Thinking about returning to kobo

[JSWolf]

If you can hold an H2O one handed, you can hold the Aura One one handed.

[sparklemotion]

No problems with my H20. I love it.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

I've never owned the Kobo Glo but I have owned the Aura, Aura HD and H2O and I've never had any problems with reliability? Have I ever had to reset one? Possibly but so rarely that I can't actually remember doing it. I think you could safely pick up an Aura One if that's what appeals to you.

[church mouse]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

I have had and still sometimes have tons of problems with my H2O... It randomly fails to unmount properly from Calibre and does not register books loaded onto the device (does not search for new books, does not update the library). It freezes occasionally. It occasionally gets the database corrupted, forcing me to restore my content (and losing my notes and highlights in the process). Maybe this is specific to the Mac build of Calibre or some Mac-specific USB stuff but it certainly does not work as “advertised” here on the board, and never has (been using the H2O since 3.12.something). I have switched to "downloading" my Calibre books from Calibre server and that mostly solved all my problems, but this is far from a „just plug in and control everything“ kind of experience.
If you’re in for a no-frills-experience, either get a Kindle right away or only purchase from the Kobo store. It is a great device for reading but Calibre is, at least in my opinion, far from an ideal companion...

I have experienced similar problems with my Kobos and my MacBook - in fact, so often I bought a Tolino.

Subsequently, I discovered the issue was not with the Kobos but with the USB port on the Mac which I was using. That said, the Tolino handles better an "improper" ejection - just reconnect and eject again.

Sent from my YOGA Tablet 2-830F using Tapatalk

[marp68]

First time ereader user and have Glo HD. Happy with it.

[mystika1]

Thank you all for the replies. I will have to wait a few months and look at customer reviews. I am hoping that our local BestBuy store gets a display model, so I can really try it out first.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you can hold an H2O one handed, you can hold the Aura One one handed.

I can HOLD it one-handed, but I can't USE it one-handed. I have to use my other hand to turn the pages, because it's too big and heavy to both hold and tap with one hand.

You seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that other people are different from you.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by church mouse

I have experienced similar problems with my Kobos and my MacBook - in fact, so often I bought a Tolino.

Subsequently, I discovered the issue was not with the Kobos but with the USB port on the Mac which I was using. That said, the Tolino handles better an "improper" ejection - just reconnect and eject again.

That is entirely possible in my case... Guess Kobo’s not *really* to blame but they could do what Amazon (and Tolino, Pocketbook, Sony, basically everyone else outside the reader business) can do, write a USB driver that’s not that extraordinarily sensitive...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

That is entirely possible in my case... Guess Kobo’s not *really* to blame but they could do what Amazon (and Tolino, Pocketbook, Sony, basically everyone else outside the reader business) can do, write a USB driver that’s not that extraordinarily sensitive...

What makes you think that any of those companies wrote a driver? I think you will find that none of them did. The are all mounting using the Windows USB drivers, most likely the USBMSD driver. What Kobo did was use some bytes in the boot sector that had no predefined use for something. MS decided that this was a problem and hence the errors Win10 gave. Kobo probably shouldn't have done things this way, but it has been like that for at least five years. The question then is why did MS suddenly decide it needed to change this? And why didn't they tell anyone?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

What makes you think that any of those companies wrote a driver? I think you will find that none of them did. The are all mounting using the Windows USB drivers, most likely the USBMSD driver. What Kobo did was use some bytes in the boot sector that had no predefined use for something. MS decided that this was a problem and hence the errors Win10 gave. Kobo probably shouldn't have done things this way, but it has been like that for at least five years. The question then is why did MS suddenly decide it needed to change this? And why didn't they tell anyone?

My question is that now that Kobo is fixed in Win 10AU and Kindle is broken, will MS fix the Kindle and break Kobo? I do hope not. Sure, fix Kindle, but don't break Kobo again.

MS also needs to seriously fix the issues they have with webcams. That's another serious screw up.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by davidfor

What makes you think that any of those companies wrote a driver? I think you will find that none of them did. The are all mounting using the Windows USB drivers, most likely the USBMSD driver. What Kobo did was use some bytes in the boot sector that had no predefined use for something. MS decided that this was a problem and hence the errors Win10 gave. Kobo probably shouldn't have done things this way, but it has been like that for at least five years. The question then is why did MS suddenly decide it needed to change this? And why didn't they tell anyone?

I was talking about the Kobo-Mac connection (and of course, the implementation of USB on the side of the device). Please refer to post I quoted.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

I was talking about the Kobo-Mac connection (and of course, the implementation of USB on the side of the device). Please refer to post I quoted.

Woops, I didn't read that post properly. But I doubt if it is any different. In fact, I think it is less likely that the companies mentioned have written MAC drivers for their hardware and are not relying on the OS supplied drivers.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by khalleron

I can HOLD it one-handed, but I can't USE it one-handed. I have to use my other hand to turn the pages, because it's too big and heavy to both hold and tap with one hand.

You seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that other people are different from you.

It probably depends a lot on how you hold it. I hold my reader the same way I hold my phone with it resting on my pinky, three fingers on the back and the thumb resting along the right side. With that position it's easy for me to use but if I was pinching it with the thumb on the bezel and all my fingers on the back then I could see that being hard to use one handed. And of course of you're lying down with the reader above you than probably any position would be difficult to use with one hand.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Woops, I didn't read that post properly. But I doubt if it is any different. In fact, I think it is less likely that the companies mentioned have written MAC drivers for their hardware and are not relying on the OS supplied drivers.

There is software in every USB device manufactured that controls how currents transmitted via the USB cable through the USB plugs ist handled (I even wrote “implementation of USB on the side of the device”). I am sorry if my use of the word “driver” was misleading, but I am definitely talking about code *within* the ereader software, not drivers that manufacturers write as add-ons to general computer operating systems.
Again: please refer to the post I quoted.
tl;dr: User said that he had problems like I did with Kobo not ejecting properly on Mac sometimes, thereby not recognizing books added to device (especially if added via calibre, calibre sometimes does not “let go” of connection). Problem is on the side of the Mac. We suspect that other devices do not eject properly sometimes. But other devices have no problems, still process added data, database does not corrupt, like with Kobo. So we think that there is something that Kobo could do to prevent this from happening.

[church mouse]

As johhnyb said, with my Tolino, or if ignore Nickel and use Koreader on my Kobos, if I get a USB connection/ejection issue on my Mac then I just reconnect my reader, resync and my library is back in order.

If I use Nickel, then I either have to make sure I take a copy of the last database each time I sync, or I am faced with the hassle of the signing out/signing in process on my Kobo and then reconnecting my Kobo once more. It would be nice if the Kobo automatically backed up the previous copy of the database and allowed the user to confirm the reader was safely ejected before switching to the new database (this could be an advanced setting to be switched on only if the user needed it).