Looking For The Optimal Reader

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by meeera

this is, belatedly, a little bit hilarious. On a quick look, one was a device put in a bag in no case/cover, two were left in hot cars, one wasn't a broken substrate at all, one was from 2011, one is you, one was a child's device jammed forcibly into a packed bag ...

Give. It. Up. seriously. Ereaders get broken. Like wine glasses, and spectacles, and other things made of glass. Some people manage to keep them intact for years and years, and others are just klutzier. (I go through wine glasses like nobody's business, personally.)

I am happy that you are easily entertained. But why do some people feel that they have to defend their device of choice to such lengths?

I have some experience with ereader and based on it, I do believe that the Kobo Aura HDs are a comparatively poorly made product and more prone to break than other devices I have had. I also listed the posts above to show that there are significantly more reports of broken screens for Kobo, relative to other mainstream devices, including the Kindle.

The bottom line is, I post the best information I have based on my personal experience and based on my research, such as the links above.

You may disagree, based on your experience. Please feel free to post stuff like "mine is not broken," even though some of us may not feel it's productive or helpful. But there is no need to attack everyone who posts their dissatisfaction with Kobo. There is no need to question the integrity or credibility of everyone who claims that their Kobo's screen broke "spontaneously." Or to pontificate about how an ereader should not be left it in a car, or in the sun -- while such failures may be acceptable to you, some of us expect that Kobo's products should be as well made as competing devices, which do not appear to suffer cracked substrate nearly as often.

Again: we all have our opinions (some based on more extensive experience than others) and we should all be able to express them, without being personally attacked in every thread.

Cheers.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I am happy that you are easily entertained. But why do some people feel that they have to defend their device of choice to such lengths?

I have some experience with ereader and based on it, I do believe that the Kobo Aura HDs are a comparatively poorly made product and more prone to break than other devices I have had. I also listed the posts above to show that there are significantly more reports of broken screens for Kobo, relative to other mainstream devices, including the Kindle.

The bottom line is, I post the best information I have based on my personal experience and based on my research, such as the links above.

You may disagree, based on your experience. Please feel free to post stuff like "mine is not broken," even though some of us may not feel it's productive or helpful. But there is no need to attack everyone who posts their dissatisfaction with Kobo. There is no need to question the integrity or credibility of everyone who claims that their Kobo's screen broke "spontaneously." Or to pontificate about how an ereader should not be left it in a car, or in the sun -- while such failures may be acceptable to you, some of us expect that Kobo's products should be as well made as competing devices, which do not appear to suffer cracked substrate nearly as often.

Again: we all have our opinions (some based on more extensive experience than others) and we should all be able to express them, without being personally attacked in every thread.

Cheers.

Hi.
I am not going to argue whether it is you or the Kobo.
I just went and looked at the $79 Kindle. Out of 11,000+ reviews, 7% or nearly 900 people gave it a 1 star review.
So apparently brand doesn't matter. Some people will get either bad devices (ask me about my mom's new dryer that broke 3 cycles in, it was a manufacture error) or will be unhappy with it for some other reason.
Sounds like you had a string of bad luck.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I am happy that you are easily entertained. But why do some people feel that they have to defend their device of choice to such lengths?

But, isn't that exactly what you are doing? At the moment, it feels like that every time someone asks "Should I buy a Kobo?", you pop in and say they are crap and will break. Fine, you are giving your experience. But, it feels like you are pushing this to far. Part of the problem is that your experience, three out of four device failed, is not representative. Because of the failures you have seen, you like to point out how many reports of failed Kobos there are. Great, there are a lot, but there are also plenty of reports for Kindles, Sony's and other devices. It's impossible for us to how typical this is (for any of the brands) as we don't know how many have been sold. And we also don't know how many have actually broken. But, for Kobo at least, there is no way that it is 75%. If it was, Kobo wouldn't exist. And there would be a LOT more reports.

And from my experience having bought 10 Kobo ereader for myself and other family members. Plus there a few more bought by friends after seeing whichever Kobo I had at the time. I have only seen one broken screen. And it was a due to something being dropped on it. I have seen no failures like you described, spontaneous with no outside cause. I have seen these devices dropped and had things put on them. And several times I have pulled my sons out from under him when rolled onto it when sleeping. And our cats seem to think they are good places to sit (when they can't find a warm laptop to sit on).

