Glo Things to cover in Kobo Glo review?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by berklon

If it handles formatting properly when converted by Calibre, as mentioned in this thread:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...35#post2194435

You didn't sort that out? As I stated in that thread, I think it is formatting in the books you are using. I have books with indenting and they have all been OK, unless I changed the indenting to much. As you were asked for in the thread, an example book we could examine would be good.

[9littlebees]

Originally Posted by EldRick

Please evaluate:
- side-loaded epub and PDF documents - full-function for fonts, ability to sync, restrictions on search or dictionary lookup, etc.
- add-in font handling. Apparently non-standard fonts don't get the Type Wizard functions, but do non-standard fonts at least get the ability to set margins, line-spacing, and fine-increments of size?

Added to the list on the original post.

Originally Posted by rashkae

How many basic fuctions are crippled when loading in an Epub rather than Kobo's proprietary kepub format. The KT, for example, couldn't even set bookmarks for almost a year after release.

Does the Kobo still need to be tethered to a PC to get it activated and working?

Does the Kobo now work out of the box, or does it still require a song and dance to create and log in a Kobo account before it does anything?

Your last two questions are now top of my list. I already have a Kobo account (created one after pre-ordering the Glo), so I need to ensure I remember to try working it without logging in first. Still, I wouldn't personally see this as a bad thing, especially given the openness of the Kobo platform.

[9littlebees]

Originally Posted by berklon

If it handles formatting properly when converted by Calibre, as mentioned in this thread:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...35#post2194435

Added to the list. Would it be enough for me to create an ePub with two indented paragraphs in Calibre from an RTF and side-load it? If not, can you provide me with a copyright-free book that I can test this with, as I have never used Calibre before and it may take me a long time to create something that matches the problems you're describing?

EDIT: Actually, I have an epub of "The Savage Stories of Conan" that Jellby compiled here on MobileRead and that has whole paragraph indenting for a quote at the beginning of the first story, so I could test it on this, perhaps. It appears to be correctly formatted on Calibre's eReader, and on the Kobo app for my Android phone (see below)... But this isn't a Kobo eReader, so I'll test it, if you aren't able to provide me with a sample text.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 9littlebees

Added to the list. Would it be enough for me to create an ePub with two indented paragraphs in Calibre from an RTF and side-load it? If not, can you provide me with a copyright-free book that I can test this with, as I have never used Calibre before and it may take me a long time to create something that matches the problems you're describing?

EDIT: Actually, I have an epub of "The Savage Stories of Conan" that Jellby compiled here on MobileReads and that has whole paragraph indenting for a quote at the beginning of the first story, so I could test it on this, perhaps. It appears to be correctly formatted on Calibre's eReader, and on the Kobo app for my Android phone (see below)... But this isn't a Kobo eReader, so I'll test it, if you aren't able to provide me with a sample text.

You pointed to the mobi version. I tried the epub version. That displayed perfectly with my Touch. Every time I have tried something like this it has worked as expected. That is why I asked berklon for an example both here and in his original thread. I am quite sure it is a problem in the books he is reading.

Having said that, that isn't a bad example to use. It uses several fonts and different formatting. Plus it is easy for everyone to get and try.

[Mrs_Often]

Oh very nice, thank you for doing a Glo review!

Could you check to see if the book covers of epubs (not kepubs) are properly full screen right away without editing the stylesheet and without copying them over to the Glo three or four times from Calibre? (Those are workarounds for current problems with constant side 'margins' of book covers, even when the aspect ratio of the image is correct.)

EDIT: I mean the book cover that is shown when the Glo is in sleep or off mode. (It shows the cover of the last book you were reading [well, it should anyway, we currently have a bug that shows the book cover of the book before last, but anyway. As long as its epub I'll be interested in how the cover displays.])

[9littlebees]

Originally Posted by davidfor

You pointed to the mobi version. I tried the epub version. That displayed perfectly with my Touch. Every time I have tried something like this it has worked as expected. That is why I asked berklon for an example both here and in his original thread. I am quite sure it is a problem in the books he is reading.

