Sage Kobo Sage opinions

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by martinot

Half a kilo?? Wow!

That is way worse than I would ever had thought.

But, only 20% heavier than the Sage with the SleepCover.

And think about it. Based on the weights, most of the difference between the two covers will be the battery. Kobo had a choice, put a larger and heavier battery in the Sage, or do what they did and have another way to get longer runtime when on the go. How much extra weight do you want in the base device?

Also, the PowerCover seems to have been designed for people who use the Stylus. Using the Stylus does use more power, and that the PowerCover, with its holder for the Stylus, seems to be a recognition of this. Again, a design choice to give non-Stylus users a lower overall weight, but, let the Stylus users get longer runtime when using it.

Don't get me wrong, I do think it would have been better for the Sage to have longer runtime. And I suspect that it isn't as good as Kobo hoped. There were other changes in the hardware, and maybe they can't tune the software as well as they thought. But, don't forget, Kobo have a lot better idea of how these devices are used than we do. They have statistics on the usage. Maybe they know that their expected customers don't need the long runtime being demanded by those here. As I have said before, we are not the target market for any of the ereader manufacturers. We are outliers that they know cannot be satisfied.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by davidfor

We are outliers that they know cannot be satisfied.

Nonsense! All we want is a 100 gram reader, expandable from 6-10 inches, with a 20000mah battery, 1000dpi screen, octacore i9 CPU and removable buttons, for $100US.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Nonsense! All we want is a 100 gram reader, expandable from 6-10 inches, with a 20000mah battery, 1000dpi screen, octacore i9 CPU and removable buttons, for $100US.

Nah, I want a ARM64 CPU.

[LDB]

I believe the Sage with the battery cover is 25% heavier than with the sleep cover while the Sage with the sleep cover is 20% lighter than with the battery cover, if the 400/500g numbers are correct.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

Nonsense! All we want is a 100 gram reader, expandable from 6-10 inches, with a 20000mah battery, 1000dpi screen, octacore i9 CPU and removable buttons, for $100US.

And it must be able to change its shape between the regular one and the square one, because some of us want the first and others the second.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

And it must be able to change its shape between the regular one and the square one, because some of us want the first and others the second.

Absolutely. Seems reasonable to me

[cerem0ny]

Why is the battery so crap!?!

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by davidfor

We are outliers that they know cannot be satisfied.

The Aura One's designers had marketing material about their use of focus group feedback from hardcore ereader enthusiasts to guide their decisions. That was the golden age of ereader development.

Even though they ultimately constitute a small percentage of the overall users, the power users are the ones that usually drive improvement.

Kobo definitely made a conscious design decision to sacrifice battery performance with the Sage. The powercover is a tacit admission of guilt.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

The Aura One's designers had marketing material about their use of focus group feedback from hardcore ereader enthusiasts to guide their decisions. That was the golden age of ereader development.

Even though they ultimately constitute a small percentage of the overall users, the power users are the ones that usually drive improvement.

So, you know that someone here was part of the focus group? I remember adds showing people that might have been in a focus group, but, I don't remember what device they were for. And I'd actually expect the focus group would be have heavy readers, not specifically ereader users.

Kobo definitely made a conscious design decision to sacrifice battery performance with the Sage. The powercover is a tacit admission of guilt.

If that was the case, then the PowerCover would not have been listed when the device was announced. At that point, they wouldn't have known that the battery life of the Sage wasn't going to be enough for long enough to have had it designed. The PowerCover is recognition that the battery life of the Sage is not enough for heavy Stylus users.

[LDB]

So for someone who would not use the pen more than 1-2% of the time, if even that much, and would keep wifi turned off except for a few moments here and there to allow new books in, what are the thoughts on Sage battery capability, device alone? The more I read the more it sounds like for reading alone there may not be a battery problem, only for heavy "added feature" usage.

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If that was the case, then the PowerCover would not have been listed when the device was announced. At that point, they wouldn't have known that the battery life of the Sage wasn't going to be enough for long enough to have had it designed. The PowerCover is recognition that the battery life of the Sage is not enough for heavy Stylus users.

I'm not following your logic here, but maybe the fault is on my end. The Oasis 1 was designed to be used with the powercover, as you didn't have to purchase it separately. It was conceived as as a way to offload battery weight so the device itself could be lightweight.

If the Oasis 1 had been released and then a powercover released 6 months later, I would assume the design of the Oasis itself was not done with cover integration in mind.

I don't see why the Sage is different.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by LDB

So for someone who would not use the pen more than 1-2% of the time, if even that much, and would keep wifi turned off except for a few moments here and there to allow new books in, what are the thoughts on Sage battery capability, device alone? The more I read the more it sounds like for reading alone there may not be a battery problem, only for heavy "added feature" usage.

Just reading with wifi off and no pen, it's 7-10% drain in an hour or thereabouts. Of course it depends on your reading speed as well.

So no, the battery life is relatively poor in any case.

[LDB]

Well, that should give at least 10 hours of reading so worst case it requires charging every night while sleeping. Not ideal at all but at least it shouldn't run out midday somewhere.

[Fozkas]

This bugs me a lot. How do they cap a device like this? On purpose...

I got a 10" tab for my inlaws. The battery handles 20 hours of video easily (i can only imagine how many hours it would handle ebooks). And wights just "a little" more than the Sage. The tab cost 200€ and of course as an android device, can do "anything".

Kobo clearly was not that clever. And it bugs me because i wanted one... but i can't live with a battery life that worse than my smartphone on a device that is dedicated and should be the best at what it is.

I'm on my third kobo, and i appreciate very much the 60+ hours of reading time per charge without thinking about it.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Fozkas

This bugs me a lot. How do they cap a device like this? On purpose...

I got a 10" tab for my inlaws. The battery handles 20 hours of video easily (i can only imagine how many hours it would handle ebooks). And wights just "a little" more than the Sage. The tab cost 200€ and of course as an android device, can do "anything".

Kobo clearly was not that clever. And it bugs me because i wanted one... but i can't live with a battery life that worse than my smartphone on a device that is dedicated and should be the best at what it is.

I'm on my third kobo, and i appreciate very much the 60+ hours of reading time per charge without thinking about it.

Well, I don't compare my eink readers with my phone or tablets. They're totally different devices for a different purpose. But then I practically never read books on my phone or a tablet.

Do I wish the Sage had better battery life? Of course. Can I live with it as it is? Again, of course. I have neither time nor wish to read for 7-8 hours a day, so the Sage lasts for a few days in my case and that's enough for me.