As you are expressing your opinion based on your experience, you shouldn't be surprised when someone else states their opinion based on their experience.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I am happy that you are easily entertained. But why do some people feel that they have to defend their device of choice to such lengths?

I don't know. Why is that?

You will find that I have experience with and recommend/support Kobos, Kindles, and tablets depending on what a person lists as their desired features. (I occasionally point at other devices, but have no personal experience so can't do much more than that.) Kobos and Kindles seem to be broken by their users about the same amount, from what I can tell from the data I have gleaned.

You, on the other hand, seem to have made a hobby of dropping in to all the threads you can find to say 'Kobos are crap!', based on nothing more than your habit of breaking them, and a handful of posts in which most (to their credit) admitted to user mis-handling.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by davidfor

But, isn't that exactly what you are doing? At the moment, it feels like that every time someone asks "Should I buy a Kobo?", you pop in and say they are crap and will break. Fine, you are giving your experience. But, it feels like you are pushing this to far. Part of the problem is that your experience, three out of four device failed, is not representative....

As you are expressing your opinion based on your experience, you shouldn't be surprised when someone else states their opinion based on their experience.

Not exactly the same. I have never had a problem with a Sony, Irex or a Kindle, but if someone reported a problem or dissatisfaction with one of these brands, I don't jump in with a "mine works fine, so it must be your fault" comment.

Originally Posted by meeera

...Kobos and Kindles seem to be broken by their users about the same amount, from what I can tell from the data I have gleaned.

...

I have relayed my own experience, as well as gone through the trouble to do a simple "substrate" search in both the Kindle and the Kobo forums here, and posted what I believe supports my claim that Kobo devices are considerably more likely to have "spontaneously" broken substrates.

Please prove me wrong and post the data you have "gleaned" to support your claim that Kobo does not have more broken substrate issues than Kindle.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Not exactly the same. I have never had a problem with a Sony, Irex or a Kindle, but if someone reported a problem or dissatisfaction with one of these brands, I don't jump in with a "mine works fine, so it must be your fault" comment.



I have relayed my own experience, as well as gone through the trouble to do a simple "substrate" search in both the Kindle and the Kobo forums here, and posted what I believe supports my claim that Kobo devices are considerably more likely to have "spontaneously" broken substrates.

Please prove me wrong and post the data you have "gleaned" to support your claim that Kobo does not have more broken substrate issues than Kindle.

Since the house is clean and I am waiting on FedEx and UPS, I will go look at the kindle reviews.
If I can find more than 13 broken substrates will you concede the point that one is not better than the other?

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Since the house is clean and I am waiting on FedEx and UPS, I will go look at the kindle reviews.
If I can find more than 13 broken substrates will you concede the point that one is not better than the other?

I don't know, it depends on the evidence. I have provided the results from my search for the word "substrate" in the sub-forums here. I even tried to filter out the posts where the damage was clearly accidental, such as a drop.

* If I recall, I found at least half a dozen of posts reporting "mysteriously" broken substrate in the Kobo forum since April of 2015.

** I was able to find only one such post in the Kindle forum since early 2014 and even there, the claim that there was no known cause was hearsay.

*** There is a similar pattern on the Best Buy site.

**** And then, there is my personal experience.

Given that Kindle presumably sells a lot more units than Kobo, I would have expected correspondingly higher number of "mysteriously" cracked substrate reports in the Kindle forums. Instead, my search found only one.

But feel free to prove me wrong.

[Cinisajoy]

So you are just looking in forums.
I was looking at reviews.
There are 2502 critical reviews just on Amazon on the 6" with special offers.
I only got through the first 30, but yes there were two complaints of broken screens.
So by my math that is an average of 1 out of 15 on one very particular model.
So yes they are about the same.

Now I have one other question, since you are so set on saying Kobo's are crap, why does your wife own one? You said hers was good but all of yours broke.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

So you are just looking in forums.
I was looking at reviews.
...
Now I have one other question, since you are so set on saying Kobo's are crap, why does your wife own one?...

The issue is not broken screens that were dropped, or hit with a hammer. The issue is substrata cracks which appear without apparent impact. In addition, comparing Kobo and Kindle posts on the same forum seems to me to provide a more appropriate sample for the purpose.

Also, please read my posts if you are interested in debating this and you'll find the reason my wife is still using a Kobo (hint: it's the last surviving one and it still works).

