Aura Aura One disadvantages

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by vostro

vendor even ignores huge chinese language market, from marketing perspective, it's a failure.

Yeah, don't understand that at all. I would have even paid to have been able to install a good Chinese-Chinese and a good Chinese-English dictionary.

Luckily, from various threads on this site, I was able to find out how to sideload fonts and install a Chinese-English dictionary. Free. Many thanks again to all those who made that possible.

[radius]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

It's true, they are still there but they appear less in your face.
That btw is what gamification generally means: The application of (video)game inspired metrics, thresholds and mechanics to non-gaming-activities.

Yes, this is what I meant. They might very well be optional now. But I didn't see them this time, and they were very apparent during my first go around with Kobo a few years ago (along with too much "social" integration if you gave them your Facebook login details). Maybe they are turned on by the "reading statistics" option now? I can't check because I no longer have a Kobo device.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by radius

Yes, this is what I meant. They might very well be optional now. But I didn't see them this time, and they were very apparent during my first go around with Kobo a few years ago

I can only say that your tolerance for this sort of thing must be very low. The "gamefication" was displaying an award popup when the count of something you were doing hit specific values. You would have to have been doing a lot of reading to see more than two a week. And there were less than thirty awards, so they didn't last long.

(along with too much "social" integration if you gave them your Facebook login details). Maybe they are turned on by the "reading statistics" option now? I can't check because I no longer have a Kobo device.

They always were. But, at one time there was an extra option to turn the awards and still do the stats.

[radius]

I bought another KA1 so I am back in the fold. I was all set to rant about some of its shortcomings until I realized that I already did last year

After reading on the KA1 for a couple of months this time around (instead of a couple of weeks last time) some of my opinions have shifted slightly.

Originally Posted by radius

- touch screen. The sensitivity seems low and it often doesn't register my touches. ... Similarly I can't consistently hit brightness and wifi etc. I can't find any way to calibrate or change sensitivity

Still crap. Maybe even worse than my original device.

- frontlight. ... Even 1% is quite bright in a darkened room. ... Also, the daylight feature isn't usable to me because at low illumination, I can see the red and green LED zones quite clearly near the bottom of the screen.

I put up with the extra light at 1% by reading under the covers. The granularity seems ok-ish now, though I only ever use the range between 1-4%.

The comfort light is better this time around. It isn't as easy to distinguish the red and green LEDs.

- weight distribution. When holding it in one corner, the device is big enough that the center of gravity is far out and produces too much moment to be comfortable long term. Also, when reading with the cover on, the only way I can hold it one-handed is by folding the cover back and I don't like to do that for a number of reasons.

I didn't buy the cover this time around and things are much better. I also mostly gave up holding the device by one corner. Now I hold it about halfway up one side. Not very secure, but more comfortable balance.

- font adjustments. ... for some epubs the controls are inoperative unless I tweak the stylesheet. ... I also can't figure out how to use some side-loaded fonts; they show in bold italic instead of regular, for instance.

The excellent Kobo dev community came to my rescue here. I am using sherman's excellent script to Koboify fonts and it takes care of everything.

For books that lock the font or line height etc, I still edit using Sigil.

- page display. The widow/orphan control seems very aggressive. I often find many blank lines at the bottom of pages. This is exacerbated by the large standard bottom margin.

Still annoying. Partly mitigated by reading epub and I will get around to patching eventually.

I don't like the "flash every six pages" thing.

Can't remember if I edited the conf file or if it was a firmware update, but now I have it set to invert less.

- UI. ... I strongly dislike the way the UI is drawn. I also don't like that on the main screen, three quarters is mostly useless to me.

I am one of the few who likes the new home screen. Overall UI polish could still use a ton of work IMO.

- limited download.

Gave up on downloading books from my cloud since typing in my password on Kobo's terrible keyboard is difficult and inconvenient anyway.

- speed.

Soup
ur
sssss
loooooow.

I still have no trouble with battery life or USB connectivity. Still enjoy cbr support (thanks AcidWeb!). Overdrive support is excellent and very transparent.

