Nia seems pretty much official now - Page 2

Mercador · 07-03-2020, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

There's still 6 months left.

And Mother's Day is only 11 months away. (2121)

Is there a year where Kobo launches two models within 6 months?

ZodWallop · 07-03-2020, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercador

I don't get it, the Nia is 130$ CDN and the Clara HD is 140$ CDN, what's the point...

To be fair, on BestBuy.ca, the basic Kindle is $120 and the Nia could easily drop $10 to be a price match.

geek1011 · 07-03-2020, 12:05 PM

If someone can give me libnickel.so.1.0.0, nickel, sickel, libadobe.so, and librmsdk.so in usr/local/Kobo, I can update the patches for the Nia. If someone can also give me upgrade/fs.tgz from the recovery partition, I can also test them myself.

Mercador · 07-03-2020, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

To be fair, on BestBuy.ca, the basic Kindle is $120 and the Nia could easily drop $10 to be a price match.

Even then, the price point is so similar, I think they will cannibalize themselves.

MGlitch · 07-03-2020, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercador

Even then, the price point is so similar, I think they will cannibalize themselves.

If these were higher end ereaders, where the profit margins are likely a bit better in favor of the company selling them sure. But the entry level ereaders like the Nia and Clara are priced with razor thin margins with the profits coming from selling you content.

Though without discounts I agree it seems foolish to produce a brand new ereader with a price point so close to a clearly superior device. With the discount the Nia is better placed to compete against the Kindle equivalent. How successful this will be is hard to say, Kindle has a pretty strong hold on the US market. But I suppose Kobo wants to try and eat away at it.

ps67 · 07-03-2020, 03:45 PM

Still no Nia in Kobo site here. They sell it elsewhere before to do it in their site

ZodWallop · 07-03-2020, 10:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercador

Even then, the price point is so similar, I think they will cannibalize themselves.

In Canada at least, the Kindle is $120 and the Paperwhite is $140. That still seems close enough in price to seem dumb. Who am I to tell Canadians their prices are screwy?

At any rate, I'd guess the Nia will come down to the same price as the Kindle.

davidfor · 07-04-2020, 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geek1011

If someone can give me libnickel.so.1.0.0, nickel, sickel, libadobe.so, and librmsdk.so in usr/local/Kobo, I can update the patches for the Nia. If someone can also give me upgrade/fs.tgz from the recovery partition, I can also test them myself.

That's the problem I have with the idea the Nia has been released. I can't see a sign of the device in the firmware that was released last week. I don't see a new USB product id or the device id that you posted in the other thread. I haven't looked through the stylesheets for codename, but, it could easily be using the same as the other 6" 212dpi devices.

As to the device id you posted, I'm curious about how you worked that out. Testing to get a firmware update for it, it didn't return any version to update. Trying a few other numbers near it, gave the same result.

ZodWallop · 07-04-2020, 12:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ps67

Still no Nia in Kobo site here. They sell it elsewhere before to do it in their site

I'm pretty sure that the Best Buy link is a pre-order.

MGlitch · 07-04-2020, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm pretty sure that the Best Buy link is a pre-order.

Maybe it was a preorder. It’s gone now though.

geek1011 · 07-04-2020, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidfor

That's the problem I have with the idea the Nia has been released. I can't see a sign of the device in the firmware that was released last week. I don't see a new USB product id or the device id that you posted in the other thread. I haven't looked through the stylesheets for codename, but, it could easily be using the same as the other 6" 212dpi devices.

As to the device id you posted, I'm curious about how you worked that out. Testing to get a firmware update for it, it didn't return any version to update. Trying a few other numbers near it, gave the same result.

I think they realized I tend to dig for that kind of info, and decided to work on the firmware in a different branch. In any case, their Jenkins build number implies that. They haven't updated Kobo Desktop in a while, so logically, the other builds were for the firmware. And, in the last few versions, there have been too many builds (and by extension, commits) to justify the small changes made in the firmware.

