social Media jazz.

I do like to talk about philosophy and politics.

[Joe563]

Can't tap side of screen or use buttons to change page but must swipe page which works good.

The Sony ereader (PRS-TI) has physical buttons that can be used to page forward and back so both the Touch and the Sony have two ways to change the page.

[TonyToews]

Originally Posted by HubbaDubbaDubba

Not only the tapping works very nicely, but swipes are really handful. I'm a leftie, so to be able to just swipe using my left thumb to move turning back and forward is just amazing. The lack of physical buttons is actually a pro, since you can hold the device anyway you want.

I've never quite figured out the swipes. But if I'm holding it in my right hand and it's balanced exactly so I can hit the screen with the ball of my right thumb to page turn. When holding the Touch with my left hand I end up tapping with my right hand.

What I'd really like to see is a configurable screen layout where the bottom 1" or 3 cms of the screen is a tap forward zone. Then I can use the ball of the thumb of my left hand to page forward.

[viviena]

Sony PRS-x50: an excellent ereader, very stable.

Sony PRS-x50 & PRS+: an awesome ereader.

Sony PRS-T1: by all accounts, more features than the x50 but its new OS means that the user experience can be a bit glitchy. If deciding between a x50 and a T1 though, I'd get this just because it would be easier to find, I don't think there are any more x50s on sale where I live.

Kobo WiFi: why bother?

Kobo Touch: merely a good ereader and glitchy for some, but its implementation of some features gives it some advantages over its competition, in this case Sony. Marketed very heavily as a 'social' ereader.

What I like about my 350 and the Sony experience: collections, library view. PRS+!!! Stability. Annotations. How well it manages side-loaded EPUBs. The Oxford Dictionary of English. Margin cut & PDF reflow (though I hear viewing PDF on the T1 is bad). How well integrated Sonys are with Calibre.

What I like about the Kobo Touch: feels nice. Extensive page style options all presented in a nice, easy to use UI without having to fiddle with code, e.g. fonts, margins, line spacing. (The T1 is supposed to have more style options than the x50, but the KT's is seriously very thorough.) The UI (pre-1.9.14 at least) is nicer. Integration with KoboBooks. The social options (looking forward to Pulse). Responsive dev team. Can't say I've had any groundbreaking bugs that other KT users have had too, though it seems to depend on luck some times.

[EscapeVelocity]

That Kobo Pulse sounds interesting. Will it be available on Kobo eReader software for Android?


Im leaning towards Sony. Though the Kobo Touch seems really nice.

[The Terminator]

Yes Pulse will be coming to Android also. I'm not sure what the Sony has that the Kobo doesn't have except that you can check out overdrive library content right from the device. Kobo Sync is really good also.

[Harry_W]

Originally Posted by EscapeVelocity

I wonder how many other people are at Sony Wireless vs Kobo Touch.

I had a Sony PRS-T1 and the Kobo Touch for 3 weeks. My personal pros and cons:

Kobo Touch
+ user interface (not perfect, but I like it)
+ page settings (margins, line spacing, custom fonts, many font sizes)
+ ergonomics (mate front, low frame around the touch screen)
- lousy dictionaries (especially the English - German one, but also the English one)
- no pdf reflow
- no pinch zoom in pdf
- no page turning in zoomed pdf

Sony PRS-T1
+ pdf functionality (even better with the latest firmware)
+ physical page turn buttons (good for zoomed pdf)
+ great dictionaries (Collins dictionaries in a number of languages + some more, all of very good quality)
- glossy front frame (extremely annoying)
- frame around the touch screen a little too high
- user interface forces you to use buttons and touch screen

To sum up, I would like to see a hybrid between both e-readers. The Kobos user interface and ergonomics, Sony's pdf functionality, physical buttons (without the need to use them) and the great dictionaries of the Sony would make my personal perfect reader.

