Cured of Kobo

[koboy]

Originally Posted by WillW

The comfort light isn't a deal breaker; the larger screen is the real temptation. I really wont ever need even 8GB storage. I have hundreds of books on the Kindle, which I think has less than 2 GB.
Is that a good price? It's the same as the edition 2.

now says 9 left in stock...

your right it does now say 9 and yes it's definitely a good price it's one of the best ereaders Kobo have ever made check the forum and you will see why i say that. i tried the shop model in WH Smith when they use to sell them the clarity of the text was crystal clear and the light was even all over like it should be. to be honest i'm surprised Amazon still have some brand new one's left, it maybe an older model but it's one of the best.

it certainly has a much clearer screen than my original Aura 6" does but like i mentioned earlier i prefer the small size/factor had it been a 6" instead of a 6.8 size screen i would have bought one.

if you only have less than 2GB of books then the 4GB bulit in storage will be enough there will probably be around 3GB that will be available for you to use.

edit. only 1 left again. personally i'd definitely try it. after all what have you got to lose? if you don't like it or it's not up to scratch for any reason like you said it's very easy to send it back.

the best advice i can give is it's (always) best to try it yourself.

best wishes koboy

[NiLuJe]

Devil's advocate here, since I'm going to say the opposite of what I actually did myself:

I wouldn't recommend the original H2O in the specific case of someone coming from a PW2+.

Sure, the screen is larger and evenly lit, but the hardware was a generation behind Amazon at that point, so, the CPU is slower (okay, not a deal breaker), and more importantly, the eInk controller was also a generation behind, aaaaaaand, it shows. It'll never be as snappy as a PW2+, no matter what you do with it.

That said, that's exactly what I did: moved from a PW2 to an H2O. And I survived .
But, the Forma is infinitely more pleasant to work with.

On the other hand, the latest H2O² *should* have a similar hardware (not *quite* sure as far as the EPDC is concerned, though). Otherwise it's Clara/Forma for a sure bet on that front.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by WillW

Thanks. Hopefully here it is

Don't listen to some on here. Those bright spots along the side are light bleed, pure and simple. It was a manufacturing error and not a trick of the way your brightness was set. I'm surprised, because in the forums I've never heard a single complaint about that model. I thought it was the most stable and consistent model Kobo had.

If you're still looking at Kobo, I'd suggest sticking with the H2O2. Clearly the color changing light is one of the temptations. If you buy the H2O1 you're just going to wish you had it. If it can be picked up in a shop and maybe inspected before leaving, the H2O2 is a better choice. The chances of two having the same issue would be small.

On the other hand, you've been bitten by Kobo twice. So I don't blame you for giving up on them.

Kindles have had problems with uneven lighting, some of the Paperwhites and the Voyage in particular. So Kobo isn't alone in problematic lighting. Maybe we just complain more

I've attached a picture of my Clara, just to show not all Kobos have issues. Mine was perfect out of the box. Most are.

(Don't mind the weird lighting. I tried putting it under a shelf to emphasize the screen, but got a weirdly lighted photo.)

[WillW]

Thanks for these responses, I'll sleep on it, and if I wake up still wanting a larger screen, I might risk another go.
Online vids comparing K2 with H20 don't show any difference in page turn response etc, and I don't use or need many features - font size, dictionaries is about all. I never use the wifi, my Kindle has been in airplane mode since I registered it. I have very little in PDF, and I use the laptop for that anyway. (Though there's a nifty trick on a Mac for converting pdf to epub, and for text only things, novels, it usually retains the formatting. A few steps involved, but nothing complicated.)
Quite honestly, if I was sure Amazon wouldn't pull the plug on K 1.17 eventually, I'd be looking at the new Kindle Oasis which is about to appear. I'll be watching reviews of early adopters....

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Devil's advocate here, since I'm going to say the opposite of what I actually did myself:

I wouldn't recommend the original H2O in the specific case of someone coming from a PW2+.

Sure, the screen is larger and evenly lit, but the hardware was a generation behind Amazon at that point, so, the CPU is slower (okay, not a deal breaker), and more importantly, the eInk controller was also a generation behind, aaaaaaand, it shows. It'll never be as snappy as a PW2+, no matter what you do with it.

The ONLY advantage of my PW3 over my Kobo Aura H2O is that text selection works better. In ordinary light with the SAME size visually of font and same font (Georgia) the H2O is superior to read. There is no issue with page turn speed and the "white" background is brighter (light off on Kobo, minimum on Kindle).
I use the Kobo more as the Annotation export is better.

