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Old 11-25-2018, 01:11 AM   #1
GeoffR
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Kobo Glo, six years on

I bought by Glo soon after it first became available in New Zealand, it is six years old now, I've used it almost every day since new.

The battery capacity has declined steadily in that time, but still holds a useful charge. I now get about 25 hours reading per charge compared to about 45-50 hours when it was new.

Two other minor hardware issues: after three years the frontlight developed an occasional shimmer, it happens about once a month but stops if I briefly turn the brightness setting up to maximum; and after four years a small (1mm high) bright spot developed at the extreme bottom edge of the screen. Neither is an impediment to reading, and neither seems to be getting any worse since first developing.

I don't have a sleep cover so the power slider gets a lot of use, and the USB port probably gets more use than is typical, but neither is showing any sign of wear yet. I still use the original USB cable that came with the device.

Overall it has been an extremely reliable device, and has let me read a lot of good books the way I want to read them. I'll try to replace the battery when it finally dies rather than get a new model.

How are other Glos holding up?
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Old 11-25-2018, 01:43 AM   #2
davidfor
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Mine must be six years old as well. The light stopped working after a little more than two years. Everything else was fine. It was heavily used up to that point. I carried it with me on my commute and probably probably averaged close to two hours use per day. At that time I bought an Aura H2O and then a Glo HD (preferred the size). The Glo kept working other than the light and I used it for testing. But it started having problems a year or so later. Weird things like failing to download firmware updates or taking longer than expected to do something. I replaced the internal SD card last year, and it returned to working properly. The battery life seems good for a six year old battery, but I don't read on it to really test it. It has a couple of scuff marks on it, and the switch has worn down so it is hard to grip, but is fine otherwise.

I also bought three other Glo's a year after mine. They were for my wife, son and mother-in-law. The latter two haven't lasted as their screens were broken after two or three years. My wife gave hers to her mother when I gave her the Aura ONE at this time last year. As far as I know it is still working fine. I recently tried pulling the light out of one of the broken Glo's to put in mine, but I broke it somehow when putting it on.
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Old 11-25-2018, 07:49 AM   #3
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My Glo still works and is in use. I got it when it was first released; Kobo offered me a $50 discount and I was able to stack it with two other promotions to knock the price below $60.

I have to say it never got a ton of use when I got it. It was my first front-lit reader and at that time I discovered that I overall preferred the crispness of the text on my Sonys to the slight blurriness occasioned by the light layer, so I mostly used it when the light would be particularly useful. I also stopped updating it at 4.3.8945, both on the "if it ain't broke" principle for a very old device and also because I still like the old front page.

That said, it works perfectly and the battery holds a charge reasonably well. Its current use is as a book repository and very handy it is. I prefer to keep the total books on my "active" readers at under 200; but having most of my Calibre library on an SD card in the Glo makes any book immediately accessible without having to boot my computer, etc. Long may it last!
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Old 11-25-2018, 10:42 AM   #4
Mrs_Often
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Yep my Glo is still in use as well (by my mother in law) with no issues at all.

(My pretty little white Touch is even still being used regularly (by my sister), but it is showing some strange behaviour like black bars across the bottom of the screen (which makes playing sudoku impossible) with certain page refreshes. Very weird. Looks like a memory issue but I wouldn’t know how or why. Reading books works fine though.)
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Old 11-25-2018, 10:42 AM   #5
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My old Glo is almost six years old as well and is still holding up well, together with its official sleep cover. I used it happily for a couple of years until I upgraded to the H2O and then passed it to my mother, who is still using it. She hasn't complained about battery life and on the occasions I get my hands on it (for updating or uploading books loaned from the library) it still looks and feels the same, to me.
My mom is very careful with it, I have to say, she always keeps it in the sleep cover and carries in around in her purse inside a small zipped bag. That probably helps with the durability.
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Old 11-25-2018, 03:15 PM   #6
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My Glo is working fine apart from a couple of issues, after 5.5 years. The battery seems to drop at the rate of 2-5% a day, until it gets to 40-50% then it stablises at 2-3% drop per day. However when it gets to 20-25% it can drop to 10% in the space of 5 hours while switched off (I never leave it to sleep). Also when I press the light button it can sometimes go into the books screen and randomly select a book.

Other than that it is working perfectly, indeed the cover which is the same age as the glo is looking in worse condition.

I use it monday to friday for an average of 2 hours per day.
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Old 11-26-2018, 01:45 AM   #7
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My Glo is still working great after 6 years. It was used heavily the first few years and then relegated to my purse for those just in case I'm stuck somewhere and have time to read moments after I got the Glo HD. My old Touch still works fine too, but after going to the Glo HD, it and the Glo just look a bit blurry to me.
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Old 11-26-2018, 12:36 PM   #8
BobC
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I think I bought my first Glo in 2013 - it has done very well since then until quite recently when it developed a problem with the touchscreen - there is a small area where it will not recognise a touch. Battery life has been better than expected.

