Elipsa New Kobo (N604) [Elipsa - ed.]

[av_mtl]

Just got mine today! The screen is great, so much quicker than my Forma, and the notebook functionality is very neat.

I noticed though that the stylus's markup functionality doesn't seem to work for any kepubs converted by the Kobo Touch Extended driver (or kepubify). Works fine for original epubs though. Does anyone have ideas for a workaround there? I'd be sad to go back to regular epubs on the Elipsa.

[Cootey]

Got mine a few hours ago, but I’ve been busy with work. So far I am loving the screen. I did some test notetaking and that was flawless. I’ll attach a manga shot so you can see what that looks like. However, I noticed that it’s slower at turning pages for manga than my Clara HD. That was disappointing. I hope that gets fixed in the firmware update. I hope to have more to say later. (Also, the default web browser page is a Rakuten Japan credit card ad. Apparently, I quality for a 5000 point present. Whoohoo! More debt!)





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[Ellis]

Originally Posted by mrspaceman

Has anyone in the UK got their Elipsa yet?
and did you have to pay import fees?
Mine has shipped with TNT, but is delayed due to customs!

Tracking says mine is shipping with TNT with delivery on Tuesday 29th.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

... and thinking it unlikely there's be another Kobo this year - no reFormation, it seems

Never forget the power of prayer!

[Mercador]

For those having it, would it takes like forever to charge? I went from 57% to 89% in like 2 hours or so. Granted, it charged by the USB port (because I need to use Calibre) but I hope I'll get 100% before tonight!

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by Mercador

For those having it, would it takes like forever to charge? I went from 57% to 89% in like 2 hours or so. Granted, it charged by the USB port (because I need to use Calibre) but I hope I'll get 100% before tonight!

I’ve noticed a slow recharge, too, and I’m using an Anker 20w USB-C charger. The other thing I noticed is that my fancy braided, long, USB-C cable didn’t fit into the case well and would lose connection if I jostled the unit, so I switched to the included cable, which was also braided and had a smaller plastic mount that fit perfectly (duh).


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[Mercador]

I can't find a way to put the cover all over the device, it's really nothing but I guess it would be a nice setting, moreover that it exists on other devices.

Edit : nevermind, it's on the energy saving settings...

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by Mercador

For those having it, would it takes like forever to charge? I went from 57% to 89% in like 2 hours or so. Granted, it charged by the USB port (because I need to use Calibre) but I hope I'll get 100% before tonight!

I haven't fully charged it yet but I'll report back.

[Cootey]

So far I’ve been loving my Kobo Elipsa. I love that I can just start annotating on any EPUB that I’ve tried. I realize that there are some that I won’t be able to do it on, but I haven’t encountered them yet. You just take out your stylus and circle/underline/doodle on the page. That is extremely cool. Using the stylus to highlight text is so much more accurate than doing it with touch controls. I haven’t experimented with exporting those notes yet. I saw something flash by talking about exporting into dropbox, but I barely had time to read it.

I did try out purchasing from the kobo store on the Elipsa. Although I was able to purchase, I ran into a glitch. The book never appeared. Checking my purchases on Kobo.com I can see that I had indeed purchased a book, but no amount of repairing the account would cause the book to appear on the Elipsa. Strangely, the book doesn’t show up on my Kobo iOS apps either, nor does it show up on my Kobo Clara HD. Visiting the book on Kobo.com shows me that I already have the book, but visiting the book on Elipsa gave me a “This book is not available in your area” type message. Anybody else noticing this glitch?


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[Skydog]

Originally Posted by Cootey

I’ve noticed a slow recharge, too, and I’m using an Anker 20w USB-C charger. The other thing I noticed is that my fancy braided, long, USB-C cable didn’t fit into the case well and would lose connection if I jostled the unit, so I switched to the included cable, which was also braided and had a smaller plastic mount that fit perfectly (duh).


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My results were interesting. Overall, 59% -> 95% at 1 hr. 25 min. but the rate slowed as the tank filled. An Anker 30W/IQ adapter was used with the Elipsa's supplied cable.

59% -> 83% 25 min.
83% -> 88% 15 min.
88% -> 95% 45 min.

The Elipsa is a beautiful device with an excellent display. This is a first-class package. The fonts and contrast are crisp with no anomalies to my eyes. My sideloaded fonts look great. Annotations/markups thus far are responsive and smooth. So much still to try out, including installing a boatload of PDFs.

The "gestures" feature of the stylus/handwriting is beyond cool. I recommend looking on Kobo's website where it is described and illustrated in detail:

https://help.kobo.com/hc/en-us/artic...ur-Kobo-Elipsa

Now back to having fun...

