Do not buy kobo ebook readers - at least as of Q4 2015

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Going for alternative devices is certainly a good idea for people who don't like their four Kobos anymore, but I'd suggest getting four Ultimate E-Readers. Satisfaction guaranteed.*












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* Did I say satisfaction for the customer? No, because I'm referring to mine: boy, am I looking forward to all the threads that are going to be started here by the Tweedles' customers. This thread will look like the epitome of reason and civility in comparison...

[macsek]

Thanks for all the comments.
Especially for the ones suggesting solutions. I did smile on some of the comments, like of eschwartz about "Satisfaction guaranteed.*" :-D

I have a programmers background, so I know bugs exist. The question is their severity. And the main question is how quickly known bugs are repaired. I would also mention here the willingness of the company to introduce new features requested by the users. And I know the money comes from happy users buying ebooks from kobo, not from users reading sideloaded books originating elsewhere.

The answer to the question "why did you buy new kobo devices if you have not been satisfied" is: I stepped up in hardware (display light, water-resistance) and hoped faults to be eliminated sooner or later. "Sooner" has already passed, that is why I have started this topic.

I did know I will start a kind of flame war. Have you noticed where have I posted this "personal opinion thread"? On the kobo lovers tinkerer forum. I want kobo to know about it, but being visible to other power users (you).
I would be happy to have a relatively fault-free device. I do hope kobo will wash out the bugs and will have enough resources even to bring in requested features.

PS: my daily reader is the H2O, it is on fw 3.17.3, not upgraded to 3.18 because of comments I read here, on mobileread. It is nice to know the highlight issue is almost solved in 3.18.
I have kobo start menu and koreader installed as well, many thanks for tshering. It is nice to be able to run alternative reader softwares, but this is not for the masses. Most users will adjudicate the stock firmware.

[Terisa de morgan]

I think you're missing something here. The "power users" (as you say) know about these faults (and a lot of other ones). If you buy a device not because of it is (present software and hardware) but because of it can be (improved software and hardware), then you're buying problems.

And starting this thread as a flame war, when you're mainly the only one in a side (people who doesn't have a kobo or is not interested or dislike a Kobo usually won't come here), what a sad war, sorry.

[Lucas Malor]

Originally Posted by davidfor

It's more bizarre than that. It's the last word of the paragraph if it continues from the previous screen. And if the paragraph finishes with two punctuation characters, the word can be selected, but not that last character. And yes, not a big problem, but one I can't "unsee" once I discovered it.

And something I just noticed, if I start a selection earlier in the paragraph to include that last word, the highlight disappears when I lift my finger, but the menu pops up. I can save the highlight and see it in the annotations list, but it isn't highlighted in the text. If I change the font size so that the paragraph doesn't go over the screen, the highlight appears.

I completely confirm all the behaviours. I highlight a lot since I use Kobo with sideloaded programming epubs. I need to highlight them for studying, so for me it's a big problem.

I add that highlighting is very much *slow*. In comparison, my non-touch Kindle takes few milliseconds to select and highlight text.

IMHO it's the logic that is completely flawed. It's much more simple to have an highlight button, touch the text once for the start and touch the text again for the end. The fact you have to slide your finger from the start to the end slows down a lot, because of the animation.

Not mentioning when you do a mistake and you want to select more or less text. In this case Kobo does not select entire words, but character by character. Fast as Windows Vista installed on a toaster.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

And starting this thread as a flame war, when you're mainly the only one in a side (people who doesn't have a kobo or is not interested or dislike a Kobo usually won't come here), what a sad war, sorry.

Well, there is me...

But I think it says something that even I can't find it within myself to wage war on Kobo over this.

...

I don't usually come here. But a couple of times people have accused Kobo of things that are just unfair -- I have integrity (some).

[Terisa de morgan]

@eschwartz, yes, I've already read you (I look at Kindle forum too from time to time ), but it's still a strange place (IMHO)

[Cinisajoy]

As far as no phone in the US, prepaids can be had cheap.
Does the guy not have a friend, coworker, neighbor who would loan him a phone for a few minutes?
Also Skype.

[disconnected]

I love my Kobos (Aura and Aura H2O) but I do wish I didn't have to phone Kobo when I have a problem. I've always had a bit of a phone phobia and it doesn't help that my hearing isn't quite what it was. One of my favorite things about the internet is that it helps me avoid the phone.

In the past I've been able to just fill out the form on the Kobo site and someone would look into the problem and email me with a solution. It was generally a simple problem like a faulty acsm file that downloaded the wrong book or a coupon that didn't work.

That doesn't seem to work any more. The last couple of times I filled out the form the only response I got was an email a while later that said they assumed my problem had been fixed and that I should call them if it hadn't. I guess that worked out well for them because I didn't call; fortunately not much money was involved.

I'm lucky to have a husband who doesn't hate phones like I do. When I had my only real Kobo problem (somehow when I pulled my H2O out of a zippered case the port cover got caught on the zipper and got detached from the Kobo ) he persevered through several layers of Kobo support until one CS rep actually found a tech type who knew how to get it re-attached.