Having said that, that isn't a bad example to use. It uses several fonts and different formatting. Plus it is easy for everyone to get and try.

Apologies, the epub version is definitely what I have on my phone. I'll fix the link. Thanks for the spot!

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Oh very nice, thank you for doing a Glo review!

Could you check to see if the book covers of epubs (not kepubs) are properly full screen right away without editing the stylesheet and without copying them over to the Glo three or four times from Calibre? (Those are workarounds for current problems with constant side 'margins' of book covers, even when the aspect ratio of the image is correct.)

EDIT: I mean the book cover that is shown when the Glo is in sleep or off mode. (It shows the cover of the last book you were reading [well, it should anyway, we currently have a bug that shows the book cover of the book before last, but anyway. As long as its epub I'll be interested in how the cover displays.])

I'll add both of these comments to the list.

[fel]

Please could you add following review issues:

- which web browser is installed? Can another browser be installed and used?

- vertical scrolling in long web pages, i.e. mobile optimized sites of newspapers. We do not have hardware buttons in Glo! and scrolling down by touch doesn't work prorely - low refresh rate of eInk! I'm happy to have hardware buttons in the built-in browser on Sony T1, one push = one page. The quesion is how does Glo scroll in web? Soft buttons in browser, double touch or some other gestures, shaking?

- zooming/increasing of font sizes in web browser? Soft buttons, menu?

- how comfortable is reading of wide web pages, for example this forum. Can a topic be re-rendered to see only messages, without authors on right side? I mean scroll to left show authors, of course. On Android it's very easy, on iOS- is a pain.

The same questions to Kindle Paperwhite, which has no buttons too...

[9littlebees]

Originally Posted by fel

Please could you add following review issues:

- which web browser is installed? Can another browser be installed and used?

- vertical scrolling in long web pages, i.e. mobile optimized sites of newspapers. We do not have hardware buttons in Glo! and scrolling down by touch doesn't work prorely - low refresh rate of eInk! I'm happy to have hardware buttons in the built-in browser on Sony T1, one push = one page. The quesion is how does Glo scroll in web? Soft buttons in browser, double touch or some other gestures, shaking?

- zooming/increasing of font sizes in web browser? Soft buttons, menu?

- how comfortable is reading of wide web pages, for example this forum. Can a topic be re-rendered to see only messages, without authors on right side? I mean scroll to left show authors, of course. On Android it's very easy, on iOS- is a pain.

The same questions to Kindle Paperwhite, which has no buttons too...

I'll add these 4 questions to my list, but I have to say I bought this product to read epubs, not to browse the web, so its functionality in this area is unlikely to have a major bearing on my overall thoughts. It takes long enough to web browse on my Android, I can't imagine it's any easier on an eReader.

Still, it's an included feature, so I shall be happy to report on it. Same goes for the Facebook integration. I have no desire to use this, but I'll review it all the same.

[9littlebees]

Right, I've put together a rather large outline that I will be following for the review. Would people like to see it here? I've essentially laid out the review in the following sections:

• Introduction
• Unboxing & First Steps
• Loading Content & User Interface
• Readability & Functionality
• Kobo Customer Service
• Bug List, Conclusion & Rating

with all the topics and questions inserted amongst these.

I will be providing a rating for this device, which will involve a score out of 10 for a number of sections, to be weighted as follows:

• Robustness, durability, comfort of physical device (20%)
• Preparing for use and loading content (7.5%)
• User interface (15%)
• Readability (25%)
• Functionality (25%)
• Kobo Customer Service (7.5%)

If I do post this outline, I'll edit it into the original post, which should make it easier for people to see if topics they are interested in are already covered.

On the flip side, I'm tempted to not post it, so the big reveal of my review isn't ruined with spoilers.

Thoughts?

[davidfor]

Kobo has stated that the Touch, the Mini and the Glo will share firmware. So, we can already answer most of these.

Originally Posted by fel

Please could you add following review issues:

- which web browser is installed? Can another browser be installed and used?

whatsmyuseragent.com reports

Mozilla/5.0(Linux; U; Android2.0; en-us;) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1 (Kobo Touch)

I interpret that as "Safari", but I haven't been reading user agents for a while.

