Kobo pooched - screen anomaly

[Deerslayer]

Well, I got almost a year's worth of joy out of it, so I guess I may have to accept things, but ...

I settled down to finish reading one of my books the other day. A chunk of the screen (about 2" square, lower left corner, top of it was ragged, right side was straight) was blank! No matter what I have tried, this never goes away. The device is now useless. It is almost like something got laid on top of that area, with a very precise edge (not even 1 pixel variation along that straight edge!) and masked it off.

Having accepted that the device is probably pooched, I would really like to know what kind of things can happen to e-ink. This Kobo is one of the earliest, I bought it the first week or so that it hit Chapters. I have always protected it, kept in a soft case, etc. If the defective area was completely regular, e.g., a rectangle, I would suspect some sort of screen driver/memory problem, but the pattern I have mystifies me. So, before I "close the chapter" on my e-book experience, I wonder if someone in KOBO support might have some thoughts on this? Or, has anyone else seen something similar? Or, is there some rare susceptibility to (UV?) that e-ink experiences?


Thankfully, I have never bought any e-books! I found lots of good stuff, much of it via feedbooks.com, to keep me entertained. I will certainly miss the ability to have all kinds of reference manual PDF's readily available (camera, car, various electronic things, other personal documents etc.) - that was a major selling point for me of KOBO vs. Kindle and some others. At least I have my Eee PC, which can do this, and more, but does have a hard disk, so one has to be more careful about its use.

I appreciate any thoughts on this matter.

[digiSara]

I don't know anything about the expected life of e-ink, but thought I'd mention that Kobo seems to have a policy to replace/repair the devices - according to this thread anyways: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=129277

You might try going into Chapters or calling Kobo.

[PeterT]

Or even open a support ticket on the Kobo web site. That was what I did and in just over a day I had the packing material to return the unit that had a broken screen.

[RussMeyer]

My original was 9 or10 months old in February when the screen went on it. I took it back to Coles where I bought it and they replaced it with a new Wifi model. If it's less thana year old it should be replaceable.

[Deerslayer]

Originally Posted by RussMeyer

My original was 9 or10 months old in February when the screen went on it. I took it back to Coles where I bought it and they replaced it with a new Wifi model. If it's less thana year old it should be replaceable.

That is exactly what happened to me, yesterday!

Obviously, this (Chapters/KOBO) is a good outfit to be dealing with. I will certainly continue to recommend the KOBO product to friends and family. I was trying to resign myself to abandoning the system, and other alternative products really did not appeal to me.

[JASR]

In the first 9weeks of owning my Kobo the screen broke. Apparently the glass that sits under the e-ink screen is very sensitive. It's a big problem with most e-readers. I brought it back to the store and they replaced it. The Kobo Support can replace it if it's still under the 1yr warranty I think.

[PeterT]

And this morning, a rap on the door alerted me to Purolator dropping off a package. Turn around time from when I first got in touch with Kobo Support to receiving a unit was 13 days (contacted them on the 13th, received packaging material on the 15th, dropped the broken unit off a Purolator pickup at Staples on the 15th, received the new unit on the 25 th).

[taming]

My Kobo WiFi started acting strangely last week; the screen was toast Sunday. I brought it to Chapters (without a receipt) and 10 minutes later was back in my car with a new reader.