Best 8+ inch device in terms of clarity and contrast

[Cosmos]

I love the Sage so far. The one I ordered was a used one from Amazon warehouse, a "like new" unit. I figured it's better to order this if I am not sure about the device as it's already been used in case I want to return it. The unit itself has a really annoying dead pixel which is why it was returned I suspect in the first place. I'll have to return it and get a replacement.

The Sage feels premium. The screen is large at 8" and I can somehow notice the extra 0.2 inches of real estate compared to a 7.8" despite it being only about 5% larger in terms of square area. The contrast and clarity are excellent. You get a sense that the screen/text is right there in front of of you. Sharp and crisp. I cannot see a layer in between. Although the background paper is slightly whiter on my old PW4, the PW4 is really no match to the Sage in terms of clarity and even blackness of the text. The Sage is definitely superior. But it just makes me wonder how Amazon is able to create that white paper effect. Interestingly, the name "paperwhite" must have been used for a reason. Someone linked this video https://youtu.be/jm-YBQMj8Jw and although it's outdated, it does confirm that PWs have really good background paper whiteness. But yes the Sage is superior in clarity and even in contrast to my PW4 (as the blackness of the text more than makes up for the slight decrease in background whiteness)

I am not even going to test the Scribe given its bigger size and heavier weight. Going to stick with the Sage.

One thing about the battery. It drained from 70% to 1% over 2 days of light use (2-3 hours a day).

Interestingly, once it got to 1% I did put it on autoturn and left it with the frontlight on. It's been nearly an hour now of it turning pages every 10 seconds on 1% with the light at 30% (on koreader).

This does fit with the sentiment I got from this forum that battery isn't really that bad.

Perhaps it's just poor battery software calibration/poor battery hardware by Kobo that puts off many users initially. I know batteries need their cycles to calibrate and there is a software component. However, one hour with the light on (and counting) tells me there are fundamental issues with the battery level reporting (whether on a software front or hardware front). I've never had a new device that lasts an hour on 1% with the frontlight on and page turning every 10 seconds handling a heavy academic PDF. Hopefully the battery reporting will get better and recalibrate in a few cycles but the scale of the inaccuracy in battery reporting is bizarre to say the least and it may be why this device has managed to amass the poor battery reputation rather quickly.

Performance wise, the it is snappy. You won't appreciate how snappy it is until you try it. Feels more like a tablet to me. And handles a very large academic PDF with pictures and drawings on Koreader better than my laptop. Page turning and rendering is instantaneous compared to other readers. It is rather ironic as one of the things that put me off buying it when i had a look at user reviews was someone reporting how slow it was... it turned out to be quite the opposite.

Koreader is a must for academic textbooks. With the text reflow option and also the column reading option, I feel like there is no need for a larger device.

Overall, very happy. Thank you for the suggestion. I'll report on koreader battery life in a few days time. But battery doesn't seem too bad at all so far.

[Cosmos]

Double post

[Aleron Ives]

Yes, the battery meter is at times close to useless. It'll say 25% one minute and then be at 0% the next minute. If you plug it in, it'll magically charge from 0% to 40% instantaneously.

Just run it until it shuts off, and then charge it until it says it's fully charged and ignore the battery meter for now and see how many days you get on a full charge. I got 18 days on my Libra 2 last time, so now I'll try to be more gentle with the battery for the next few charges, and if the meter goes completely wonky again, I'll do another full charge/discharge.

[PlatinumWarlock]

I appreciate your report, @Cosmos. I sent back the Sage I couldn't get to work and got another, just to see if it was the reader (and not my Mac) before I went deeper into tech support. I agree, it feels premium, and I love both the size and the screen quality. I haven't done enough ereader comparison over the years to be able to comment on how it does vs. other options, except for my PW5 - and I like the Sage MUCH more. The extra inch really makes a difference without feeling at all *too* big. It's in the middle of its initial charge-up, which is frankly taking a little longer than I would have expected, but that's okay. I'll be interested to see if my battery experience aligns with yours.

[Cosmos]

Just an update about battery and Koreader: With the frontlight off, page autoturn every 20 seconds, auto column reading option (will require more processing) and an academic PDF full of pictures (Koreader will fully refresh the screen on almost every page turn given that this is what it is set to do when a page has pictures). It has managed 12 hours so far with 43% battery left.

I'll update the post once it's out of juice but I suspect it'll at least do 20 hours of reading time. This more than meets my needs.

The key is to turn autostandby on in koreader. (It's off by default as it can cause significant problems on other kobo devices). I set mine to 3 seconds. Standby has no effect on the screen or responsiveness of the page turn buttons on Sage. You don't actually know it went into standby. I imagine standby basically shuts off most of the CPU cores and immediately goes up to full cores once you press a button or trigger rotation for example (this is how I suspect it behaves and it isn't based on any sources). The power consumption without enabling this option is 1.5 to 2 times as much on the Sage based on my testing.

