Kobo Glo HD

[murg]

Originally Posted by Ryvyan

I can't decide if I should preorder or wait for first reviews. What if it's sold out!?

(and my brain argues that I have an old reader I can use regardless; or read a physical book)

It's not going to sell out. The Glo HD is not a 'limited release' like the Aura HD (?). And that Aura was around for more than a year.

At worst, you'll have to wait a week from when you order it for them to ship it from Taiwan/China (or manufacturer it there).

[murg]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

But, then there is the question of an introductory price that may go up!

Dale

The prices announced are the prices. Nothing introductory about them.

It is possible that a retailer may drop the price initially, but that is up to the retailer.

The prices will drop, but it will take a while for that to happen (as in many months).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I wasn't aware that Kobo models had suffered from 'early defects' - at least of the hardware variety

The early adopters seem to see more bright spots than the later ones.

Nor have I experienced vertical lines in direct sunlight - maybe UK sunlight is too weak or too infrequent

Isn't "UK sunlight" a contradiction of terms?

It's the middle of April (half-way through our autumn) here and the forecast is 26C and the skies are very blue.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by davidfor

The early adopters seem to see more bright spots than the later ones.

The Aura6" was prone to tiny pinpricks, visible at extreme viewing angles. I'd hazard a guess that it still is and may well be (one of the reasons) why Kobo have dropped the capacitive screen ever since.

Every time I thought any of my IR Kobos had a pinprick it turned out to be nothing worse than dried liquid on the screen with the frontlight reflecting off it - easily removed with a damp cloth. The perils of reading whilst eating!

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

Vertical lines in direct sunlight that go away with page refresh?? Is this some strange photo-chemical reaction?

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I wasn't aware that Kobo models had suffered from 'early defects' - at least of the hardware variety

Nor have I experienced vertical lines in direct sunlight - maybe UK sunlight is too weak or too infrequent

Here's an older thread showing an image of what happens. For me it only happens during the summer and in direct sunlight, it has to be a heat issue that causes it. The longer you go without a page refresh, the darker and higher up the lines will extend. And as I said, a page refresh clears up the lines.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

The Aura6" was prone to tiny pinpricks, visible at extreme viewing angles. I'd hazard a guess that it still is and may well be (one of the reasons) why Kobo have dropped the capacitive screen ever since.

Every time I thought any of my IR Kobos had a pinprick it turned out to be nothing worse than dried liquid on the screen with the frontlight reflecting off it - easily removed with a damp cloth. The perils of reading whilst eating!

The first Glo I had, had two or three bright spots. They were definitely manufacturing defects. I exchanged it for one that was perfect. At the time, there was a lot of discussion about this with some people going through three or four devices. Each of the Kobo front-lit devices has been the same problem, but the number of reports has gone down. Actually, I can't remember if there were any fro the Aura H2O. Hopefully the problem has been sorted and we won't see it with the Glo HD.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by murg

The prices announced are the prices. Nothing introductory about them.

It is possible that a retailer may drop the price initially, but that is up to the retailer.

The prices will drop, but it will take a while for that to happen (as in many months).

There are enough other models still around, if they drop the price to much,you have to drop the prices of the other models to.
The Aura now sells for about 119 euro's, The H2O for 179,- and they dropped the Glo now for 90.. and the touch is below the 79 now.
If they bring out the Glo-HD for 129 that price is already dangerous near the Aura,if they start to stunt,they will sell the Aura hardly, a refurbished touch is 45 now, so there are almost no gaps in between to stunt a bit more..

Originally Posted by davidfor

The early adopters seem to see more bright spots than the later ones.


Isn't "UK sunlight" a contradiction of terms?

It's the middle of April (half-way through our autumn) here and the forecast is 26C and the skies are very blue.

True, my first Aura HD has spots in the background where the light comes trough,very annoying,the returned one has them to, so they send 2 at the same time,send back the one with no spots.. but in the H2O I didn't hear so much so I think they will be very carefull,introduce a new model with problems can be the difference between a good-seller or a no-go.

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Here's an older thread showing an image of [vertical lines in sunlight] ...

Wow, that is so bizarre. I didn't know this was a "thing"!

Quick question for Kobo users on search results:
When you do a search within a book, does it work like ADE and Sony readers where it takes you to the next reference (e.g., if you type "Sam" in the search box, it takes you to the next page that "Sam" appears and you can touch "next" repeatedly to move forward through the book to each subsequent reference) or is it like the Kindle where it takes you to a separate page of search results listing every time the word "Sam" appears starting from the beginning of the book?

I ask because I don't like the way the Kindle handles searches. I much prefer how Sony does searches, and if the Kobo is like the Sony, that would sway me further toward the Glo HD.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

Quick question for Kobo users on search results:
When you do a search within a book, does it work like ADE and Sony readers where it takes you to the next reference (e.g., if you type "Sam" in the search box, it takes you to the next page that "Sam" appears and you can touch "next" repeatedly to move forward through the book to each subsequent reference) or is it like the Kindle where it takes you to a separate page of search results listing every time the word "Sam" appears starting from the beginning of the book?

I ask because I don't like the way the Kindle handles searches. I much prefer how Sony does searches, and if the Kobo is like the Sony, that would sway me further toward the Glo HD.