It can't be replaced.

- vertical scrolling in long web pages, i.e. mobile optimized sites of newspapers. We do not have hardware buttons in Glo! and scrolling down by touch doesn't work prorely - low refresh rate of eInk! I'm happy to have hardware buttons in the built-in browser on Sony T1, one push = one page. The quesion is how does Glo scroll in web? Soft buttons in browser, double touch or some other gestures, shaking?

Drag you finger over the page to scroll it. As you said, the refresh rate of e-ink is bad, so it doesn't look good as it scrolls, but it does work.

- zooming/increasing of font sizes in web browser? Soft buttons, menu?

- how comfortable is reading of wide web pages, for example this forum. Can a topic be re-rendered to see only messages, without authors on right side? I mean scroll to left show authors, of course. On Android it's very easy, on iOS- is a pain.

Surprising good actually. I could drag the view-port around to see all sections of the page. I put the authors off the left edge and just dragged the main section up and down

The browser works fairly well. The limitations are the screen and the low end CPU. I'm not going to use it for my daily browser, but I have used it in the past to download a few books. The experience on the Glo should be better as it has a faster CPU and higher resolution screen.

Now that I have finished hijacking the thread, my apologies to 9littlebees, I'll return you to the regular programming...

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 9littlebees

Apologies, the epub version is definitely what I have on my phone. I'll fix the link. Thanks for the spot!

After I posted earlier, I realised that trying the mobi version is a good idea. The Kobo devices support mobi books without DRM. I loaded both on my Touch today. The mobi works fairly well, but isn't as good as the epub.

[9littlebees]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Now that I have finished hijacking the thread, my apologies to 9littlebees, I'll return you to the regular programming...

No worries!

Originally Posted by davidfor

After I posted earlier, I realised that trying the mobi version is a good idea. The Kobo devices support mobi books without DRM. I loaded both on my Touch today. The mobi works fairly well, but isn't as good as the epub.

Actually, mobi is not listed in the list of supported formats for the Glo, on the kobo website...

EPUB, PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RFT, CBZ, CBR.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by 9littlebees

Actually, mobi is not listed in the list of supported formats for the Glo, on the kobo website...

EPUB, PDF, JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RFT, CBZ, CBR.

Whoops, I didn't check. I made an assumption based on shared firmware. But, I can't find the list anywhere in the specs. I'm sure it is staring me in the face, but I just can't see it.

Edit: I just found that list at the end of the specs for the Mini.

[soulfuldog]

Great stuff, looking forward to reading your review now! Hurry up October

[jeffdonnelly]

With regard to Kobo Glo and Calibre....

It'd be really useful to find out if Calibre can handle Collection Management or whatever is the equivalent of Collections on the Kobo readers....

....not to mention that it'd be good to know for the Kobo Glo how things work with "collections" when the books are on the memory card (heard of major issues on this w/ Nook and organization of books on memory card being lost upon restarting the device).

I know that there's quite a few folks who have a large collection of ebooks in a Calibre database, use Calibre to manage the organization of books on their device, and really don't want to jailbreak the device to enable the organizational abilities of Calibre with that device.

Since it's my understanding that Calibre won't natively interact w/ Kindles with regard to Collections since the intro of the Kindle Touch without jail breaking, the ability of the Kobo Glo to easily be organized via Calibre is really of interest to me.

I have spoken w/ Amazon Kindle Support regarding the Paperwhite and Calibre essentially being locked out of organizational capabilities....their response was to tell me how much they care about the user experience, but....blah, blah, blah....they know nothing about it and will will pass the request upstairs...been about a week and nothing else heard about it.

Also contacted Kobo in regard to same issue regarding the Glo....and did tell them that this was a pre-sales question, and the this particular functionality will have a big impact on the purchase decision....they were nice, but didn't have any info yet on the new Glo, as it had just come out....

We'll see, i guess.

Any info welcome, thanks.

JEff