[Cosmos]

Just a final update about my experience in case someone stumbles upon this post. I think the Sage is really the best device in this segment (8 inch) by far. Display quality is exceptional and this is what is lacking when you look at mainstream reviews on YouTube, even those done by supposedly expert reviewers. No one comments on the screen quality (aside from mentioning tech specs or PPI). It's very speedy and is great for handling large pdfs. You can navigate with ease and transitions are instant in between viewing modes, going to pages or skimming.

The device just hit 0% (from previous testing it remains there for 1-2 hours usually). The total so far has been 22 hours. Conditions frontlight off. Auto turn page every 20 seconds (full screen refresh given pdf is full of pictures). WiFi and Bluetooth off. Autostandby set to 3 secs on Koreader. It'll likely hit 24 hours as it does usually spend a couple of hours at zero percent.

Although I haven't tested writing myself, but according to My Deep Guide, it is 2.5 hours of CONSTANT writing. Whether you find that adequate depends on your use case. But for an ereader, I can definitely recommend this.

[kandwo]

Really useful posts, Cosmos!

I'm going back and forth on whether to buy the Sage. I'd really love a good 8" reader. I already have a Nova 3, which is more or less perfect in every way except one: the contrast is too low. I can't read on it in suboptimal conditions like late at night when my eyes are slightly tired. Using the frontlight makes the text look washed out.

The only thing stopping me so far is the price. I just can't justify paying 300 euro for a limited device (no Android) when I already have the Libra 2.

Well, it's either the Sage, the Scribe or waiting for Onyx Boox to finally release a 300 PPI BW reader.

[andrzejmakal]

Thx for the raport @Cosmos.

My experience regarding Sage and Libra is quite opposite.
I use to have aura h2o which was excellent, then pw3, then decided to for kobo again with Libra 2 - returned - I preferred pw5 in direct comparison.
Then I wanted 8” - to read comfortably at bed, pw5 remaining as a portable device.
Yesterday I’ve got Sage, and yesterday I decided to return it.
To my eyes contrast is no way better than my pw5, giro does work or does not…, changing font takes ages vs kindle. Night mode - really nothing special. Overall it’s sluggish, plastic…
I find kindle devices more solid, software wise - kindle is way better, it just works, like iOS.
I’m still looking for some bigger screen. Android units - not for me. Looking for new 8” model from Kindle, or just go for Scribe. Why not…

It’s just me, have fun with your kobo, I have some very pleasant memories with h2o

Sorry for my English
Cheers.

[Sirtel]

I don't find the Sage sluggish, and I've had several Kindles, the latest was the Oasis 3. Which I sold, after I got the Sage and the Libra 2. The display was not as sharp and I don't like the Kindle software. Too few options.

The Libra 2 is sluggish, yes, when compared to recent Kindles. But I don't find the Sage so. Still, I prefer even my sluggish Libra 2 to current Kindles. Obviously YMMV. If you're not fussy about customization, don't use Calibre and don't like to tinker, Kindles may be better for you.

[Aleron Ives]

The Libra 2 is definitely slow when navigating menus, but since I spend 1% of my time doing that and 99% of my time reading, the snappy reading experience is more than good enough for me.

[kandwo]

I find the performance of the Libra 2 acceptable ever since switching to kepubs. Or whenever using Koreader for anything that's not a "Complete works of author X", which takes 5 hours to load. I wouldn't want to use the default UI for epubs.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by kandwo

I find the performance of the Libra 2 acceptable ever since switching to kepubs. Or whenever using Koreader for anything that's not a "Complete works of author X", which takes 5 hours to load. I wouldn't want to use the default UI for epubs.

Oh, it's acceptable, just noticeably slower than modern Kindles or even the Sage. I don't use KOReader (have tried it, but it doesn't do much more for me than the native UI, as I edit the css and formatting of all my books anyway. And it's very slow to load large omnibuses, as you said).

[Aleron Ives]

Yeah, I also use KEPUB for everything, since it improves the performance. The slow performance and lack of rapid page turning in EPUB was too annoying.

[Quoth]

I don't find epub a problem on any Kobo for page turning and I have refresh on every page.

I did use kepub for a while, but it's a Kobo only format. The only advantage I could see was ability to zoom an image, which in theory could be on epub, but that's not important to me anyway.

I do have KOreader on my Mars for epub and did have it on Kobo for a short while till the PDF per document crop was added. I much prefer the native Library GUI (My Books & Search) to KoReader.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

Yeah, I also use KEPUB for everything, since it improves the performance. The slow performance and lack of rapid page turning in EPUB was too annoying.

The last complaints I saw about the slow performance for ePubs was several firmware revisions back.