Paperwhite vs Glow Kobo - specs please

[namebrandon]

Originally Posted by jsj

Maybe if you read something more challenging than the Hunger Games, you'd have a use for a dictionary. In a recent reading of Blood Meridian on my Kindle Touch, I had to look up over 100 words. Many didn't even appear in the pre-loaded Oxford dictionaries. The ability to load other dictionaries would be useful, however, I did appreciate being able to look up, and also translate, words through the internet.

sorry, can't help it, internet egotism makes me laugh.

[geormes]

Originally Posted by jsj

Maybe if you read something more challenging than the Hunger Games, you'd have a use for a dictionary. In a recent reading of Blood Meridian on my Kindle Touch, I had to look up over 100 words. Many didn't even appear in the pre-loaded Oxford dictionaries. The ability to load other dictionaries would be useful, however, I did appreciate being able to look up, and also translate, words through the internet.

u r sew smurt. cane i hav ur autogreph.

[RareBird]

Originally Posted by jsj

Maybe if you read something more challenging than the Hunger Games, you'd have a use for a dictionary. In a recent reading of Blood Meridian on my Kindle Touch, I had to look up over 100 words. Many didn't even appear in the pre-loaded Oxford dictionaries. The ability to load other dictionaries would be useful, however, I did appreciate being able to look up, and also translate, words through the internet.

Wow that's harsh.

[Iskariot]

Originally Posted by ijdod

I think the actual question here is: how big a feature is this, market-wise? Not in any way suggesting that I'm representative for the market: I've not used the dictionary in my e-reader, ever (had it for 3 years). To me, at least, that feature is essentially worthless.

It depends on what you read and it also depends on you interests..

It is my habit to read Dutch, German and English literary works in the language they are written in.
For an average thriller or scifi book I rarely use the dictionaries, but it depends on the author.

For me as a non native English speaker Jack Vance for example can be quite a challenge as he uses some very unusual picaresque vocabulary. I love Jack Vance.

In my native language I do not use the dictionaries nearly as much as I do when I read foreign languages and although I am more used to speaking english, my knowledge of German idiom is much greater because the German language is closely related to Dutch and I grew up with German and Dutch as a kid.

So it all depends.

Also I am very much interested in language, so I suppose I spend more time with dictionaries than the average user.

[murg]

Originally Posted by l_macd

it's currently Autumn or is it Fall?

Actually, it's currently Spring!

[ijdod]

Originally Posted by Iskariot

It depends on what you read and it also depends on you interests..

It is my habit to read Dutch, German and English literary works in the language they are written in.

Please don't misunderstand, I do see how it could be used by those wishing to use it, I was essentially just wondering what percentage actually does.

Same languages here, BTW, although my German reading is limited to non-fiction.

[jsj]

Hey, I'm not bragging about reading "Blood Meridian"... after all, I had to look up over a hundred words - definitely not saying I'm some kind of rad linguist. It's just obnoxious when someone comes along and makes a comment like "... a dictionary is rarely useful if you're not entirely new to reading in your own language". Speak for yourself. I, and many others, find a dictionary (and in my own language) incredibly useful.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Liesse

Are the dictionaries localised at all? Am I in the UK going to be stuck with a US English dictionary or can I get a British English one for my still-very-much-considering-pre-ordering Kobo Glo?

Despite quite a lot of discussion about your question, I don't think I actually saw an answer in there anywhere. But no, there's just one English dictionary in the Kobo firmware, and it'll probably be either American or International English. Though I must say, I've looked up quite a lot of archaic (UK) English words and I've only come across one in almost a year's use that wasn't in the dictionary. So unless you're planning to read olde English books or something from a very vocabularily intelligent author, I think you should be okay.

Originally Posted by murg

Actually, it's currently Spring!

Originally Posted by jsj

Hey, I'm not bragging about reading "Blood Meridian"... after all, I had to look up over a hundred words - definitely not saying I'm some kind of rad linguist. It's just obnoxious when someone comes along and makes a comment like "... a dictionary is rarely useful if you're not entirely new to reading in your own language". Speak for yourself. I, and many others, find a dictionary (and in my own language) incredibly useful.

Yes, me too.

[Iskariot]

I just thought of another question:

How does Kobo handle making notes and highlighting words and passages?
Any Kobo vets who can tell me something about that?

edit:
Just read that kobo devices do not support notes or highlighting.
But on a dutch site I read somewhere that the glo would support these features. Can't find it again though.

