New Kobo Elipsa ereader

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by hobnail

[Enter rant mode.] Same here. The problem is that Android doesn't know about grayscale. So, for example, you can have an app that uses a color button that contrasts nicely with its surrounding background, but when it's mapped to the 16 levels of gray that e-ink provides, it may be awful. If there was some intelligent way of mapping all colors to black and white then it might work. Or if the Android API provided a way to specify colors when on an e-ink device.

And I tried some Android e-reader apps and some started with a sort of yellowed paper background on the books, which was horrible on e-ink.

And, besides, for me an e-ink device is for things that are mostly static and don't frequently change what's displayed.

Precisely. Also, trying to guess where the icons, tiles and menus have disappeared (due to the lack of contrasting colors) render them non-functional. None of the apps translate well to e-ink and its 16 levels of gray because they weren't written for that purpose.

>>And, besides, for me an e-ink device is for things that are mostly static and don't frequently change what's displayed.<<

I wholeheartedly agree!

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Obviously listed in order of increasing importance.

We won't tell your significant-other/accountant/one-who-holds-the-purse-strings that it is not in order of decreasing importance

Obviously!

No, it doesn't. And it sort of makes sense. The Overdrive support adds books to your library and syncs the books from the Kobo servers. Blocking the other devices might have caused problems, especially if they were on older firmware. The Dropbox syncing is between the device and Dropbox. There might be a check with the Kobo server for if the device is allowed to do the sync, but, as there is no way to do the configuration on the other devices, even that might not be needed.

Thanks for explaining that. It does make sense, but I hadn't seen it spelled out.

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

You can markup kepubs and drm-free pdfs on the Elipsa, but I don't know about regular epubs.

Right! I was referring to the Mac app. I'm hoping to get more use out of my Elipsa editing-wise because of the wider format support for note taking. I'll know Friday.

[jmmcg9]

FYI,
Kobo Writing Life Podcast interview with Kobo VP of Product Ramesh Mantha on the Elipsa.
Very enlightening.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000526529317

Thanks,
Joe

[Uncle Robin]

I found it odd that their market research reported users saying they found ease of navigation to be a weak point of e-readers. He actually talked about people using digital bookmarks in the literal sense of word, their fingers. That to me illustrates the exact opposite, that e-readers are much better for navigating than paper books.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I found it odd that their market research reported users saying they found ease of navigation to be a weak point of e-readers. He actually talked about people using digital bookmarks in the literal sense of word, their fingers. That to me illustrates the exact opposite, that e-readers are much better for navigating than paper books.

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook. Holding a paperbook open to both places was easier. Still a pain, but, it worked better. Of course, with multiple ereaders, I just open the book on another to look at the map.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook. Holding a paperbook open to both places was easier. Still a pain, but, it worked better. Of course, with multiple ereaders, I just open the book on another to look at the map.

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that - my approach would be akin to the highlighted portion - I'd open the graphical content in calibre viewer on my nice big monitor
while reading the text on my Libra

[gmw]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook. Holding a paperbook open to both places was easier. Still a pain, but, it worked better. Of course, with multiple ereaders, I just open the book on another to look at the map.

Yep, this is especially obvious for non-fiction, which is the sort of thing I'd be inclined to try an read on the Elipsa if I had one (read and add notes to non-fiction sounds quite useful).

Books with end-notes, extensive bibliographies and other back matter are all the sort of things l'm likely to want to switch around between several places. My Kobo will do back-and-forth between two places at a pinch ... as long as I don't want to skip off and look at something else briefly before coming back to where I was, in which case it all has to be set back up again.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

Yep, this is especially obvious for non-fiction, which is the sort of thing I'd be inclined to try an read on the Elipsa if I had one (read and add notes to non-fiction sounds quite useful).

I have to admit that after watching the wrap-up to the "deep dive guide" on YT, I'd be temmpted to buy one myself if they release a model with buttons

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook. Holding a paperbook open to both places was easier. Still a pain, but, it worked better. Of course, with multiple ereaders, I just open the book on another to look at the map.

I believe one reason that the use of the DX & DXG for University was a failure was indeed the bookmarking was too slow and clunky. Hence then being sold off cheap from time to time.
Also it should have had better support for fonts, languages and SD slot. Very badly researched. Simply a bigger version of the KK2 was never going to be a success. The performance loading a scanned page PDF of a reference work is abymal and turning page on that is dreadful, a CPU & RAM issue, not eInk. Also the updated DXG, while a brighter screen, can't run the better FW of the earlier KK3.

[christianbk]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I have to admit that after watching the wrap-up to the "deep dive guide" on YT, I'd be temmpted to buy one myself if they release a model with buttons

Yeah I'm kind of with you there. Put some buttons on there like the Libra (not the Forma's squishy kind) and add Comfortlight Pro and I'm there.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook.

When I've had a book where I want to refer to the map a lot, I've set the map as the book cover. Then all I have to do is sleep my Kobo to check it.

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by meeera

When I've had a book where I want to refer to the map a lot, I've set the map as the book cover. Then all I have to do is sleep my Kobo to check it.

And I take a screenshot to paper () using the Calibre viewer.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, they aren't that great for swapping back and forth between two or three places. If I want to look at the map at the front of a book, I find it hard to swap back and forwards in ebook.

Wow, what a great idea!
Not only maps, but when I'm reading a play and go, "Wait, who is Chester?" and I need to see the dramatis personae.

So, I came up with a solution. (Erm, at least for me.)
I put in a "Swap" button that exchanges your current position with the top of the stack.
Ok, some users will want 12 presets and make it all more complicated.
For me this is enough.

Usage:
You're reading. You need to look at the dramatis personae.
You hit "Push" to save your place.
You hit "5" and "Go" because you thought that it was about page 5.
You were wrong, so you go back a few pages. You're at the DP.
You hit "Swap" and you are back where you were reading.

Later:
You read some more and need to see the DP.
You hit "Swap" and you're at the DP.
You hit "Swap" and you're back where you were.

(The first steps will be easier if you just "Push" at the DP when you start leafing through the first pages.)

Edit: This would work out great for footnotes too.
Let's say you have 10 pages of footnotes.
You set the first page as your swap.
Eventually, you find when swapping that your footnote is on the second page.
You just turn the page as usual, read the footnote and "Swap".
The next time you look for a footnote you'll already be on the second page.
This works out better than a fixed preset.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

And I have a number of books with MathML or in Japanese that Neoreader can't handle and neither can most Android apps let alone in a pleasant way, yet even a Kobo Nia will handle perfectly. There is no perfect device AFAIK.

How do you even have 14,000 ebooks? Even if you've been collecting for 20 years that's 700 a year or 2 a day almost. That's just insane and I'm not surprised most readers can't handle that...surely that's 0.01% of eBook owners?

How many books are in The Black Library? That is how many books you need to have in your eBook reader.