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by Skydog

The Elipsa is a beautiful device with an excellent display. This is a first-class package. The fonts and contrast are crisp with no anomalies to my eyes. My sideloaded fonts look great.

I'm not interested in notetaking, but the growing number of reviews like this positively drooling over the display on the Elipsa increases my longing for a new device in the 7-8 inch range with the same attention to the reading experience

[anacreon]

I'm very pleased with my Elipsa all in all. I have some gripes and a wish-list of features, but plain reading is a pleasure.
I had thought to use it only for PDFs and books with tables/maps and such, but I found a comfortable way to read and plan to load it also with all the books who would look better with a bigger page: since I have small very arthritic hands, I was struggling when holding it while reading, but I remembered one of my couches came with a big oblong plush cushion, which molds around anything. I moved it to my reading corner, put my feet on the ottoman, the cushion on my knees, the Elipsa on the cushion and I read for hours.

I haven't even looked at the block-notes, but I do find the stylus useful:

• I had great difficulties moving the PDFs' zoom factor dot precisely before, now it's a cinch
• idem with picking an item in a dense TOC
• idem with moving the handles of a selection
• but I wish I could use it to highlight within a kepub

Some other wishes / remarks

• a number of my PDFs have been severely cropped to improve readability on smaller devices and would look much better if one could increase margins
• many PDFs have been built for 6" devices and look ridiculous on 10". They would look perfect with two pages per screen (in landscape mode)
• I would love the two pages per screen for kepubs too: my complete Garcia Lorca poems for instance is built for it, with the Spanish text on even pages and the English translation on the facing odd pages
• some other poetry look bad whether kepub of PDFs: Pound's cantos look OK because the lines are long, but many other poems would look much better on two pages
• I noticed the two pages per screen look good for epubs (it works only when at minimum pitch), but apparently it only works within each html page. Consequently, single pages are found on the left side, instead of the right as we are used to in books. I now regret eliminating all those "this page was left blank on purpose" from my PDFs.
• I had problems with Dropbox, which I wanted to test, but found invasive. And it scrambled two of my books, so that it wasn't even enough to disconnect / reconnect to my Kobo account, or even restart it to eliminate the problem, but I had to restart manually, which meant reloading, which is always a painful process. I had several "damaged database", which were luckily solved by the disconnect/reconnect, and I suspect were due to some of those badly scanned internet archive PDFs.
• I noted that for some PDFs every page turn generated a sort of hiccup, like the page widened then shrank.
• First opening of big books is sometime very slow, but it is ok afterwards.

EDIT: When I write minimum pitch, I mean the dot positioned at the extreme left of the scale; the pitch resulting is a medium sort, very readable, nothing like what it looked like when I tested it on the 7" Libra.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I'm not interested in notetaking, but the growing number of reviews like this positively drooling over the display on the Elipsa increases my longing for a new device in the 7-8 inch range with the same attention to the reading experience

I'm with you on this: It's the reading experience that I'm interested in.

[elipsajune]

Originally Posted by Cootey

I noticed that it’s slower at turning pages for manga than my Clara HD.

Did you use PDF or CBZ?

[Cootey]

Originally Posted by elipsajune

Did you use PDF or CBZ?

CBZ. I’ll be testing kepub manga next. I have some PDF comics, too that I could try. The manga looked gorgeous, btw. I was just surprised how sluggish the page turning was.

I’ve been reading and utilizing the notes feature. I already posted in another thread that the annotations don’t sync, not even highlighted text. That may have been broken in the last firmware update, not this one. Current page location isn’t synced anymore either. I’m sure they’ll fix it in an update.

I’ve created three notebooks to test. One is a smart notebook with handwriting recognition. The other is a simple notebook with no character recognition. The third is also simple, but I’ve made the background blank—no grid or lines. I plan on making it a sketch journal. Then I’ll try to share them.

I love how I can just annotate with the stylus on any book I’m reading. I wish the notes could sync, but Kobo has always struggled with annotation syncing. The past year’s success was an aberration. LOL.

It really is a gorgeous device. Re: the weight. It’s about as heavy as an iPad. It’s a solid piece of kit. It is NOT designed for leisurely reading. It’s a workhorse. Sturdy construction, high caliber book cover. Everything has heft. Where this is a plus is when I’m working on it. All that weight makes it feel like a professional editing tool. Yes, you can read leisurely on it, but that’s not what it’s designed for.

As much fun as a color eReader would have been, I tip my hat to Kobo for leveraging their IP to create a new product category, especially at the end of a Pandemic.


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