Looking for 8-inch reader: Forma or Sage?

[diesel_fan]

Thank you all for your suggestions! Decided to go with the Kobo Sage. Now - I am seeing two Sage models: N778 and N778K. Any difference between them? Not much info available online. Someone mentioned that N778K is a newer and may have a better battery life…

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by jlinear

"At least a couple of days?" I hope that is not meant to be an endorsement of the Sage's battery life. My aged Asus One still gets 1-2 weeks with some to spare. The Sage's battery life is pathetic when compared to the performance of past Kobo e-readers. I returned a Sage because the battery pooped out in 1 1/2 days when brand new and WiFi, Bluetooth and Syncing all disabled.

While a few days is obviously not acceptable to you, it is perfectly acceptable to others. We all have different needs and priorities. You returned your Sage, I've been using mine daily for 3 1/2 years and am quite satisfied with it. True, my Sage has never "pooped out" in a day or two, but then I don't read 8-10 hours a day either.

[Quoth]

No ereader used 8 hours a day gives anything like as long as a week (of 7 days).

[DNSB]

Hmmm... The battery in the Sage is rated for about ~20 hours reading(*). For me, that is a few days. I've attached a clip from an email that Kobo sends me each month about my reading life. It used to be lower but now that I have more spare time, I am reading more. That email shows what I read from sourced from Kobo since they stopped counting sideloaded books back in late 2020/early 2021. If I go through calibre and use the reading times/pages recorded for finished books, it adds more hours and more pages to my reading stats.

Yes, Kobo made a definite mistake going with the Allwinner B300 quad core CPU since Allwinner's chipset has a well earned reputation for lousy power management. That was the main reason the Elipsa which shared that CPU was rapidly replaced by the Elipsa 2E which moved to a Mediatek MT8113 dual core CPU. Oddly with half the cores and a 20% higher clock speed (2.0GHz compared to the B300's 1.8GHz), it is quite a bit faster at most tasks while sucking down less power. With hindsight being it's usual 20/20, even if they kept with the B300, they likely would have added a larger battery such as the Libra Colour's 2050mAh instead of recycling the Forma's 1200mAh battery.

Take a look at the KOReader development when they had extreme fun (for certain values of fun likely approved by the Marquis de Sade) implementing very aggressive power management for the Sage.

* So 30 minutes per day gives 40 days. Reading with WiFi off, backlight off, no use of stylus, etc. Given that page flips are the main time an eInk ereader is drawing power, faster readers will be penalized as they use more page flips per hour.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It used to be lower but now that I have more spare time, I am reading more.

That's a full-time job!

Are you prepared to stand up and recite the plot of all 104 books?

I'm happy that I don't read so fast or as much as you do. I find it hard to find the next book as it is.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Given that page flips are the main time an eInk ereader is drawing power, faster readers will be penalized as they use more page flips per hour.

Indeed smaller text gives longer life too as there are less page turns. I use larger text than wife and huge text compared to my grandson.

I don't use front light, wifi or BT. Mostly the Sage gets enough charge left connected to PC when I add a book or few. I have a 2 m USB cable and it usually charges full in 40 minutes. So while a bigger battery would be better, it's much better than most non-eink. The recent nxtpaper tablets achieve decent run time at decent 12% indoor brightness by having x4 bigger capacity cells than my older tablets!

Some phones will beat any eink that's playing MP3 audio books, as the display on the phone blanks and I have data off on mobile and BT & WiFi off (all my phones have real headphone sockets).

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Renate

That's a full-time job!
Are you prepared to stand up and recite the plot of all 104 books?
I'm happy that I don't read so fast or as much as you do. I find it hard to find the next book as it is.

Nâh, that's about 2 books a week. Given that an average book is about 190 pages, it is certainly doable given you have time. I read an average of 1 book a week of about 300 pages and in a foreign language (binge-reading) and find ample time to have a life besides that.

[Renate]

Oh, those numbers are cumulative.
I thought that they were per month!

[DrChiper]

Well, I'm known to be wrong from time to time, but when it was meant to be "per month", I strongly suspect that we in that case are dealing with an AI named DNSB, or perhaps some in technologically schooled alien, which is scanning all our known earthly literature in existence

[petercreasey]

The Forma serves me well...as does the Aura One.

[ixtis]

too bad Kobo doesn't have a real replacement (successor) for the Aura One. Excellent e-reader, and after so many years it still works flawlessly!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Well, I'm known to be wrong from time to time, but when it was meant to be "per month", I strongly suspect that we in that case are dealing with an AI named DNSB, or perhaps some in technologically schooled alien, which is scanning all our known earthly literature in existence

For what it may be worth, if you look at the image, you will notice below the larger numbers there are smaller numbers labelled as previous month. As mentioned before, my reading speed runs about 1000WPM. Given that I tend to skip to the first chapter and don't read the filler after the last chapter/epilogue/whatever, I tend to go through books very rapidly.

I knew that I read faster than most people but didn't realize just how much faster until the powers that be decided to do a student reading speed/comprehension test when I was in grade 12. I finished the sample text, answered the questions and handed the pages back. At that point, I was told that I could not have read and comprehended the text that fast, that I must have already seen that random chunk of text. So I got to do 2 more samples and finally, they admitted that I was reading that fast with excellent retention/comprehension.

If anyone has noticed my posts in the Ebook Buying Addicts' Support Thread, I'm the guy posting about the number of books I go through in a month and the lack of a TBR pile (for me, 5 books is a massive TBR).

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I knew that I read faster than most people but didn't realize just how much faster until the powers that be decided to do a student reading speed/comprehension test when I was in grade 12. I finished the sample text, answered the questions and handed the pages back. At that point, I was told that I could not have read and comprehended the text that fast, that I must have already seen that random chunk of text. So I got to do 2 more samples and finally, they admitted that I was reading that fast with excellent retention/comprehension.

Awesome! I hope you also keep enjoying your reading.
When reading in my native language I'm fast enough, but never will be THAT fast
The only habit I have is reading multiple books at the same time