I had uprated the internal SD card to an 8Gb class 10 one so when I came across some Glos on Aliexpress a couple of weeks back I ordered one so I could put my 8Gb card into it and maintain my library etc and play with KoReader on the old Glo ,and perhaps replace its screen and battery (both available on AliExpress)

I must admit these days I tend to cycle between the Glo, a Glo HD, a Tolino Shine and an Energy Systems device; that way I can keep different books open and interrupt, say, reading a novel with a book of short stories.

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Old 11-26-2018, 06:12 PM   #9
Uschiekid
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My Glo is 6+ years old (Got it in Oct 2012) and it still works very well, comparable to when new, with some decline in battery, but really very little for a 6 year old device. I don't use it as much since I got my KA1 this year, but it does still get used, often a few times a week. It is on very old firmware, mainly because it works well enough as it is, and I don't mind not getting library books on it automatically.

I don't read on it often enough to give a "reading hours" estimate of how long the battery now lasts, but it usually has battery when I want to use it, despite leaving it for long periods in sleep mode. Occasionally the battery has suddenly gone dead, but I am 99% sure it is just that the sleep cover wasn't properly aligned when it was put down. That used to happen occasionally, even when I first got the sleep cover, but as it became more worn, it would happen somewhat more frequently because the spine was more flexible, so wouldn't close automatically to the right position. It is the official sleep cover (grey fabric, can't remember how that was marketed), and other than that the cover has held up well, for almost 6 years now.

On the whole, I am still pleased with it, and might never have bought my KA1 a) if I didn't find the frontlight too bright at night, especially when reading to get back to sleep (ie was asleep previously and eyes didn't want to see ANY light!) and b) if I hadn't had enough gift cards to buy my KA1 for less than a dollar.
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Old 11-27-2018, 05:46 AM   #10
drjd
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I'm using my Kobo Glo since last five and half years and I am extremely happy with its performance. Since I use it with good quality sleep cover, aesthetically it is in mint condition. I have not noticed any significant loss in battery discharge rate so far, touch wood!

I still use it for reading everyday for an hour or two, and it is my favorite device.
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Old 12-04-2018, 07:46 AM   #11
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I still use my 6 year kobo glo and it still works has the first day and it still looks pretty good, I don’t have any problem with it, I suppose the battery doesn’t last as long but I don’t notice it because unlike in the beginning when I only read with the glo, since I also use KU and scribd when I have active subscription I use other devices. If I only used the glo I’m sure I would notice that the battery has to be charged more often than before.

I bough a basic kindle this year and I still prefer my glo, I miss the light of the glo when reading at night. The glo still is my main reader for the bought books, even the ones bought at amazon are read in the glo, I’ve read more than 900 books with the glo and hope to read a lot more, has long has it works I’m not even tempted to replace it.

I bought a slim gecko cover when I bought the glo, and the case is worn out, it still protects the glo but it doesn’t look great but it did keep the glo in very good condition.
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Old 12-04-2018, 08:02 AM   #12
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My wife's Glo is holding up well after nearly 5.5 years. Granted she doesn't read as much as she listens to audiobooks on her phone, but she hasn't complained about anything not working.
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Old 12-30-2018, 10:27 PM   #13
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My Glo is still going strong!

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Old 12-31-2018, 01:49 PM   #14
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My Glo is still going strong!

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Okay, I realized I forgot one change I noticed. For the past year, books haven't been loading with cover images. I don't have any expanded SD card in the slot and I have had my Glo close to capacity for years and years, pulling read books off as I add new books to read. But only this past year (2018) have books loaded on gone on without covers. (NB: My books are almost all side loaded.)

See photo for what I mean about covers not being present.

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Old 12-31-2018, 02:21 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by theinfamousj View Post
Okay, I realized I forgot one change I noticed. For the past year, books haven't been loading with cover images. I don't have any expanded SD card in the slot and I have had my Glo close to capacity for years and years, pulling read books off as I add new books to read. But only this past year (2018) have books loaded on gone on without covers. (NB: My books are almost all side loaded.)
Do the epubs have cover images on your computer (visible in calibre or when opening the epub with ADE or whatever you use? Is there enough space left on the internal storage for the images to be created? If you are using calibre, have you tried sending the covers using davidfor's KoboUtilities plugin? You can also use it's "Clean image directory of extra cover images" option to remove covers for books that have been deleted but left orphaned cover images behind?
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