Aura H2O Page loading speed compared to Kindle

[Buhaj47]

Recently I've bought a Kindle 7 Touch for my Mum, and noticed that page loading speed in MOBI files is even better than in my KEPUB's loaded onto the H2O. I'm pretty surprised as the Touch is an entry-level model, whereas the H2O should be the best Kobo has to offer. Is it something with my unit (updated the firmware OTA, have the latest version now) or do you guys have similar experience?

[GeoffR]

The Kobo devices have much more sophisticated rendering engines than the Kindles, supporting things like adjustable weight and sharpness, automatic hyphenation, kerning, and (in epubs) ligatures. This means they have to do a lot more work to render a page than a Kindle does, but only have the same or similar processor.

[aluisscp]

So GeoffR, you are saying that they have the same processor. Is there anyway to strip an epub or kepub of all of those features in order to make it faster?

I value rendering speed over those features...

[dordale]

Originally Posted by aluisscp

So GeoffR, you are saying that they have the same processor. Is there anyway to strip an epub or kepub of all of those features in order to make it faster?

I value rendering speed over those features...

I have a Kindle PW2 and a Kobo Aura HD. I really don't notice any difference in the speed of the two. Especially when I'm reading a book, page turns seem very similar. I haven't compared side by side, though. And I don't seem to have the slow page turn problems with the latest firmware that others have noted here. I only read kepubs on my Kobo, so I can't comment on the Kobo's rendering of ePubs.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Just how slow are we talking? On my Kobo Aura, page turns are pretty much instantaneous taking less than a second from when I tap until I see the next page. It takes longer to turn the page of a physical book. I can't see how that would hinder even the fastest reader.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by aluisscp

So GeoffR, you are saying that they have the same processor. Is there anyway to strip an epub or kepub of all of those features in order to make it faster?

I value rendering speed over those features...

Personally, the rendering speed on the Kobo devices is fast enough that I'm willing to let it take a bit more time to give me the best rendered text it can. But...

Yes and no. Hyphenation can be turned off with some CSS in the books or reduced a lot by using the ragged-right alignment. And using ragged-right will probably be faster than fully justified text. The adjustable weight and sharpness depends on the font (sideloaded can't be adjusted without a patch). Kerning and ligatures depend on the fonts chosen. I have no idea if choosing a font that doesn't have these makes the rendering faster or slower.

I haven't tested any of that. As I said, the speed is good enough for me that I want the better rendering. But, I might do the test on the text alignment. I normally read ragged-right, so I should compare with justify and some long chapters to see if there is a noticeable difference.

[LeJon]

Originally Posted by buhaj47

Recently I've bought a Kindle 7 Touch for my Mum, and noticed that page loading speed in MOBI files is even better than in my KEPUB's loaded onto the H2O. I'm pretty surprised as the Touch is an entry-level model, whereas the H2O should be the best Kobo has to offer. Is it something with my unit (updated the firmware OTA, have the latest version now) or do you guys have similar experience?

For Kobo with latest firmware, if you turn pages without stopping, the speed is roughly 0.4-0.6s. If you actually read the whole page for 30s before turning a page, it gets slower at 0.5-1s.

EDIT: Kobo seems much faster now if you use well-formatted books. Previously I was using a book with broken TOC which is why it felt slow.

[GeoffR]

I tried timing it on my Glo with firmware 3.15.0. If I wait for the page to display fully between swipes, then I can turn 22 pages every 10 seconds (0.45 sec/page) with the KEPUB reader and 17 pages every 10 seconds (0.59 sec/page) with the EPUB reader. (If I don't wait for the page to fully display then I can turn pages as fast as I can swipe with either reader.)

I can't accurately time a single isolated page turn, but there doesn't seem to be any difference whether I turn one after another or wait a minute between turns. Certainly the page turn speed is not a factor that affects my reading in any way at all.

I tested with well-formatted books. If the book has problems such as broken TOC or the publisher has failed to split it into one chapter per file then page turns can be much slower.

[cramoisi]

There is also a difference in speed loading in epub (or kepub) if you load several pages in succession it’s more snappy than loading one page, read it, load another, read it, etc. Thus, I think testing on loading this way can’t reproduce the real situation of reading.

[vandafc]

I fully agree, page turn speed was much faster on the Kindle Keyboard than on the Kobo Glo

[rgeorg]

I agree that the Kindle keyboard page turn is speedier than the Kobo Glo. I didn't mind the Glo speed, and I am a very fast reader. But seems to me that the new Glo HD is faster than both of these, in any format ebook. The touch screen of the Glo HD also seems more sensitive and responsive than the Glo.

[LeJon]

Those who own the H2O before the latest firmware 3.15, are page turns supposed to be slower if you wait 60 seconds before turning a page compared to turning the page rapidly after it's fully loaded?

[cramoisi]

Originally Posted by LeJon

Those who own the H2O before the latest firmware 3.15, are page turns supposed to be slower if you wait 60 seconds before turning a page compared to turning the page rapidly after it's fully loaded?

I think so (after upgrading from 3.12 to 3.15). Others said the same on the firmware 3.15.0 discussion thread. But many haven’t seen any differences.

[NiLuJe]

As people have mentioned, on the Kobos, it also highly depends on how messy the (k)ePub code is, but, yes, in general picking up a PW2 after having used an H2O daily fills my heart with sadness at how much snappier it [the PW2] is. (Granted, the PW2 has a much snappier CPU to begin with, a fairer comparison would be against a PW1... which still is noticeably snappier, at the very least in the reader itself).

Also keep in mind that the mobi format is much more well suited to running on embedded devices with limited resources, which surely helps.

/methinks the IR-grid vs. capacitive touchscreen also adds another handicap to the Kobos (except maybe the Aura, since that one used a capacitive, too, AFAIR?).

Putting my H2O in the hands of people used to Sony & Bookeen readers also left them thoroughly unimpressed with its speed, FWIW.

As usual, YMMV, Pros and Cons on each side, yadda yadda .

[roger64]

Koreader on a plain Kobo Glo is also much snappier than the official version on the same machine (though I am still with the 2.8.1).