Libra Kobo Libra H2O - first reviews

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by Lima7

That’s a shame BUT Indigo has such amazing customer service that I bet that if you call directly customer service they would return it for you.

This is actually true of most retail establishments. Calling the customer support line will almost always end with them overriding whatever the store level employees say.

This is primarily because the two are judged by different standards. The store is generally judged on profits and while you might be a great overall customer returning a ~200 dollar item is going to hurt the stores sales per hour, sales for the day, and sales for the week (etc etc but you get the point). Yes maybe taking that hit would be worth it but they can’t know for sure, it could also set the precedent that you can demo expensive items as you wish at the stores expense.

The customer support line is judged on how you the customer feel when they present you with their solution.

It doesn’t take much consideration to determine which one is going to give you the result closest to what you desire.

Note this is speaking in general terms and not taking local laws into consideration. Primarily because Indigo store level managers have apparently demanded they will ignore the law.

[Sirtel]

My Libra arrived an hour ago. I like it. Didn't have much time to play with it, but everything seemed tip-top. It's fast and responsive. No buggy touchscreen. The frontlight is not perfectly even, but quite ok, without any unusual hues. The warm light is orange when all the way up, not "virgin's piss" The Libra is comfortable to hold and the black bezel doesn't attract fingerprints, like my Kindles do.

In short, I'm pleased with it. Will be playing with it in the evening, Calibre, custom fonts, patches, the whole shebang.

[mathil]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

My Libra arrived an hour ago. I like it. Didn't have much time to play with it, but everything seemed tip-top. It's fast and responsive. No buggy touchscreen. The frontlight is not perfectly even, but quite ok, without any unusual hues. The warm light is orange when all the way up, not "virgin's piss" The Libra is comfortable to hold and the black bezel doesn't attract fingerprints, like my Kindles do.

In short, I'm pleased with it. Will be playing with it in the evening, Calibre, custom fonts, patches, the whole shebang.

Yup, mine is orange as well when turned all the way up. Hope you enjoy it!

[Sirtel]

I took some pictures of the Libra side by side with the Oasis 3. With the light off, the screens are pretty much identical (fonts are slightly different, because I couldn't get even Caecilia or Georgia look exactly the same on both, they render a bit differently). The fonts on the Oasis are very slightly darker/bolder, but on the Libra very slightly sharper (the difference between flush and recessed screens, I guess. The Libra screen is capacitive too, not IR).

With the frontlight all the way up in a dark room, I was in for a shock. My Libra looked GREEN. All the way green. It's nowhere to be seen in normal or even dim light, only in the dark. Still, it doesn't really bother me. But it's the first time I've seen a green screen on an eink reader.

As to the warm light, cranked all the way up it's pretty identical orange on both. I didn't manage to capture it in a photo, though. It looks much yellower on photos than it does in real life. I included one photo with the warm light up, but it should be taken into account that it looks much more orange to the naked eye.

The Libra is on the left, the Oasis on the right. The first photo is with the lights off, the second and third with the light maxed out (warmth off), the fourth with the light about halfway up (warmth off), the fifth with both light and warmth maxed out.

[JSWolf]

As for return from Chapters, before I ordered my H2O (way back when), I called customer service and asked about returns. I was told that I could return it. I was ordering the H2O in the USA.

[Lima7]

Did anyone get the sleep cover? Any pictures/thoughts? Got mine in Blue but I’m not a fan of the colour IRL, might switch for grey or pink... it didn’t look as intense online

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by Lima7

Did anyone get the sleep cover? Any pictures/thoughts? Got mine in Blue but I’m not a fan of the colour IRL, might switch for grey or pink... it didn’t look as intense online

I got the grey for my white Libra and like it very well. I didn't like the tint of the other colors, and I have too many black covers.

[Lima7]

Originally Posted by anacreon

I got the grey for my white Libra and like it very well. I didn't like the tint of the other colors, and I have too many black covers.

Any chance you could post/send me pics? They are only available online right now in Quebec so I would love to see before I order! TIA!

[69carat]

I am curious to know how long it will take to other cover maker before to start selling other sleepcover.
Don't get me wrong I love the sleepcover from kobo but i think it's a little pricey for a cover.
+1 if you can post picture of the cover black, grey, bleue... i might get one as well

[catsknit]

Got my new Libra a few days ago, after happily using a Glo HD for several years. The light seems to be fine, although I never had problems with my Glo either. I waffled on whether to get a Clara or the Libra, finally deciding to try the Libra and its buttons. I'd never had buttons on a reader but so many people rave about them as a must-have I wanted to try them. Meh. It takes a good bit of push to get the buttons to click, and the resulting change in my grip is distracting. Maybe I'll get used to it. I'm right-handed but have it set up with the buttons on the left, as I'd typically hold reader in left hand and swipe pages with the right. Not sure I like the assymetrical design. Other than a very marginal increase in size, and the side buttons I can't say it's a huge difference from the Glo HD. The main reason I upgraded was to get library access by wifi instead of having to sideload books and fuss with ADE and its idiosyncracies. So far so good on that part.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by catsknit

I'd never had buttons on a reader but so many people rave about them as a must-have I wanted to try them. Meh. It takes a good bit of push to get the buttons to click, and the resulting change in my grip is distracting. Maybe I'll get used to it.

I'm one of those who find buttons indispensable. But not because they're more comfortable to use. They aren't, at least not for me. I use them because I can't stand even the tiniest fingerprints on the screen. And yes, I can see them, when they're there. I'm so OCD about fingerprints that I even use a stylus to navigate on my ereaders, not a finger.

I'm the same way with my tablet. Strangely enough I don't care whether there are fingerprints on my phone. But then I don't really use my phone for entertainment.

[Sirtel]

After successfully patching my Libra and experimenting almost the whole night with different formats and fonts, I came to the conclusion that I have to wait for the custom font sizes patch. I just could not find the perfect font size with any font, default or sideloaded. (I use custom font sizes on my Kindles too).

I also tried epubs, to see how much better the typography is. Unfortunately I found several annoying bugs. Several sideloaded fonts which work perfectly with kepubs and on Kindles, didn't work properly (or at all) with epubs (yes, they were .ttf files). Often there was a very large gap at the bottom of the page, for no reason I could discover. There was no mention of widows and orphans in the stylesheet of those books. I didn't have the energy to delve into the whys and wherefores, so it was back to kepubs pretty quickly.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Often there was a very large gap at the bottom of the page, for no reason I could discover. There was no mention of widows and orphans in the stylesheet of those books. I didn't have the energy to delve into the whys and wherefores, so it was back to kepubs pretty quickly.

Widows and orphans default to 2 if not overridden in the CSS or by the Kobopatcher patch for this.

[anacreon]

Originally Posted by Lima7

Any chance you could post/send me pics? They are only available online right now in Quebec so I would love to see before I order! TIA!

Any photo of mine would not be any better than those on the Kobo site: what I got is what I saw there.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Widows and orphans default to 2 if not overridden in the CSS or by the Kobopatcher patch for this.

Ah, good to know. I didn't enable that patch, because there was a warning it's better to edit the stylesheet for this. Possibly I'll try. But some custom fonts not working with epubs or looking weird is reason enough on its own to use kepubs. The epub renderer seems just too buggy on the Libra.