[sombreastre]

Originally Posted by jsj

Hey, I'm not bragging about reading "Blood Meridian"... after all, I had to look up over a hundred words - definitely not saying I'm some kind of rad linguist. It's just obnoxious when someone comes along and makes a comment like "... a dictionary is rarely useful if you're not entirely new to reading in your own language". Speak for yourself. I, and many others, find a dictionary (and in my own language) incredibly useful.

Calm down Mr Well Read, you definitely misinterpreted my words.
Cool you find your dictionary pretty useful, when reading in your own language, for those odd words here and there. A hundred you say? My, my! Good for you, so what did you get so stiff about?

By saying "of course a dictionary is rarely useful if you're not entirely new to reading in your own language" I was just replying to the guy who posted before me: "I've not used the dictionary in my e-reader, ever (had it for 3 years)". Sure, you could find the use of a dictionary pretty useful, but that guy doesn't and I was addressing him, not you.

My point was that, market-wise, dictionaries might not be that great a feature to advertise.
Like that guy who hadn't needed one for 3 years, a dictionary in your own language is rarely essential to understand the whole story, and some people choose to do perfectly without (a hundred words about that flower you've never heard and that color you've never seen, are not so critical when compared with the 99.9% of the text you have understood).

That's not true when reading in other languages. Sometimes you simply cannot go further in the story without searching that confusing verb. That's why I said it's "rarely useful" (and not useless), because I had in mind a comparison between reading your own language and other languages. There's such a gap of usefulness in there that it makes your-native-language-dictionaries look almost unnecessary (not that they actually are)

Now if we can close the off-topic and swiftly get back to the main issue here.

---
ps: please stop making assumptions about the people you talk to on the internet. We're not here to see who's got it longer, and you sounded pretentious and childish in your first post, I guess that's why other posters picked on you. I don't know who you were talking to specifically, but The hunger games has not even been published in my own language yet (and yes I've read it, but that's completely unrelated?)

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Iskariot

I just thought of another question:

How does Kobo handle making notes and highlighting words and passages?
Any Kobo vets who can tell me something about that?

On the touch-devices (Touch, Glo and mini), you bring up "selection mode" by either (a) tapping-and-holding a word or (b) swiping down the screen (top to bottom, just a few cm is enough).

a) the word is now selected, and the dictionary has automatically popped up with its definition. Also, a menu bar opens at the bottom of the screen, including icons of: a highlighting pencil, a note page, a magnifying glass and a facebook logo. Highlighting the word is as simple as hitting the pencil, to make a note, just hit the note page icon. A screen comes up with a keyboard and a field to type your note into.

b) The selection mode as described above (with the menu at the bottom of the screen) is now active, but no words is yet selected. In this mode you can select any word by just tapping once (no tap-and-hold necessary [this is also true once you're in the selection mode via method (a), after closing the dictionary popup]). When one word is selected, the dictionary pops up. You have to close the popup, and then the word will be underlined and the beginning and end of the word have balloon type things attached. You can drag those balloons to select more words.

There is also a list or index somewhere of all the notes (and highlights??) you made for a particular book, but I'm afraid I can't tell you much more about it as I've never used it myself. I do recall reading on this forum somewhere that currently that list of notes has a very strange and unpredictable way of ordering itself (not alphabetically, not chronologically...)

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by Iskariot

I just thought of another question:

How does Kobo handle making notes and highlighting words and passages?
Any Kobo vets who can tell me something about that?

edit:
Just read that kobo devices do not support notes or highlighting.
But on a dutch site I read somewhere that the glo would support these features. Can't find it again though.

Where did you read that? They do...

[Iskariot]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Where did you read that? They do...

I can only say I am happy to be wrong.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

a) the word is now selected, and the dictionary has automatically popped up with its definition.

As it has been discussed a bit lately, at the bottom of the dictionary popup, are options to look up other words and to translate the current word.

And as I'm surprised that no-one has asked, the dictionary popup states the source as "Miriam-Webster's English Dictionary". "Miriam-Webster's" seems to be the source for the translations as well.

[sombreastre]

Originally Posted by davidfor

And as I'm surprised that no-one has asked, the dictionary popup states the source as "Miriam-Webster's English Dictionary". "Miriam-Webster's" seems to be the source for the translations as well.

Does it need to be connected to wifi to list translations? thanks