I don't have any direct proof of this, but I believe it will be a kobo7 device due to the processor and the pattern so far. For the codename, I believe it will be a subset of dragon (based on the pattern with the specs and features so far) or maybe (I think this is unlikely unless it becomes kobo8, which I also consider unlikely) an entirely new one (dragon is getting quite large, and there seems to be three top-level codenames active per hardware revision in general). See https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=325471 and the linked pages.

For the device ID, it was a subtle hint. I figured they would be beta-testing updates, or at least preparing for a release sometime soon. When checking for an update with an old firmware version, it will return a non-null generic release note link for devices which exist, but don't have any public releases yet. For devices which don't exist, everything will be null or zero. And, since it was only like this for one device ID (which was in the 80s, as I suspected based on the previous pattern), I was fairly confident it was the Nia. Based on how I'd imagine they designed the update server, this would make sense.

Spoiler:

P.S. Sometimes, I feel like I'm doing more archaeology than software development...

P.P.S. The API response wasn't like that a few months ago (I don't remember the exact date, and I didn't note it down anywhere).

P.P.P.S. I wouldn't expect anything new in the stylesheets in general. Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, I suspect they are working in a different branch. Secondly, as I figured out last year, they tend to stick to top-level codenames in the stylesheets, which tend to be the same for similar-sized devices.

geek1011 · 07-04-2020, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

In Canada at least, the Kindle is $120 and the Paperwhite is $140. That still seems close enough in price to seem dumb. Who am I to tell Canadians their prices are screwy?

I'm in Canada, and I think it's safe to say our prices, at least for tech stuff, tend to be screwy. For example, look at Lenovo (for ThinkPads, note that the sales of 40+% are the normal price you'd pay, 60+% means it's actually on sale), and compare the options and prices to the UK or US (remember to convert the currency). Look at Motorola and Xiaomi, and compare the value of the models available in Canada to other countries. Look at internet and phone plan prices from the primary providers (Bell, Rogers, etc) (and speeds) and compare it to other countries with similar density and progress.

For the record, I got my Clara for CA$101 incl tax/shipping, but that was by using coupons on top of a sale at Staples (who seems to just resell Kobos from the Kobo site, as they don't have their own affiliate). And, in my area, we pay CA$60 for 60/10 internet through a reseller (with the main one, it'd be $90 for that).

haydnfan · 07-05-2020, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mercador

Is there a year where Kobo launches two models within 6 months?

Yes the Clara and Forma released in the same year. Also the Aura 2 and the Aura One. The Aura and the Aura HD. And finally the Mini and the Glo. It happens about as frequently as isolated releases. And all of those releases were within several months of each other if I recall.

I would say based on history a successor to the Forma might be in the works. But then again I would think that Amazon would be looking to release the Paperwhite 5 this fall (they tend to have one per year and the PW4 is now the oldest model), so maybe the Clara will need to be refreshed to be competitive.

rcentros · 07-05-2020, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ps67

Still no Nia in Kobo site here. They sell it elsewhere before to do it in their site

Looks like Best Buy Canada jumped the gun. The Nia link no longer goes anywhere.

rcentros · 07-05-2020, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm pretty sure that the Best Buy link is a pre-order.

Yep. At first they said available July 7th. Then you'll receive it on July 10th. Then you'll receive it by July 15th. Now the Kobo Nia has disappeared from the Best Buy Canada site altogether. Walmart Canada is still selling sleepcovers for the Nia. I don't know if they're shipping immediately or not.

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07-03-2020, 12:05 PM	#18
geek1011 Wizard Posts: 2,811 Karma: 7423683 Join Date: May 2016 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo Mini, Aura Edition 2 v1, Clara HD, Clara BW, Libra Colour	If someone can give me libnickel.so.1.0.0, nickel, sickel, libadobe.so, and librmsdk.so in usr/local/Kobo, I can update the patches for the Nia. If someone can also give me upgrade/fs.tgz from the recovery partition, I can also test them myself.

07-03-2020, 03:45 PM	#21
ps67 Guru Posts: 761 Karma: 7025686 Join Date: Aug 2017 Location: Italy Device: Kindle Paperwhite, Kobo Elipsa, Pocketbook Inkpad 4, Inkpad Color	Still no Nia in Kobo site here. They sell it elsewhere before to do it in their site