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Sonist

The issue is not broken screens that were dropped, or hit with a hammer. The issue is substrata cracks which appear without apparent impact. In addition, comparing Kobo and Kindle posts on the same forum seems to me to provide a more appropriate sample for the purpose.

Also, please read my posts if you are interested in debating this and you'll find the reason my wife is still using a Kobo (hint: it's the last surviving one and it still works).

Well now if I want to know about a product, I want many opinions not just those on certain forums.
So I am pretty sure that either of us could find whatever statistics we want to prove our point.

So what reader are you using now?
I was just surprised with your posts that you would allow a Kobo in your house.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Not exactly the same. I have never had a problem with a Sony, Irex or a Kindle, but if someone reported a problem or dissatisfaction with one of these brands, I don't jump in with a "mine works fine, so it must be your fault" comment.

The only way I can read that is that you are allowed to say that because of your experience the product is crap, but I am not allowed to reply that my experience is very different and find the product brilliant.

As far as I can see, the reason for you are got flack about this is that you experience is so far away from everyone else's (three failed devices) that we wonder what was going on. I'd love to know what happened. Maybe there was a bad batch, or someone dropped box of them and all three of yours came from that. Add that you seem to be pushing this fairly hard in threads like this, and you will get the responses you are.

Originally Posted by Sonist

The issue is not broken screens that were dropped, or hit with a hammer. The issue is substrata cracks which appear without apparent impact. In addition, comparing Kobo and Kindle posts on the same forum seems to me to provide a more appropriate sample for the purpose.

The problem with that is that Amazon handles problems differently to Kobo. They seem to be more likely to replace a broken device even if it isn't a real warranty problem, or give a discount on an upgrade. Kobo is being stricter (or more stingy) with this. Add that Amazon has a natural place to post complaints that have not been handled how the owner wants (the reviews) and you won't see as many reports elsewhere. For Kobo, unfortunately a common post here is "How do I contact Kobo?" Their support is not as good as Amazons, so people turn to other avenues such as here.

Of course, all that is a theory and I have no way to prove it. But it would probably be hard to prove I am wrong.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I have relayed my own experience, as well as gone through the trouble to do a simple "substrate" search in both the Kindle and the Kobo forums here, and posted what I believe supports my claim that Kobo devices are considerably more likely to have "spontaneously" broken substrates.

Again:

On a quick look, one was a device put in a bag in no case/cover, two were left in hot cars, one wasn't a broken substrate at all, one was from 2011, one is you, one was a child's device jammed forcibly into a packed bag ...

Your search results were primarily people who outright admitted that their devices were broken due to user abuse.

[Sweetpea]

I only have one experience with a cracked screen without knowing how that happened: the Kindle 3 of my husband had cracked without any reason we could think of. So does that mean that all kindles are bad?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by ShellPhone

So, primarily I want an e-reader for Wikipedia and such

It sounds like you want a WikiReader. Perhaps you can find one second-hand.

[Fiat_Lux]

Originally Posted by barryem

But not if I have to read a lot of paragraphs like the one above. That's just way over the top!

Calling it over the top, is to ignore what happens to data, both in the short term, and the long term. It is to ignore that it does not matter what an organizations claimed polices and practices are. If data is tracked an retained by an organization, it will be available elsewhere, regardless of the policies, procedures, and claims of the organization that originally collected the data.

It doesn't matter what type of material one reads:

• Law enforcement looks for "suspicious" material, which can include somebody who has never been in the military reading US Army Field Manuals, or somebody who reads Holocaust denial material, or Fundamental Christian literature;
• Cybergangs use the type of material one reads, to craft malware attacks;
• Organizations use the type of material one reads, to try to con you into buying more of their junk;
• Customs using the material one reads, as a datapoint in allowing one into the country;
• Other groups have equally nefarious uses for the data derived from one's reading habits;

There are two ways to counter such data tracking:

• For it not be gathered by those who do so;
• To flood those who track the data with too much noise;

Those individuals with ebook readers, but no apparent books, are preventing the data from being gathered in the first place;
Those individuals with eBook libraries of 125,000+ books, are flooding the data-trackers with noise. (I have no idea what the lower limit for a personal ebook library is, for it to be mainly noise. I'm using 125,000 purely because that is the number of books, rounded off, in the largest public ebook library in the world.)

Amber