It displays a separate page with the list of matches starting from the beginning of the book. Each has about two lines of text around the match. You then tap on match to go to it in the book with the match highlighted. When you do this, the bottom bar has buttons to return to the list, go to the next or previous match, return to where you where when you did the search or close the search so you can read from the current match. The bottom bar also shows "x of y" to show where you are in the matches.

[pssquirrel]

Ooh! Thank you davidfor! This sounds much better than the Kindle search function.

Is there a way to quickly navigate through the search results? I.e., if you have 20 pages of search results and you are looking for a particular reference that you know is about 3/4 of the way through the book, can you skip to, say, the 15th page of results quickly, or do you have to go through them one page at a time?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

Ooh! Thank you davidfor! This sounds much better than the Kindle search function.

Is there a way to quickly navigate through the search results? I.e., if you have 20 pages of search results and you are looking for a particular reference that you know is about 3/4 of the way through the book, can you skip to, say, the 15th page of results quickly, or do you have to go through them one page at a time?

You can scroll through the results page and in the top right it will show "Page x of y". Tapping that lets you enter the page number to go to.

One issue with the search, or at least the last time I tried this, is that it only finds the 100 matches and it always starts at the beginning of the book. If there was a way to get the next batch of matches, this would be OK, but there isn't. If you want the 101st match, you are out of luck.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by pssquirrel

I ask because I don't like the way the Kindle handles searches. I much prefer how Sony does searches, and if the Kobo is like the Sony, that would sway me further toward the Glo HD.

I thought I must be doing something wrong with the PW search when I first got it, I can't believe how bad the search is on Kindles. It's another reason it'll never be the reader I actually use.

Originally Posted by davidfor

You can scroll through the results page and in the top right it will show "Page x of y". Tapping that lets you enter the page number to go to.

One issue with the search, or at least the last time I tried this, is that it only finds the 100 matches and it always starts at the beginning of the book. If there was a way to get the next batch of matches, this would be OK, but there isn't. If you want the 101st match, you are out of luck.

Kobo really needs to change that 100 limit, it's the one thing that cripples their search. Other than that limit, it's much better than the Kindles, but not quite as good as the Sonys (I still wish for a PRS-350 with a front light! ).

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Me too. Although for me I'm now at my justifiable limit of 3 ereaders and 1 Fire. Going forwards if I replaced the Voyage or the H20, or the Fire I would have to sell the old ones as I've realised that you only get decent prices for second hand ereaders if they are reasonably current models.

If you were to sell a Reader, the one to go should be the nook as it's the worst (IMHO) one of the bunch.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by evanft

As someone who used to own an Aura HD and switched back to a Kindle 4, here are my thoughts.

- I'm glad it's the usual 6" form factor. I very much prefer this size.

- I absolutely despise the recessed screen. It's one of the big reasons I got rid of my AHD. It traps crap and causes a shadow in anything other than ideal lighting.

You can easily clean the screen and such with a cleaning cloth. As for the shadows, just set the margin slider so the text is just outside of the shadows. I have my H20 set for a margin of 1 and it's just outside of the shadow. There is a small shadow at the bottom on the screen from the front light, but that only affects the page number footer and not any of the text.

- No page turn buttons. That's still stupid.

That's not stupid, that actually better. Even Amazon has Readers with no page turn buttons. Tablets, phones, and Readers don't have buttons. They actually aren't needed. Page turn buttons are actually an annoyance. When I hold my H2O, I don't always hold it at the same place so sometimes I would not be holding it so I'd be able to use buttons. But with the touch screen, it doesn't matter where I hold it be it top/bottom/middle. I just do a simple swipe to turn pages be it on the right or the left side. Also, by having page turn buttons, it means I have less space to actually hold the Reader. Page turn buttons are obsolete.

- Kobo's firmware is a dumpster fire of issues. My AHD was noticeably slower than my K4 in loading the same book and in page turns. It would randomly freeze or stutter. I had to go through a patching process to make the books look halfway decent. I had to do some tinkering to my K4 to get the font and margins I wanted, but it was a one time deal and was very easy. Working with the AHD was a real PITA. The number of options was awesome, though. Too bad there wasn't a "make it not look like crap" checkbox.

I don't find my H2O to be full of issues. The page turns fast enough such that by the time I'm ready to start reading the next page, it's there on screen. Yes, the patches do help so you can make eBooks look how you want. But on a Voyage, you can't do this. You cannot change the look to how you want, you are stuck with a very fixed layout that's not even close to optimal reading. And the other two sets of settings are even worse. The tinkering you had to do to your K4 is even more difficult to do than the patches for Kobo. Kobo is not closing the ability to patch. Amazon has closed the ability to jailbreak. Kobo doesn't mind if people customize. Amazon want you to be stuck with their very limited suboptimal settings. My H2O does not look like crap. Never has, never will.

- The price is fantastic. $130 for the Kindle Voyage screen? That's awesome.

Yes, $129.99 is an awesome price. You get better hardware (front light is not multi-colored), better firmware, and a much better price.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'll post both sets of patches for 3.12.1 and 3.13.1 Monday night or Tuesday. I don't have them on my Surface and I won't have access to them until sometime Monday.

I cannot post patches for 3.12.1 as I never actually installed that firmware version. But if I get the time, I'll see about moving my 3.12.0 patches over for 3.12.1.

The attached patches are for 3.13.1 which I think you should upgrade to. I've found it to be every bit as stable as 3.12.0.

Check out the thread on the different firmware to download 3.13.1.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=185660

Also check the thread on patching 3.13.1.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=256200