A love letter to my H2O

[ottdmk]

Well, how the OP feels about the H2O is pretty much how I felt about my Aura HD. Until I got clumsy and dropped it on a set of stairs earlier today. So I guess soon I'll have the opportunity to chime in on the H2O (as I can't see myself going without a reader for any real length of time.)

[darryl]

Originally Posted by murg

I ran into this in the real world.

The new CEO managed to alienate ALL of the customers (not that they had many to begin with), and run the business into the ground.

I was amazed that both this sort of thing could happen and that the board allowed it.

It is incredible but I have seen it so many times. I guess I should not have been surprised by also seeing it with very large corporations. B&N and Nokia come to mind immediately for a series of bad decisions. Apple, I think, from memory, went through a similar period pre-Ipod before Steve Jobs returned to save them.

I think it usually goes on for far too long because people are reluctant to speak up, and it is, to put things mildly, not encouraged. Boards, at least of larger companies, consist of representatives of vested interests, some of them with superficial knowledge of the actual business and company. And they move slowly. Once they have appointed someone, they seem to back them by default. By the time they realise the problem it is often too late.

[cerem0ny]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Well, how the OP feels about the H2O is pretty much how I felt about my Aura HD. Until I got clumsy and dropped it on a set of stairs earlier today. So I guess soon I'll have the opportunity to chime in on the H2O (as I can't see myself going without a reader for any real length of time.)

I tried to love my aura HD but there were a few issues... it felt kind of 'flimsy', the plastic would make cracking noises if you held it in certain places, the body of the device didn't really feel top quality, and also my Aura HD had a bit of a colour gradient problem as well, I exchanged it twice and it looked like it was just another design flaw...

upgrading to the H2O gave me a device with a perfect, uniformly creamy glo-light colour, and the waterproofing seems to make the device more sturdy and gives it a better build quality, and it also means I can just throw it under the tap for a bit and wipe it down whenever I want to clean it!

You're in for a real treat my friend

[glos]

I had my Aura HD for more than a year now (edit: omg, almost 2), I love it, it never failed me once, no issues at all, the light is perfect. The day it stops working I'll go for another Kobo, the Glo HD if it's still the top, or another one. I'm not interested in the H2O for its water/sand resistance but it's a good looking one

[cerem0ny]

Originally Posted by glos

I had my Aura HD for more than a year now (edit: omg, almost 2), I love it, it never failed me once, no issues at all, the light is perfect. The day it stops working I'll go for another Kobo, the Glo HD if it's still the top, or another one. I'm not interested in the H2O for its water/sand resistance but it's a good looking one

Haha, I wasn't interested in the waterproofing myself but it does make the case much more durable and gives it a much better quality build.
Also I dig putting my H2O under the tap and giving it a good wash every now and then.
Don't have a bath but I keep meaning to take it into the shower with me, which seems to me a complicated however enticing adventure!

[ottdmk]

Well, I caved even faster then I thought, and took a run to my local Chapters last night fifteen minutes before closing. :-D So I'm now the proud owner of a new H2O. A few thoughts:

1) It's going to take me forever to get used to pressing the power button as opposed to sliding it.

2) I think I can see a definite difference between the Carta screen and my old Pearl one.

3) I know it's necessary so the port cover worries me. I think I'll be treating it with kid gloves for a long, long time.

4) Calibre support in FreeBSD is currently pathetic. I think I might try porting the current version as a fun project.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Well, I caved even faster then I thought, and took a run to my local Chapters last night fifteen minutes before closing. :-D So I'm now the proud owner of a new H2O. A few thoughts:

1) It's going to take me forever to get used to pressing the power button as opposed to sliding it.

I keep getting it wrong to, but the Glo and Touch have a raised bit, so my fingers are starting to learn. But, now I have to get used to the Glo HD button being in the middle.

2) I think I can see a definite difference between the Carta screen and my old Pearl one.

3) I know it's necessary so the port cover worries me. I think I'll be treating it with kid gloves for a long, long time.

I was tempted to take it off as I'm not that interested in the waterproof side of it. But, I've gotten used to it. I do tend to open it and leave it open for a while if I'm at my computer.

4) Calibre support in FreeBSD is currently pathetic. I think I might try porting the current version as a fun project.

Hmm, "fun project". I've tried a few of those in the past and I've always regretted it.

[jackastor]

I wouldn't recommend taking the little cover off and leaving it off. It would be detrimental when you are reading in the bath or even rinsing the device off. Yes you can rinse the H20 off under the tap and it still works brilliantly, yes even under water it works.. that said its up to you individually how you deal with the port cover.

regards

Jack

[93terp]

I've been head over heels in love since my first Kobo, the Aura HD. I'm currently in a committed relationship with my Aura H2O! The Glo HD is intriguing but I really prefer the larger screen real estate of the Aura HD & H2O.

The Kobo "customer service", on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired....

[MGlitch]

Originally Posted by 93terp

The Kobo "customer service", on the other hand, leaves a lot to be desired....

I view Kobo CS as the baggage that each partner inevitably brings to any relationship. The good news is I've only needed to call them with questions about when my H2O would arrive, it's been problem free so far *knock on wood*.

[ottdmk]

I've dealt with Kobo customer service several times over the past few years. Each time the matter has been resolved to my satisfaction with a minimum of frustration. Forums tend to attract horror stories. I post (and repost) my experience as a counter example.

[ottdmk]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Hmm, "fun project". I've tried a few of those in the past and I've always regretted it.

Yeah, I know that feeling. Still, most of the pieces are already available in Ports, even the Qt5 stuff. The only original coding I think I'd have to do is the device mounting stuff. I think I'll set up a jail and try a few things out. For the time being I'm running 2.26 on my OpenSuSE partition.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

4) Calibre support in FreeBSD is currently pathetic. I think I might try porting the current version as a fun project.

My understanding is that the problem with keeping Calibre up to date on FreeBSD is with the QT5 ports and/or the python bindings. If you figure it out, please make sure the patches are submitted back to FreeBSD, because I'd like to upgrade too.

[ottdmk]

Well, the latest 1.48 won't even mount my H2O. Seems like they removed the libhal stuff (should've been using devd from the start.) And the Kobo Extended driver doesn't work with mounted folders.

I figure there's gotta be a way to make it work. Tricky thing will probably be having qt5 stuff alongside the qt4 stuff KDE is using. That's why I'm gonna start off by using a jail first. Can always run it with ssh x11 forwarding until I work out how to stop the interference.

Thanks for bringing up the python bindings. py-qt5 isn't in Ports. That'll be a challenge.

Ah well. At least nobody's waiting for me to do this. It's gonna take a while. :-P

[bgalbrecht]

I think the QT4 and QT5 ports deploy into different folders so you probably won't have to resort to running in a jail. The KDE folks and/or PCBSD folks might be working on python QT5 bindings too.