As the Sony's glossy front annoyed my every time I used it (and I didn't like the mixture of using the touch screen and buttons), I sent it back and kept the Kobo. But this comes at the price of now having no dictionaries for my English books, as the internal ones of the Kobo are not even worth mentioning. As long as I read German books, I really love the Kobo Touch. But whenever I read an English book, I feel the desire to smash it against a wall, when I have to use an external dictionary.

[GoingDown]

Originally Posted by Harry_W

As the Sony's glossy front annoyed my every time I used it (and I didn't like the mixture of using the touch screen and buttons), I sent it back and kept the Kobo. But this comes at the price of now having no dictionaries for my English books, as the internal ones of the Kobo are not even worth mentioning. As long as I read German books, I really love the Kobo Touch. But whenever I read an English book, I feel the desire to smash it against a wall, when I have to use an external dictionary.

This was my main reason to purchase Kobo Touch over Sony. Why anybody ever thinks it is good idea to have glossy frame on e-book reader?

I have had my Kobo Touch for about a month now and I am happy with it. No big issues here.

[Suzanna]

Kobo Touch
...
- no pdf reflow
- no pinch zoom in pdf
- no page turning in zoomed pdf

Yes, there is no PDF reflow. However, you can zoom easily via a slider. Also, there is page turning in zoomed PDFs. Simply slide the page over to the left, and you'll see an arrow just off the page that you can use to turn the page in your zoomed PDF. Similarly, slide the page over to the right to see the arrow that will take you to the previous page.

I can't compare the Kobo's PDF handling to the Sony because I've never used a Sony. I can say, though, that it was much too hard to read PDFs on the Kobo wifi, so I never bothered. It is, however, quite easy with the Kobo Touch. I turn the Kobo to landscape mode and zoom so that the text goes all the way to the Kobo's edges. It's quite zippy to scroll up (using your finger to drag the page up) and scroll sideways to tap on the page turn buttons. Yes, it's more hands-on than reading an epub, but it's quite useable. I've read several PDFs on my Kobo Touch.

[Harry_W]

If you haven't used the Sony, it's hard to compare the two devices. The Sony's pinch zoom is really nice, no need to use a zoom slider. It's very responsive and fast. In addition you can zoom a page to your needs and then use the page turn buttons. That way every new page is perfectly alligned again.
Still, I wouldn't use a 6'' e-reader, if I had to read a lot of pdfs. But the Sony is the best solution I've seen so far IF it comes to pdf on such a small device. The Kobo Touch can compare to that in no way.

But for me the most serious issue are the crappy dictionaries. I study English and have to read a lot of English books. The Sony would be perfect for that, as it's dictionaries are of really high quality (for an e-reader). The Kobo's dictionaries are of no real use, the vocabulary is extremely limited and the translations can't compare to a corpus based dictionary like the Collins.

I also teach private lessons to schoolchildren and like to read English e-books with them. Even for them, the Kobo's dictionaries are of no use. I always have my Casio EW-G 2000 with me (it contains the Collins + Oxford Advanced dictionaries). With the Sony reader there would have been no need for an additional dictionary.

[EscapeVelocity]

So what are the differences between the Sony T1 and 650?

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by EscapeVelocity

So what are the differences between the Sony T1 and 650?

Maybe it's the time to move to the Sony forum....

[digiSara]

Originally Posted by viviena

Kobo WiFi: why bother?

Seems a bit harsh to completely dismiss the Wifi. I've been using the Wifi for over a year now and have just bought one for the other half.

Yes, the Touch is speedier and lighter - but if you haven't been using one, you won't miss it. The Wifi doesn't have as many features, but it is pretty stable. The other big advantage of the buttons means that if you want to read in the bath, by the pool, etc, you can stick it in a ziplock bag and it still works!

The negatives are that it doesn't read PDFs well (to the point where I don't bother trying). I don't use the dictionary anyways, so it's limitations don't bother me.

If you want a bare bones ereader and can find one at a good price (like the recent deal for $40 for a refurb), then the Kobo Wifi is still worth looking at.