Are all ereaders as buggy as Kobo Touch/Glo?

[TechniSol]

Auspex,

Considering there were about four or five reasons listed, most obviously that I wanted a front lit unit, I think you could figure out what I meant. I've been using Calibre generated shelves on the Touch as well, and have never had the duplicate shelf issue until transferring to the Glo -oddly with the same firmware version!

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by TechniSol

Robko,

I transferred epubs from calibre that were set up with shelves and worked fine with no duplication on my Touch, and found I had multiple shelves for only one series on the Glo, without any sync to the Kobo servers. WiFi was off. Please explain how that is a Kobo Server issue?

I'll give heavy odds it is either a Kobo internal database or firmware issue, or calibre has a bug, etc. Since it also seems to be happening to people syncing to Kobo's servers and apparently not transferring from Calibre then I'd lean toward it being a firmware bug that affects the internal database by occasionally creating a duplicate record. Perhaps, if a transfer doesn't complete properly and is restarted a second shelf record gets inserted... Who knows? Mere guesswork.

Well I'd much prefer a simple filesystem based folder structure, but every time I mention it, I get shouted down. Even if the shelf system worked, it is SOOOO slow to arrange all your books onto the shelves using the device itself that I can't see it ever working for me.

So, in keeping with the purpose of this thread - what do the other brands use to organise books on the device? I know the BeBook my wife has and the Astak I had (essentially the same hardware) all use files in folders and I couldn't happier with that. What about the Sony and Nook and kindle?

[TechniSol]

SteveEisenberg,

And producing crapware that continually annoys people release after release can kill even an innovate product. DEAD. Sorry, I'm from the old school. I designed products good enough that I could sell the prototype and have it function for 10 years without a service call in a manufacturing environment. The fricking prototype.

I'm hopeful that the Kobo team will eventually get their collective head out of their collective arse, but is there really any programming or hardware or design professional in here that could live with how many bugs they seem to crank out in every release? Embarrassment alone would be more than sufficient motivation for me. Do they not realize their names are on the About page?

Do they plan on simply not listing their time at Kobo on a resume, or has the entire world accepted the level of mediocrity they display each time they release firmware, and within hours have to start working on yet another release to fix bugs that simply can't be lived with?

I'm optimistic, they produced a nice piece of hardware in the Glo, but this level of software mediocrity is sad. Frankly, I'm amazed that a Japanese owned company does this poorly at generating a better product. I remember a time when this level of incompetence would have guaranteed better performance through attrition and had the management issuing apologies. How many times can you release without fixing past issues, and continue to introduce new ones and still hold your heads up?

Frankly, I didn't mean for this to be a condemnation, but geez, where does the buck stop anymore?

[TechniSol]

Jusmee,

AFAIK, Nook STR/Glowlight only lets you create shelves and manually select from the current list of books which titles go on them. At least I could find no way to automate the creation/population of shelves.

At least Kobo has sense enough to allow for an automated method that Calibre can handle. It has been working PERFECTLY on my Touch. Multiple shelves, no duplicates, etc. On the Glo only one series has duplicates and it seems I was able to kill one duplicate by deleting the books from the Glo through Calibre, disconnecting, reconnecting and resending -but still was left with another duplicate shelf. I need to try it again and see if I can remove the remaining duplicate that way. Just was too annoyed to think of trying it the first time around. I wanted to read, not debug something I just paid 130 for.

I may be dead wrong, but have the intuition that something in the shelf creation process or data transfer process is causing something to fail, even though a shelf record actually has been created, in such a way that a routine gets run multiple times to create a shelf it thinks was not properly created.

If they can't find the bug, I'd venture a guess that they could at least wise up enough to stick in a routine that goes through and eliminates multiple identical shelf records? Hell, for all I know there may only be one shelf and the display routine might be showing multiples... though I recall someone saying they had manually edited their database and removed multiple records.

[guma]

From my experiences with other e-readers I owned before I got the KOBO (Hanlin, Amazon, Sony) I'd say new firmware releases for these where almost as buggy as KOBO's. The crucial difference is that the other manufacturers used to provide bugfix releases so that, after some (short) time, there was a stable version for each firmware.

For some obscure reason KOBO's policy is not to provide bugfixes but only new firmware versions combining (in the happy case some) bugfixes with new feature implementations ... which always introduce a new set of bugs ... for which no fixes will be released ...

[samhy]

Originally Posted by jusmee

So, in keeping with the purpose of this thread - what do the other brands use to organise books on the device? I know the BeBook my wife has and the Astak I had (essentially the same hardware) all use files in folders and I couldn't happier with that. What about the Sony and Nook and kindle?

Bookeen's Cybook uses the folders system too. I can't tell for the other devices made by Bookeen.

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Did it ever lock up because of the epub - like Kobo does on the % processing screen just after you add new files?