If the touch screen worked well and the device was faster, I'd be pushing these on everyone I know.

[crane3]

Not able to connect to a non-broadcasted ssid is a disadvantage as the KA1 will only connected to a 'selected' ssid from a list; not able to connect to an added network.

Lack of a 'real life' file manager. Adding books is easy but cannot delete/remove a book even tho the popup dialogue prompts for selection. The 'book manager' even says to remove a book after finished reading to save space!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by crane3

Lack of a 'real life' file manager. Adding books is easy but cannot delete/remove a book even tho the popup dialogue prompts for selection. The 'book manager' even says to remove a book after finished reading to save space!

There is an option to automatically remove Kobo purchased books when they are finished. This has no affect on sideloaded books.

And as stated in your other thread, I have no problems deleting books from my Kobo devices in any of the supported ways. Or do I think a file manager is needed.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by crane3

Lack of a 'real life' file manager. Adding books is easy but cannot delete/remove a book even tho the popup dialogue prompts for selection. The 'book manager' even says to remove a book after finished reading to save space!

The books I delete from my Kobo are gone from it. What is not working for you?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by radius

Still annoying. Partly mitigated by reading epub and I will get around to patching eventually.

Are you referring to the footer or the blank lines left by widows/orphans? Kepub does not respect widows/orphans setting so the blank space at the bottom of the page will vary a lot less than unpatched epub. As you likely already know, one of the epub patches originally implemented to correct a bug with very long paragraphs causing page breaks at random is still there since a side effect is to disable widows/orphans.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by crane3

Not able to connect to a non-broadcasted ssid is a disadvantage as the KA1 will only connected to a 'selected' ssid from a list; not able to connect to an added network.

Odd. My KA1 connects to a hidden SSID. Setting => Wi Fi Connection => Join a Wi Fi network => Add network. Connects and is visible in the Edit known networks list. I tested this on my home network (Netgear R7000P) and on the corporate network (Cisco 2802 LWAPP with WLC)

Originally Posted by crane3

Lack of a 'real life' file manager. Adding books is easy but cannot delete/remove a book even tho the popup dialogue prompts for selection. The 'book manager' even says to remove a book after finished reading to save space!

From home screen, long press on book and select Remove from the popup. Select Remove from Home, Remove download (for books synced from Kobo) or Remove from My Books. Tap Remove.

From My Books, long press on book and select Remove from the popup. Select Remove download (for books synced from Kobo) or Remove from My Books (the only option for sideload epubs). Tap Remove.

Or you could go for the wholesale removal -- Settings => Manage downloads. Tap Remove all for any of the 3 options. This is also where you will find the auto remove download for Kobo synced books.

As for how difficult this is? My pre-teen nephew figured this out for himself on the Clara HD he received as a birthday present from his sisters last weekend.

I will admit the user manual is far behind the firmware but this is not string theory.

[crane3]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Odd. My KA1 connects to a hidden SSID. Setting => Wi Fi Connection => Join a Wi Fi network => Add network. Connects and is visible in the Edit known networks list. I tested this on my home network (Netgear R7000P) and on the corporate network (Cisco 2802 LWAPP with WLC)

Did not work for me. Tried around 5 times. Also KOReader disconnected the wifi & did not have an "add network" on the list.

From home screen, long press on book and select Remove from the popup. Select Remove from Home, Remove download (for books synced from Kobo) or Remove from My Books. Tap Remove.

Did that several times on different occasions. Still trying that ocassionally.

From My Books, long press on book and select Remove from the popup. Select Remove download (for books synced from Kobo) or Remove from My Books (the only option for sideload epubs). Tap Remove.

I still want to keep the books after finishing reading. I do not have any books from Kobo.

As for how difficult this is? My pre-teen nephew figured this out for himself on the Clara HD he received as a birthday present from his sisters last weekend.

Doesn't matter as the "howto" did not work for me on my KA1.

Will be doing a factory reset to start over without the 'side loaded' book(s).

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by crane3

Did not work for me. Tried around 5 times. Also KOReader disconnected the wifi & did not have an "add network" on the list.

