Clara BW Clara BW vs Clara HD - big upgrade?

[RodRiquez]

Currently using Clara HD, thinking of getting the BW.
How significant is the performance upgrade?

I find PDF pretty much unusable on HD, the pinch-zoom is horrible as is drag-to-scroll around the page. It would be nice to be able to use PDF sometimes.

Otherwise reading regular epub on HD is fine.
Will I notice much difference?

[DNSB]

Not that much difference. The one Clara BW I've played with while setting it up for a friend of mine does have a faster and slightly more contrasty screen but that may depend on which unit you get since the screens tend to vary. Otherwise, the MediaTek CPU is faster than the Freescale Solo Lite in the Clara 2E which was most noticeable when we imported several hundred books.

You might want to give KOReader a try to read PDFs.

[RodRiquez]

OK, thanks for the info.

In terms of upgrading I think ill shift my attention to either Sage or Boox Page.

[bluepeter]

The biggest differences, IMO, are the obvious ones:

1. The Clara 2E and Clara BW both offer 16GB of storage, compared with 8GB on the Clara HD. Are you finding yourself running out of storage?
2. Both of the newer models have better-positioned and easier to use power switches.

I don't find the screen of my Clara BW to be noticeably better than that of the Clara HD.

If you're happy with the Clara HD, don't change it.

Reading PDFs isn't noticeably better on the Clara BW: it's still pretty awful. This is one of the few things for which I'd reckon a larger screen would be beneficial. But, of course, that comes with penalties in terms of price, weight and portability. Personally, I'm not convinced that the 7" Page or even the 8" Sage are really big enough for this.

[RodRiquez]

Thanks bluepeter.

Ive used just under 1GB in ebooks (epub) in 6 years with the Clara HD. Thats 300 books.
So storage isnt an issue, yet.
But PDF would start adding up quite quickly.

I dont think id like a device bigger than A5. But I do find the Clara a little small, this why im looking to a slight size upgrade. But you could well be right that even 8" would be small for pdf.
Id like PDF to be accessible, but its not a priority.
I was thinking that the Page is so fast, with it held landscape you could scroll around a pdf at a similar speed to an iPad mini.
But im not sure how ill feel about Android vs Kobo, kobo does make getting back to your current book as easy as one touch.


I use the Clara every day, its been great. Im at a point where I would like to spend a bit more on something snappy & a touch larger. But I dont want to spending too much, so £300 is the top limit.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by RodRiquez

I was thinking that the Page is so fast, with it held landscape you could scroll around a pdf at a similar speed to an iPad mini.

Hmmm. I'm not sure that this is so. I think that the screen response time limits scrolling speed. Have you tried it?

Originally Posted by RodRiquez

But im not sure how ill feel about Android vs Kobo, kobo does make getting back to your current book as easy as one touch.

FWIW, I have a Boox Poke 5. (I do like small devices.) The UI isn't quite as good as Kobo's, but it's not at all bad. (It's still vastly better than Kindle's.) Getting back into your current book is a single touch. The Library screen, on which it opens, can be set to a list of your most recent books - very much like My Books/Books on a Kobo. (Alternatively, it can be set to open at its equivalent of My Books/Collections.) The only thing about Boox that I actually dislike is that its author sorting is by forename rather than surname.

If you can, it'd be worth trying out a Boox. You might find that you like it. Of course, they're significantly more expensive than their Kobo equivalents. (Well, they are here in the UK.)

[Apollyon202]

For PDF I would definitely go with a recent (or at least no so old) Android tablet with at least 4-6 GB of RAM and KOReader. That would be best way to read any PDF document. For me PDF is a pain with E-ink at the moment. But it also depends what kind of pdf docs you read. If you don't have to scroll at all just turn pages, then Sage would be cool.

BW book reading experience is best on a 7-8 inch screen with page turn buttons (ofc ymmv). So Libra 2 if you can get it from somewhere or Sage again.
But hopefully next year kobo comes out with brand new 7-8 inch BW devices.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

For PDF I would definitely go with a recent (or at least no so old) Android tablet with at least 4-6 GB of RAM and KOReader.

Xodo, Pocketbook and Nebo are far far better than KOReader for PDF on Android. I used KOreader for epub for a while on Android eink, but prefer to fix broken epubs in Calibre, also figured the epub settings in the native ereader. I used KOReader for PDFs on the Elipsa until Kobo updated the crop on PDFs to work properly.

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

That would be best way to read any PDF document. For me PDF is a pain with E-ink at the moment. But it also depends what kind of pdf docs you read. If you don't have to scroll at all just turn pages, then Sage would be cool.

Sage actually has more pixels than Elipsa. With the crop per document on more recent Kobo FW, the PDF is fine for many instruction books etc, but magazines, larger scanned book, datasheets and service manuals are useless. The 11" Nxtpaper is far better than my Lenovo 10" tablet was. Also as good as ink in being "like paper" if the eink front light is on.

Originally Posted by Apollyon202

BW book reading experience is best on a 7-8 inch screen with page turn buttons (ofc ymmv). So Libra 2 if you can get it from somewhere or Sage again.
But hopefully next year kobo comes out with brand new 7-8 inch BW devices.

I've 5, 6, 6.8, 7, 7.8 and 8" and I find the 8" Sage best for novels or BW PDF content that fits after margin crop.
The 9.7" Kindle was worst purchase ever.
I used the 10.3" Elipsa for about 4 weeks. Better than the Kindle DXG, but too heavy for novels and few PDFs better on it than the 8" Sage, and not good enough, not big enough for many PDFs.

I've switched to Nxtpaper 4G phone (not 5G model) instead of 4.7" and 5" eink for really portable reading.

I'll probably get the Nxtpaper 14 in January and pass on the Nxtpaper 11 to another family member. I passed on the Elipsa and reMarkable (terrible SW design well executed). I considered the Kindle Scribe till I saw how locked in it was to Amazon.

I never thought Kaleido 3 color eink was viable and seeing a recent Onyx model first hand convinced me. Gallery needs to be 100x faster to compete with Nxtpaper.