It's so easy for me to lose perspective...

[samhy]

I forgot to add that without PRS+ it's not the book cover that's displayed when the device is sleeping, but a stock picture. The image on the box led me to believe otherwise, so I was a bit disappointed at first. It's possible to upload and select a custom one, though.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

You can change the tap zones in the settings (I use the Kobo with just my left hand as well and can just tap the left of the screen with my thumb to go forward a page).

Agreed. I have smallish hands, and have no trouble either tapping the centre of the screen with my left thumb to page forward, or swiping with my left thumb near the left edge of the reader to page forward.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by meeera

Agreed. I have smallish hands, and have no trouble either tapping the centre of the screen with my left thumb to page forward, or swiping with my left thumb near the left edge of the reader to page forward.

I have small hands too, and it must be how I hold the reader, but I still have to do an awkward stretch to hit the center. And I can't get used to having just the small area at the bottom to bring up the menus. I'll have to keep at it more and see if I can't get more used to using that mode for the pages.

I should also add that if whatever font you're using doesn't have a particular special character, the Sony fills it in with another font so you never see the boxes with question marks like I see so often on the Kobo with the majority of fonts (it never even occurred to me that it would ever be a problem for any font). That's also standard with Sony's firmware, not a PRS+ enhancement. And bold and italics always show correctly as bold and italics.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Not to throw fuel on the fire, but other than being a stable firmware that isn't being improved, what is it that makes the Sony firmware so much better? I've never played with one.

The PDF support on a Sony is much better than on a Kobo. This is not to imply that PDF reading on a Sony 6" is a great joy, but they have done a pretty good job.

It's always been my opinion that Sony aimed low with their firmware with good reliable results. The hacking community then stepped in to add popular features to a solid base. Other readers (e.g. Pocketbook) aimed higher, but made more mistakes. Which is the lesser of the 2 evils, I'm not sure.

The Sony PRST1 firmware was not as polished as the earlier models and had a fundamental flaw with bold/italics not displaying reliably. They never bothered to fix it despite 4-5 fw updates. Fortunately, yet again, the hacking community stepped in for those brave enough to apply the fix. It was finally fixed for the PRST2, I believe. Sony have now locked out the hacking community for the PRST2. Things are not looking hopeful for the future without a radical rethink.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by david_e

How eerie can it be? You're still here.

I just think it is dumb and unproductive for people to come to a third party forum to make their complaints. If you have an issue, send the company an email. If you're unhappy with the response, or lack of response, then find a device that works for you. To sit around hoping and waiting for something to get fixed is ridiculous, especially when you're doing it in a manner with no guarantee of ever being heard.

I also feel that if someone buys a Kobo device, only to then discover it doesn't do what they thought / assumed it did, they're an idiot and I want nothing to do with them. I certainly don't want to read about it or the rest of their idiotic experience. They can stumble onto this place but they can't do a little pre-shopping research? Yeah, stay the #$%& away from me.

And so what if people with positive experiences want to share them? It's rather telling that you feel that those with only negative things should have their voices heard without question but anyone with a positive experience has some ulterior motive or 'mission'.

P.S.

oT ym oboK sdrolrevo, erehw si ym kcehc???

Well, I like third party forums where I can read both sides of a story. And form my own opinion about topics or issues and compare them with my own experiences.
Independent forums or websites can provide unbiased information. Or information and/or opinions on product features: the good and the bad; What's working and what's not. Not only the colored PR stuff. Third party forums are excellent for pre-shopping research and to solve device related problems without the delay when contacting the company. They are also a good source to learn if issues are hardware or firmware related or caused by improper use of a device, what some will call, I'll quote: "their idiotic experience".
Kobo doesn't even have an own forum where questions can be posted or anwers found about there products and services. So Kobo users rely on third party sites for quick anwers or affirmation as Kobo FAQ section is too limited.

Well, how seriously does Kobo takes its customers?
Let's take the GetSatisfaction website as an example: "Companies of all sizes […] rely on the Get Satisfaction community platform to acquire new customers, provide better service and build better products."
Kobos message on the Kobo page: "Kobo Care is dedicated to making your experience with Kobo products and services as enjoyable as possible."
If you browse through the posts you'll learn very quickly that Kobo hardly ever addresses the postings. Or give very short aswers that do not anwer the original question and therefore are not very helpfull at all.
The last official Kobo message was posted over 11 months ago.