Did I mention KoReader? Since I use epub/kepub, KoReader is a non-starter for me. Again hidden SSID is futile attempt at increasing security. When I feel in a greyhat mode, they are the first ones I like to have fun with.

Originally Posted by crane3

Doesn't matter as the "howto" did not work for me on my KA1.

Will be doing a factory reset to start over without the 'side loaded' book(s).

I'd suggest using your KA1 for while before adding KoReader back. You might want to add books intended for KoReader into a directory with a name starting with a "." to hide them from nickel.

You might also have more success asking your questions in the KoReader forum. Other than Ken Maltby, there don't seem to be many KoReader users posting in either the Amazon or Kobo forums.

[crane3]

This thread is about Kobo disadvantages. The hidden ssid is problem with the Kobo; KOReader disconnects on startup without the 'add network'; have not questioned that here. Interestingly, was able to easily add my network the couple of recent resets. So what that the hidden ssid does not stop the people who have the software/hardware to hack into networks; it does make it less convenient to 'lookie loos' with lots of 'curiosity' to see what they can do.

The management of the books 'natively'(?) with nickel need to be fixed as far as I can see. After downloading the books from Calibre, I found that I forgot to configure the built-in kobo driver to create collections. I used the 'manage books' to remove ALL the books from the download. The books remained. Did the 'remove all' to remove the books from the books. Same problem in that none of the books were removed.

This was done using just nickel not koreader unless you believe that koreader interferes with nickel.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by crane3

The management of the books 'natively'(?) with nickel need to be fixed as far as I can see. After downloading the books from Calibre, I found that I forgot to configure the built-in kobo driver to create collections. I used the 'manage books' to remove ALL the books from the download. The books remained. Did the 'remove all' to remove the books from the books. Same problem in that none of the books were removed.

Do you mean you used "Manage Downloads" from the Settings section? I've never managed my books that way, and don't want to remove all my books from my reader, so I can't test it. I remove as I read with a long press on the book in its list and the appropriate selection.

Having said that, you shouldn't need to remove your books in order to change what collection they are in. I tweak collections all the time in Calibre, and the next time I connect it to my Kobo, the books are recategorised accordingly.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by crane3

This thread is about Kobo disadvantages.

Yes, this thread is about Kobo Aura ONE disadvantages. This subforum is about Kobo devices and their software. There is a separate forum for KOReader on any device.

The hidden ssid is problem with the Kobo; KOReader disconnects on startup without the 'add network'; have not questioned that here.

Which means that KOReader is at fault and you should ask in the KOReader forum.

Interestingly, was able to easily add my network the couple of recent resets. So what that the hidden ssid does not stop the people who have the software/hardware to hack into networks; it does make it less convenient to 'lookie loos' with lots of 'curiosity' to see what they can do.

Maybe, but if you are honest with yourself about this, the inconvenience of doing this far outweighs the tiny security benefit. And unless you have no security, or a completely obvious password, what can the "lookie loos" actually do? They still need to hack their way in. If they are capable of doing that, then the extra few milliseconds to find a hidden SSID means nothing to them.

The management of the books 'natively'(?) with nickel need to be fixed as far as I can see.

As I and others have stated, we have no problem with doing this. What you report doesn't happen for us. The books are removed from the device and the library on the device.

After downloading the books from Calibre, I found that I forgot to configure the built-in kobo driver to create collections.

And there is no need to remove the books for this. Assuming everything is configured properly, calibre does the collection management every time you connect the device.

I used the 'manage books' to remove ALL the books from the download. The books remained. Did the 'remove all' to remove the books from the books. Same problem in that none of the books were removed.

This was done using just nickel not koreader unless you believe that koreader interferes with nickel.

There shouldn't be an interaction, but I can only guess what would happen if you use KOReader to delete the book files and then tried to access them from nickel. You can safely remove books from the device when connected to the PC. The scan when the device is disconnected will remove missing books from the library. But, this doesn't happen when you delete from KOReader. And it probably won't happen when you start nickel from KSM. I don't use either KSM or KOReader and have no real experience with either of them or any side-affects that their usage might cause.