I doubt the HW is a "generation" behind, it might not have been the latest and certainly the screen on Kobo N905C I have is worse than ANY kindle* I've seen/used, but the Kobo Aura H2O is better than PW2, PW3, PW4 and Touch (2016?). Obviously the Kobo H20 original is late 2014 and the PW3 is 2015, but a earlier version of a chip or a year older isn't a "Generation".
(*I've used Kindle with buttons, keyboard, DXG, two different Touch models, PW2, PW3 and PW4. I've used an iRiver Story Cover, I have a Kindle Keyboard and last production PW3-2015 made in 2018. I have a Sony PRS350, used a Sony T1 and have Kobo N905C and Nook Simple Touch. The screen of the Aura H20 original is the best and I have no problem with response. Page set to refresh every turn. The N905C has the worst ghosting I've ever seen on eInk.)

[NiLuJe]

I'll refrain from throwing the kernel sources at you, or point out the other, less visible, things that are strangely wonky on Mk. 5 hardware, so, let's just agree to disagree then .

Most of those can be figured out by my rants in various threads or KOReader PRs over the years .

[Quoth]

Depends how a "generation" is defined. Anyway aside from what chips & SW is used the screen on my H20 original is visibly better. Everyone that has compared to the other mentioned models agrees.

[NiLuJe]

Well, Kobo helpfully uses the term "Mark" with an increasing number, so, that's easy enough on this side of the fence ;p.

It takes a little bit more effort on Kindle .

TL;DR:

Kobo Mk.5: i.MX508
Kindle Wario: i.MX6SL

Strangely enough, both companies tend to use a generation switch (i.e., mark/platform) to mark a significant SoC update... .

Do note that I've never negatively commented on how the H2O's screen *looks* (for good reason: it looks great when it's not actively doing anything). I'm concerned with how it *behaves*, which is completely different.

And that it's something I realize I may be (overly?) acutely aware of, more so than most. The same way any kind of jitter (or, conversely, badly implemented motion smoothing tech) in other screen techs drives me nuts.

[the.Mtn.Man]

Originally Posted by WillW

The brighter patches at the edges are there at around 30%, which is where we checked it in the shop. I used the blank page for the image because it showed the general unevenness better.
Them's the facts. I have to believe this isn't true of all Kobos. My only experience has been with two. They were both shite. A shame, I wanted to like them

That doesn't look bad to me. Maybe it looks worse in person?

[WillW]

Maybe. I know some people aren't bothered by it, but I'm long accustomed to an evenly lit screen, and without blobs at the edges. It's not as if it's an unavoidable side-effect of LED screen lighting. It isn't, or they'd all be like it.
A pity though, that H20 ed2 is otherwise a lovely thing, but poorly executed.
(I appreciate it apparently isn't true of all of them, and I'm still hopeful of third time lucky at a later date. It shouldn't be so hit & miss though, should it.)

[stumped]

Surely the k for pc 1.17 concern is not as bad as you imply. The DRM arms race is basically unwinnable. Workarounds will appear for anything that Amazon come up with, there is no way tomreally protect what is basically a chunk of text and yet still have it easily readable on lots of devices.
Look at what happened with cd, dvd, blu ray... All were broken... Look at computer games..Same thing..
So you will always be able to backup, Danny's format of, de DRM your purchases e books.
The fact that kobo and Amazon are competitors actually helps. They will not join forces and simul-launch some mega hardened DRM, so if one vendors books become tricky to backup, wise buyers will buy the same books from the other store.
If you look at digital music, all the main players have pretty much abandoned DRM, yet legit sales and legit streaming have seen off almost all the illicit download sites. I reckon books will go the same way, sooner or later.
That only leaves video, but it is way cheaper to pay the Netflix etc subscriptions than to buy the blank media you would need to stash away copies of all you can watch in a month.

[Katsunami]

To some extent, I can relate.

I've owned a Kobo Aura ONE since (almost) the day it was released in the Netherlands. I jumped on it because it was the first and only e-reader (at least at that time) that had an (almost) 8 inch screen, which I think is the perfect size in between too small (6 inch) and too large (9.7 / 10.1 inch).

The first 6 months it spent in the closet, because I got fed up with all the bugs and all the of the stuff that either didn't work right, or got fixed and broken multiple times (stats). It also had issues with _many_ third party sleep covers, so I finally bought the original cover.