But, I do agree that positive experiences are also worth mentioning. Not every thing is bad! I do totally agree with that.
But answering negative post about specific features or firmwares with answers like "it doesn't bother me.", or "I like it." only don't help at all, just as post with "I hate it." or "I don't like it." don't. Simply because it doesn't anwers the "why".
Many users just ask features to be optional or less obstrusive (e.q. smaller top and footer headers by placing the text closer to the edge of the screen and reduce of the wide margin surrounding these bars).

Many ereader devices (brands) are not available in North America (compared to Europe). Kobo seems totally focused on the North American market (mainly Canada). Kobo seems to be blind for devices that are not released on the North American market, which have similar features (post on Facebook, Twitter; font options) or additional (show/hide header and footer bars; enable/disable ligatures) and don't use two rendering engines only to create a difference between a kepub or regular epub. There device specific features are implemented on the device itself, where Kobo implemented them in its proprietary kepub format and (may) lead to undesired results. Or results that can not be guaranteed due to the chosen solution.

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll give you one bug going back to the original Kobo that DOES affect everyone.

When you put the font-family in the body style in CSS, the embedded font is not displayed. This is how some embedded fonts are setup. Kobo ignores this. This is not an ADE issue. ADE works with font-family in the body CSS style. Kobo botched this and it's been reported and they refuse to fix it. So many eBooks do not display the embedded font and there could be an issue with extended characters because of this.

THIS AFFECTS EVERY EINK KOBO OUT THERE!

This is not the case.
The embedded fonts in the body-style do work on all my epubs on all my readers, including the Kobo Aura.

[taming]

Originally Posted by Anak

<big snip>
Many ereader devices (brands) are not available in North America (compared to Europe). Kobo seems totally focused on the North American market (mainly Canada). Kobo seems to be blind for devices that are not released on the North American market, which have similar features (post on Facebook, Twitter; font options) or additional (show/hide header and footer bars; enable/disable ligatures) and don't use two rendering engines only to create a difference between a kepub or regular epub. There device specific features are implemented on the device itself, where Kobo implemented them in its proprietary kepub format and (may) lead to undesired results. Or results that can not be guaranteed due to the chosen solution.

Anak, you might want to look at the April interview on Digital Book World with Kobo CEO, Mike Serbinis.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013...nal-expansion/

JG: How many countries are you in now?

MS: We sell our ebooks in 190 countries, which pretty much means every country. We sell the devices in more than a dozen. There’s about a dozen countries where we have full-blown Kobo territory partners [Fnac in France, for instance] and there are some other countries that we sell the devices in general.

JG: Can you give me an indication of international growth plans for Kobo in 2013 and 2014?

MS: We’re in 12 countries today with territory partners and we’re selling in about 24. I expect to almost double that next year. [sic, they are talking devices here]

In 2015? I don’t see the number doubling again. You start to get diminishing returns entering smaller markets. The number of countries will probably grow by another 50% in 2014. Some of the countries we have our eye on this year have a billion people in them. While they count for “one” in this conversation, they actually count for ten-to-twenty from a scale and difficulty standpoint. They’re multi-lingual, there are many states.

Weighing in on the issue of being critical or positive, I don't think you have to choose. I try to write critical posts without rancor, positive posts about things I like, workarounds for things I dislike, and posts that are hopeful about the future. That reflects my general approach to life--my personality. Some folks like it, some do not. One of my workarounds on MR is putting people on ignore. I bet I am on the ignore list of others.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

I should also add that if whatever font you're using doesn't have a particular special character, the Sony fills it in with another font so you never see the boxes with question marks like I see so often on the Kobo with the majority of fonts (it never even occurred to me that it would ever be a problem for any font). That's also standard with Sony's firmware, not a PRS+ enhancement. And bold and italics always show correctly as bold and italics.

I usually agree with you, but I've had more fonts issues on the Sony than on the Kobo. However I guess that's because this Sony has a Japanese firmware and more likely the western x50s are more tolerant to different fonts or encoding.
Each time I was reading something which wasn't in English, I was dreading to see those question marks

One of the reasons for buying the Mini: hardware and software not related to where the device was bought.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by taming

Anak, you might want to look at the April interview on Digital Book World with Kobo CEO, Mike Serbinis.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013...nal-expansion/



Weighing in on the issue of being critical or positive, I don't think you have to choose. I try to write critical posts without rancor, positive posts about things I like, workarounds for things I dislike, and posts that are hopeful about the future. That reflects my general approach to life--my personality. Some folks like it, some do not. One of my workarounds on MR is putting people on ignore. I bet I am on the ignore list of others.

