Paperwhite 3, Glo HD or Aura H2O?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by twenty5th_night

Side note: I really enjoyed the waterproofness of the H2O, and have yet to find any cases that would do the same for anything other than a Kindle/Paperwhite...

There are third-parties that do post-production waterproofing of Kinde Paperwhites.

But if I were you, I'd probably wait until Kobo's next offerings launch in August.

[booklover6]

Originally Posted by twenty5th_night

Other notes/questions:
How painful is it to switch to the Kindle ecosystem? I've got a lot of files sorted with Calibre into collections/shelves, is there an equivalent system with the Paperwhite, say, and is it relatively straightforward? Can I still use Calibre to sort things?

No. The ease with which you sort files with Calibre into collections/shelves will be a thing of the past if you switch to Kindle.

As for your slowness with "over 1,000" books....you may have a "bad" file. I have a Kobo Mini with over 3,000 books that is never slow. On the other hand, I had given my young daughter my old Kobo Glo, with like 15 books on it, and the battery drain was terrible. I took a few off (which have large image files in them) and it is fine, now. No more extreme battery drain or freezing.

I personally go over every file with Calibre "Edit book" to make sure it is not full of errors before I put it on my Kobo(s). (I didn't do that with the books mentioned above).

OTOH I do not worry at all if it is full of errors before putting it on my Kindle Voyage. The file may not look "right" to me (I am picky) but the Kindle won't choke on it. Due to the inability to use Calibre to sort and organize on my Kindle, I only have around 600 books on the Kindle. The "search" function is very good, for the most part. Kindles are also durable. You can't go wrong with a Paperwhite 3.

Since you are a Kobo user, wait and see what they produce this fall. I am looking forward to the new 6", hoping it is waterproof and durable. (I also dropped and broke my Kobo Aura, which was in a case...sad day).

[robko]

The Kobo devices (basically) all use identical firmware so ease of use will be the same between them. Since you're using Calibre anyway, if you go with another Kobo you might want to look at having Calibre convert your epubs to kepubs since some people feel that page turns in kepubs are faster than epubs.

[twenty5th_night]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys! I am definitely waiting until the fall before I buy anything, if only because I won't have the money until then. I have high hopes for the new 6" Kobo, hope the tweeted picture was of the smaller device.

[twenty5th_night]

Originally Posted by booklover6

As for your slowness with "over 1,000" books....you may have a "bad" file. I have a Kobo Mini with over 3,000 books that is never slow. On the other hand, I had given my young daughter my old Kobo Glo, with like 15 books on it, and the battery drain was terrible. I took a few off (which have large image files in them) and it is fine, now. No more extreme battery drain or freezing.

I personally go over every file with Calibre "Edit book" to make sure it is not full of errors before I put it on my Kobo(s). (I didn't do that with the books mentioned above).

[......]

Since you are a Kobo user, wait and see what they produce this fall. I am looking forward to the new 6", hoping it is waterproof and durable. (I also dropped and broke my Kobo Aura, which was in a case...sad day).

Thanks for the info; I've been spending far too much time trying to search for an equivalent system on Kindle. Despite system glitches, I do prefer the Kobo ecosystem and useability in general.

I feel your pain on the Aura, oh man, that was so depressing. There was definitely wailing and gnashing of teeth that day... Here's hoping that the new one is at least a bit more durable, never mind the waterproofing...

I haven't used the "Edit book" feature to look for errors, thanks for bringing that up. I tend to download stuff straight from AO3 or convert my own RTF files in Calibre, so I suppose there could be errors inherent in those files. I also have about 4 pages of shelves/collections, so I was thinking it could be that too, but I have no idea, really.

[twenty5th_night]

Originally Posted by robko

The Kobo devices (basically) all use identical firmware so ease of use will be the same between them. Since you're using Calibre anyway, if you go with another Kobo you might want to look at having Calibre convert your epubs to kepubs since some people feel that page turns in kepubs are faster than epubs.

When I got my second H2O I was playing around with using kepubs instead of epubs. It was a while ago, so I can't remember exactly went wrong, but there were a couple features that I liked that I couldn't use with kepub files. One of the quirks of kepubs that was slightly annoying was the top margin, and also how it changed the font sizes compared to epubs - I found it more difficult to find a nice font size.

That being said, if I do end up with another Kobo (which is starting to seem more and more likely), I'll try the kepubs again. Thanks for the feedback!

[twenty5th_night]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There are third-parties that do post-production waterproofing of Kinde Paperwhites.

But if I were you, I'd probably wait until Kobo's next offerings launch in August.

I saw the Waterfi website, and it definitely looked interesting. However, they didn't seem to offer the PW3 so far, and I've read mixed reviews about how effective they are. I'm sure there are other services as well, but I'm not sure how willing I am to break the original warranty on a device that tends to randomly glitch...

[twenty5th_night]

@booklover6
Can I ask for more details as to how you edit your epubs for errors? It sounds like you do it manually; I'm not entirely sure what to look for, to be honest.