Build quality of the KA1 is poor. The screen is glued into the device, but the left edge has a wider gap than the right edge; in the left edge, you can see the glue. It's a dust magnet. Dust and grit gets stuck in that gap. (To the right as well, but to a lesser degree). A year ago, I noticed a hairline crack just to the right of the USB-port. The reader has never been bumped, dropped, or hit, and it has been in a case since day one. Two weeks ago, suddenly a corner was just broken off from the original case (the reader itself was undamaged), and the corner on the other side was cracked; still, the reader has never been bumped, dropped, or hit.

I removed the cover and replaced it with a Gecko Deluxe cover. It's not slimfit, and it covers the bezels. I have a similar cover (of a different manufacturer) for my Kindle Paperwhite. Even so, the KPW-cover has an advantage: it has a flap over the opening where you slide the e-reader into the cover, and it sticks to the cover with velcro. (You wrap it around the reader, between the back of the reader and the back of the cover.) The Gecko doesn't have this, so the reader will, at some point, slip free of the cover if it should get looser or more play. I've resolved that by sticking two strips of super strong double sided tape behind the Kobo (behind the top and bottom bezel), slipping it into the case, and then pressing. Now it's impossible to get it out of the cover without first sliding a thin long knife behind the e-reader's back.

It doesn't need to come out of the cover though.

Because I *really* dislike the Kindle Oasis and Kobo Forma formfactor, and the KA1 works as it should now (and it even, finally, officially, got the option to remove the headers and footers), I can see me using this reader until the battery dies. Non-replaceable batteries in expensive products is a personal pet peeve of mine, and if possible, I avoid such products.

The one thing I still notice is how much _FASTER_ my KPW from 2012 is, compared to the KA1.

[WillW]

"Surely the k for pc 1.17 concern is not as bad as you imply..."

Maybe so. It isn't something I actively worry about. There's more than one way to skin a cat I know, but having an epub reader started to seem like a good idea after I somehow allowed Mac to upgrade the Kindle app, and discovered the game was up with Calibre. All put back to rights now though.
Now and again the Mac tells me i should upgrade kindle, but I ignore it.
However, where previously Kobo was just a word I'd heard, now I've seen that nice 6.8" screen with the fancy lighting, I'm fancying an upgrade.
We doesn't needs it, but we WANTS it...

[koboy]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

The ONLY advantage of my PW3 over my Kobo Aura H2O is that text selection works better. In ordinary light with the SAME size visually of font and same font (Georgia) the H2O is superior to read. There is no issue with page turn speed and the "white" background is brighter (light off on Kobo, minimum on Kindle).
I use the Kobo more as the Annotation export is better.

I doubt the HW is a "generation" behind, it might not have been the latest and certainly the screen on Kobo N905C I have is worse than ANY kindle* I've seen/used, but the Kobo Aura H2O is better than PW2, PW3, PW4 and Touch (2016?). Obviously the Kobo H20 original is late 2014 and the PW3 is 2015, but a earlier version of a chip or a year older isn't a "Generation".
(*I've used Kindle with buttons, keyboard, DXG, two different Touch models, PW2, PW3 and PW4. I've used an iRiver Story Cover, I have a Kindle Keyboard and last production PW3-2015 made in 2018. I have a Sony PRS350, used a Sony T1 and have Kobo N905C and Nook Simple Touch. The screen of the Aura H20 original is the best and I have no problem with response. Page set to refresh every turn. The N905C has the worst ghosting I've ever seen on eInk.)

the H2O edition 2 is slightly smaller than the original so it will weigh less and it also as the comfort light which seems to be a big draw/plus for some people (i'm not one of them) since Kobo have added the comfort light to the newer models the light bleed problem seems to happen more often on some devices.

i agree with you if you want the bigger 6.8 screen with a nice white background and clear dark crisp text the original H2O screen is second to none as far as Kobo ereaders are concerned.

best wishes koboy

[Pajamaman]

IME Kobo hardware isn't as good as Kindle. But Kobo software is open. Kindle hardware might be better, but what's the point if it's closed and limited? I'm using a PW2 at the moment (my 'other' decided to take my Onyx Poke for a test-drive, and never came back ) I'll probably get a Kobo again sometime. Basically because I have little choice. If Kindles can be jailbreaked again ever, and they have a comfort light, I might grab one and jbreak it quick and stick on Koreader.