Taming, I for one appreciate your posts. They are very educational. I have learned a lot of not only the Kobo, but of some of the inner workings of the Kobo community. I don't always agree with everything, but that is part of what a forum should be.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by taming

Anak, you might want to look at the April interview on Digital Book World with Kobo CEO, Mike Serbinis.

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013...nal-expansion/



Weighing in on the issue of being critical or positive, I don't think you have to choose. I try to write critical posts without rancor, positive posts about things I like, workarounds for things I dislike, and posts that are hopeful about the future. That reflects my general approach to life--my personality. Some folks like it, some do not. One of my workarounds on MR is putting people on ignore. I bet I am on the ignore list of others.

I hear you, Taming. I know Kobo is active in many countries or territories, but is (too?) focused on the Anglo-Saxon countries.

If Kobo decides to enter a specific (language) market to sell books (not just to sell the hardware only) then I expect full support:

• native fonts should contain all language specificcharacters (e.g. a Western European font set vs a Central European font set; or standard or pro font) to avoid questionmarks for unrecognized characters.
• local language dictionary
• translation dictionary from the local language to (at least) English (and vice versa)

This short list is just to illustrate my point it is not meant to complete.

Simply put, all available features in the English language should be available in the localized language. At best from the initial release or by releasing new firmware within a few months after the initial release.
If Kobo doesn't plan to support all the features (if a language area relatively small) then they should make it possilble to use an open source solution.

[taming]

Anak, I know that the installed fonts, at one time, varied depending on geographical location of the set-up. I don't know if this is still true, but I will ask in the beta group (not that all questions there necessarily get answered...). There was, at some point, a limit on how many font sets were included on any given FW edition. When, for example, Ryumin and other new font sets were added, others were pulled from the version I see in Canada.

Getting full sets of fonts, with all the glyphs, and having them work properly on the Kobo is rather a dogs breakfast. I have never understood why this is so hard for them to get right.

EDIT: so I checked. There is no localization of installed fonts on Kobo devices. Georgia is currently the font that handles Eastern European languages the best.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by samhy

I usually agree with you, but I've had more fonts issues on the Sony than on the Kobo. However I guess that's because this Sony has a Japanese firmware and more likely the western x50s are more tolerant to different fonts or encoding.
Each time I was reading something which wasn't in English, I was dreading to see those question marks

One of the reasons for buying the Mini: hardware and software not related to where the device was bought.

That's odd there would be such a difference. Is it possible to install the western firmware on your Japanese Sony? Or have you tried installing PRS+ and see if it fixes any of those font issues?

Reading a lot this morning on the Kobo, I've given up trying to use a tap while holding it in my left hand. 75% of the time I can't stretch far enough and I end up going back a page. So I'm back to swiping, at least when holding it in my left hand.

The other thing I should mention about the Sony is that I've never once had to do a hard reset that deletes all material off the reader. Within 4 days of owning the Kobo Glo, the reader locked up and the only option left was to do a hard reset. I now carry a paper clip with me everywhere when I plan on reading away from home.

[taming]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

The other thing I should mention about the Sony is that I've never once had to do a hard reset that deletes all material off the reader. Within 4 days of owning the Kobo Glo, the reader locked up and the only option left was to do a hard reset. I now carry a paper clip with me everywhere when I plan on reading away from home.

I've always been amazed by the fact that some Kobo devices seem to continuously misbehave, and some almost never do. Some of the time it appears to have to do with things like poorly formatted books (maybe dark gray coloured free books), but other devices just seem cursed. I have lucked out, so far.

[taming]

Duplicate post.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

That's odd there would be such a difference. Is it possible to install the western firmware on your Japanese Sony? Or have you tried installing PRS+ and see if it fixes any of those font issues?

First, I'm glad my comments weren't seen as undermining yours all the time. By re-reading them I thought it could feel that way, but that wasn't my intention.

Regarding the firmware and PRS+, I've seen one comment here of someone who tried and bricked his 650. So I preferred to err on the safe side and keep it as it was. Now, this is an ereader that I'm using when I want to lend a book or when someone has questions about ereaders and ebooks. It's nice, steady and sturdy enough to serve well that way.
I can also use it once in a while, but most of the time the Mini or the Aura will provide what I need