How Come Amazon Is More Popular Than Kobo?

[HLS]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Kobo completely withdrawing from the US market for several years didn't do them any favors.

And I been wanting one for years. I like my Aura from Walmart. Fantastic battery life. I charged it days ago and still is at 97%

[Kiwisaurus]

I like Walmart.

[Tattncat]

Kindle/Amazon for ease of site navigation and searches. Also, Kindles are inexpensive and hardy. My Kindle is older than most and still going strong.

[Kiwisaurus]

Yeah.

Kindles are designed to read, while Kobos are for mostly tinkering / hacking.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by kyrilson

This is exactly the same reason I stay with Kindle. Everything else I prefer Kobo over Kindle, but this one killer feature keeps me in Kindle-Land.

Same here. Ever since Kobo got their software sorted, I‘ve started eyeing their offerings. But I really like to read between my Kindle and iPad (e.g. for taking notes, copying quotes etc.) and that is something that is simply not supported on Kobo for books other than those that you get from their store.
Kobo has more recently acquired the German tolino brand backend technology. I wonder if they will make use of that system which seems to work really well for integrating all kinds of different sources.
Also, the dictionaries on Kindle are SO MUCH BETTER. It is crazy to see how a company like Kobo that stresses reading experience so much has such terrible offerings in the dictionary department. At the least, they should offer well-redacted dictionaries on their store, like Amazon does for language combinations that aren’t included for free.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Kiwisaurus

Yeah.

Kindles are designed to read, while Kobos are for mostly tinkering / hacking.

Sorry, Kobos are designed for reading just as much as a Kindle is. The difference is that Kobos allow more tinkering.

But, in reality, that both of these device are designed for reading is only a side effect of their real purpose. That is to make their manufactures money.

[stumped]

I think one big difference is reputation of customer service / support depts.

Whatever the objective merits, and of individual horror stories, amazon has a reputation for excellent customer service, fast shipping, no quibble replacements... & Kobo has the opposite.

and given that in many countries you still cannot buy a Kobo at a physical store, good online support and repair is crucial

I think that both companies only give a miserly 1 year warranty as standard on e-readers, and extended warranty offers are harder to find. For me that's ok on a £60 basic item but not on a £200+ top of range reader

[Kiwisaurus]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry, Kobos are designed for reading just as much as a Kindle is. The difference is that Kobos allow more tinkering.

But, in reality, that both of these device are designed for reading is only a side effect of their real purpose. That is to make their manufactures money.

Real purpose?

What else does Rakuten sell?

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by Kiwisaurus

Real purpose?

What else does Rakuten sell?

Rakuten is huge. The Amazon of Japan

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

But I really like to read between my Kindle and iPad (e.g. for taking notes, copying quotes etc.) and that is something that is simply not supported on Kobo for books other than those that you get from their store.

That is actually not true. It might be true that you can only highlight and annotate books in Kobo's kepub format (I don't know, I only read in kepub format), but you can very easily sideload any regular ePub onto your Kobo as a kepub; or have kepubify or davidfor's Calibre plugin do the sideloading for you (it doesn't require a conversion).

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

That is actually not true. It might be true that you can only highlight and annotate books in Kobo's kepub format (I don't know, I only read in kepub format), but you can very easily sideload any regular ePub onto your Kobo as a kepub; or have kepubify or davidfor's Calibre plugin do the sideloading for you (it doesn't require a conversion).

He's not saying you can't sideload on both. He's saying that if you sideload Moby Dick on to a Kindle and read to chapter 5, you can then grab a tablet with the Kindle app and it will see the sideloaded book and open it to chapter 5.

Kobo only does that with books purchased from the Kobo store. Not sideloaded books.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by Kiwisaurus

Why do more people know Amazon but not Kobo eReaders?

Amazon has been around longer, they spend millions on marketing making them a household name, and they were the first to leverage their brand into an ereader to the point that "Kindle" has practically become a generic name for a dedicated reading device.

That's really all there is to it.

[ps67]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

That is actually not true. It might be true that you can only highlight and annotate books in Kobo's kepub format (I don't know, I only read in kepub format), but you can very easily sideload any regular ePub onto your Kobo as a kepub; or have kepubify or davidfor's Calibre plugin do the sideloading for you (it doesn't require a conversion).

You can highlight and annotate books also with Epub, and You can export your annotations into Facebook.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

That is actually not true. It might be true that you can only highlight and annotate books in Kobo's kepub format (I don't know, I only read in kepub format), but you can very easily sideload any regular ePub onto your Kobo as a kepub; or have kepubify or davidfor's Calibre plugin do the sideloading for you (it doesn't require a conversion).

please read again, thanks!

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by BadBilly

Kobos also allow one to sideload a bunch of public domain books from Project Gutenberg and the MobileRead library for free. There may be Kindle formatted versions of those works, but, if you're only going to have one device for books you buy, books you borrow, and books you download from public domain sites, you'll want a Kobo (or my beloved Sony T1).

This was the primary reason I went with Kobo when I was first in the market for an ereader. epub seemed like a more widely supported format, and Kobo, unlike the Kindle and Nook offerings, didn't reserve a large portion of internal storage for purchased books while leaving only a tiny sliver for sideloading. I've had my Kobo Aura for 4-years now, and if it ever dies, I'm buying another Kobo even if I have to order from an overseas retailer.

For the record, my digital book collection is 100% DRM free. There's also the fact that Kobo firmware can be easily modified by the user.