I have created my own epubs by copying text into Word or a notepad and using Calibre to convert it to epub. I recall that once the reader would load the first page, and the page forward button didn't work. I think I have had other "failed" epubs like that too. But it never locked up the reader, I could still press the home button to get out of it. (and I never did explore what had gone wrong with the epub, I just abandoned the idea.)

eP

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by jusmee

Well I'd much prefer a simple filesystem based folder structure, but every time I mention it, I get shouted down. Even if the shelf system worked, it is SOOOO slow to arrange all your books onto the shelves using the device itself that I can't see it ever working for me.

So, in keeping with the purpose of this thread - what do the other brands use to organise books on the device? I know the BeBook my wife has and the Astak I had (essentially the same hardware) all use files in folders and I couldn't happier with that. What about the Sony and Nook and kindle?

I'd prefer to see a file system as well, most mp3 players have a file system as well as the tag/shelf system so it can't be too hard to put in.

Bebook (All Hanlin V3/5) & Jetbook both have a file system only.
Cybook Opus has a file system and a full list.
Sony's have a list/shelves (File system can be used if you add PRS+)
Kobo's have a list/shelves
I think the Hanvon's had folder support as well.

At the minute I use a Kobo Glo for bad light conditions and a Sony 650 in daytime (Obviously gone back to 2.1.5 for the Glo firmware)

The last firmware update on the Jetbook was very good and If they brought out a new one with a better processor/screen and pretty much the same firmware I'd be damn tempted to get another one.

I liked the openinkpot firmware for the hanlin V3 but that seems to have died a death before being recoded for any other readers.

My ideal mash up at the minute would be the Cybook main menu, Sony's ADE implementation with Kobo's & PRS+ configuration options (Also FBReader/Coolreader as options for non DRM file) Kobo Glo's Front light and Sony's stability. Also everyones old method of accessing footnotes with buttons (Too hard to tap the right bit of the screen on anything at the moment).
It would also be handy to edit the tags on device.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

I liked the openinkpot firmware for the hanlin V3 but that seems to have died a death before being recoded for any other readers.

Thanks for the input. Just wanted to mention the lbook firmware. The Astak I had was equivalent to the V5, and I quite liked the lbook firmware on it. However, my wife prefers the BeBook firmware. It was nice having choices

[MikeB1972]

Thinking about it I'd also like a tablet with the transflective colour TFT screen used in the new garmin etrex hiking sat navs with the Kobo front light.
Full speed, full colour tablet with full sunlight visibility and an optional light would be great, should get a better battery life with the light not needing to be on all the time as well.

[jamadams]

I know that i'm four pages too late but might as well add my two pennies.

My Kobo touch was the buggiest eReader I have ever owned.

[Andy_T]

Have so far only had Kindles (Keyboard, Fire) and iPad, and have not had problems with any of them.

BUT ... the ongoing issues with the Kindle paperwhite (the version I received had a screen that was simply not as sharp as that of my Kindle Keyboard, plus I did not care for the greenish cast to the lighting) - especially what I read in the corresponding threads here at the forum where people complain about their 9th replacement not being as nice, evenly lit, sharp, etc. as the 7th one - is sorely tempting me at the moment to look at the Kobo Glo after seeing one at a display at an airport.

Even though that would mean going the calibre route, converting all my Kindle books and so on, instead of simply buying a book in the amazon store and having it delivered.

Best regards,
Andy

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Thinking about it I'd also like a tablet with the transflective colour TFT screen used in the new garmin etrex hiking sat navs with the Kobo front light.
Full speed, full colour tablet with full sunlight visibility and an optional light would be great, should get a better battery life with the light not needing to be on all the time as well.

It's a very good idea. Garmin's displays have to work in bright light, so one of the advantages of e-ink is nullified, plus you gain colour and speed. How good is the resolution?

[Corkobo]

I had a Nook 1st gen, that was the buggiest.
I had a Nook ST. This was rock solid. Never crashed, never page skipped, great battery.

The Glo is buggier than the Nook ST (occasional pages skipped, sometimes it goes into highlighting mode and I need to shut it down to recover, etc.) but better than the Nook 1st gen. And I can live with these problems.

The front light, better font adjustments and the better resolution made me move from Nook to Kobo. So far I don't regret it, I've had it for two and a bit months and I read daily.

[MikeB1972]

At the minute 176 x 220 pixels on a 1.4 x 1.7" screen
So about 128 ppi
Not great resolution but I assume you can get better screens as Pixel QI's screen was about 150 ppi and they kept promising a better one (Although I think this is still vapourware)

Thinking about it, with the front light you only need a reflective LCD not a transflective one.

Hey, while googling I just found the "Boogie Board" - how cool is that, old school tablets done high tech (now I want one for shopping lists)