Kobo in Borders Australia on sale NOW

[Nocturnal]

The Kobo is just yet another rebadged EB600, with a blue tooth module installed.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Certainly not in Launceston, and I doubt very much whether there's one in Hobart. There's nothing on the Borders site about a Tasmanian store.

Regards, Alex

Nup, no Borders in Tassie. I wonder if Angus & Robertson will get the Kobo in the near future, being connected to Borders through their parent company??

[tech_au]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Nup, no Borders in Tassie. I wonder if Angus & Robertson will get the Kobo in the near future, being connected to Borders through their parent company??

You can now order the Kobo Reader for $199 from Angus & Robertson website as well but there is no ebookstore link as yet.

http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/ereader

[nohmi2]

I have bought one book (so far) from Borders in epub, 'massaged' it and downloaded it to my Kindle 1.

If you go into the store and obtain a voucher, you can get 10% off of the price of your ebooks for a limited time.

We seem to be emerging from the shadows in Oz.

[artificial]

Originally Posted by artificial

Also the lack of categories is frustrating (Fiction, and Non-Fiction. No Sci Fi, Horror, Crime, Childrens, etc).

For the sake of clarity, I should mention that I've discovered that the lack of categories only applies when browsing the ebook section of the Borders website.

If you browse the ebook store via the software that came with the Kobo Reader you do indeed get an extensive list of categories and subcategories, and the books at the top of the list are not public domain titles. And the prices of the titles I looked at were very reasonable (many were $5.50), although I didn't browse extensively.

[Katti's Cat]

Originally Posted by lene1949

It's such a good price, I'm seriously thinking of getting one, so I can read epub books...

I wouldn't do it - seriously, having the kindle it would frustrate you to no end. Buy another model overseas and use mailforwarding. Sony is cheap atm at US$199. There are other readers too at good prices. Spending AUS$199 just to read ePub won't make you happy and you end up regretting it. I'm sure of that. It is such a basic reader. That's what I meant when I said earlier it still seemed too expensive at that price.

[Katti's Cat]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

So no text, html, etc? Definitely wouldn't get one that couldn't do that.

Not according to the specs on the Kobo flyer.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by Katti's Cat

I wouldn't do it - seriously, having the kindle it would frustrate you to no end. Buy another model overseas and use mailforwarding. Sony is cheap atm at US$199. There are other readers too at good prices. Spending AUS$199 just to read ePub won't make you happy and you end up regretting it. I'm sure of that. It is such a basic reader. That's what I meant when I said earlier it still seemed too expensive at that price.

I do think though, for the general punter that the Kobo is a great start or alternative.

Not everyone wants to go through hoops like us to get our preferred device.

The Kobo is available locally now, it is cheap and it works well enough. With the alternatives available locally to the Kobo considerably higher in price, it should do well.

I am still considering one for my wife based on her seeing one in the plastic at a Borders store. If she does not like what she sees, then I will get her a PRS-300 via the Sony Store and Borderlynx.

[iandix]

I just visited Borders at Tuggerah (first chance I have had) and I had my first look at a Kobo reader.

I liked it .... If I was looking at buying a reader I think I would really have a good think about one of those. The thing that amazed me was they had already sold out. The staff guy told me they had 30 they put the display out on Wednesday and sold out by Thursday midday. He was laughing a bit about that as he was telling me his store manager was telling them how ebooks will, never take off, it will just be a few nerds. He said they sold most of them to women over 30.

after he was telling me all about the reader, I then pulled put my Nook in it's oberon leather case (I wanted to compare contrast and page turn) you should have seen his face :-)

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by tech_au

You can now order the Kobo Reader for $199 from Angus & Robertson website as well but there is no ebookstore link as yet.

http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/ereader

Thanks for that, I just noticed that A&R are saying their ebook store is coming soon.

To answer one of my previous questions, I see Borders offer free shipping on all purchases, so the Kobo is $199 to your front door. Not bad price at all for the Australian market.

[stepberr]

G'day I just got the Borders app running on my Linux box under Wine, it needs python 2.6.4 installed in wine to run.Everything seems to work,I purchased a book down loaded it and started reading.I don't have a Kobo reader so I can't say if connecting it will work.I run Ubuntu 10.4 with wine beta 1.2 .I hope this is helpful to any Aussie Linux users on the list.

[websjapan]

http://www.whitcoulls.co.nz/

just launched their ebook store with the kobo on the front.

and "over 2million" ebooks available!

[Almas]

It's awesome to see Australian bookstores finally offering e-book readers and e-books! But I don't think I'd be buying e-books from Borders. Firstly, their website is terrible for browsing, and some of the prices that they have for e-books is ridiculous!

[artificial]

Originally Posted by Almas

It's awesome to see Australian bookstores finally offering e-book readers and e-books! But I don't think I'd be buying e-books from Borders. Firstly, their website is terrible for browsing, and some of the prices that they have for e-books is ridiculous!

The Kobo/Borders desktop application is MUCH better for browsing their collection. Some new releases are expensive, but lots of book prices are actually quite reasonable (~$6).

I agree the Borders site sucks for browsing books. Last time I looked it didn't even have genre classifications, just "fiction" and "non-fiction". But try the Borders app that comes with your Kobo Reader, it's much better.

[iandix]

Originally Posted by stepberr

G'day I just got the Borders app running on my Linux box under Wine, it needs python 2.6.4 installed in wine to run.Everything seems to work,I purchased a book down loaded it and started reading.I don't have a Kobo reader so I can't say if connecting it will work.I run Ubuntu 10.4 with wine beta 1.2 .I hope this is helpful to any Aussie Linux users on the list.

I just did the same, trouble is I can find where the books are kept, I wanted to try and move them to Adobe Digital Editions and try and transfer them to my reader...