Touch I'm thinking of buying a Kobo

[AlexBell]

I'm thinking of buying a Kobo Touch, mainly for testing ebooks I design for the MobileRead library and for the small presses in my signature line. I produce the ebooks in ePub format, and (eventually) they work well on my Sony PRS T2 and (with some effort) on an iPad2. Apart from my wife's reluctance to let me add another reader to my stable I have three or four questions:

- Does anyone have experience with the Sony line and the Kobo line? How do they compare?

- I've been told by a reliable source that navigation links for chapters etc don't work on a Kobo if the ebook has been produced by other than Kobo. Is this so? Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how do people who design ebooks get around the problem?

- I've been told by a friend that the Kobo software does not work with Windows 8. Has anyone else had this problem?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

- I've been told by a reliable source that navigation links for chapters etc don't work on a Kobo if the ebook has been produced by other than Kobo. Is this so? Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how do people who design ebooks get around the problem?

Your source isn't that reliable The only issue I have had with navigation links is that I use a small font and have big fingers. Pressing smaller links can be a problem. But they work in any sideloaded book I have tried.

I can't answer the others as I've only touched Sony devices in the shops an am still using Win7.

[AlexBell]

Thanks, David. That's useful information. But I can remember asking Kobo support, and getting a response to the effect that they don't offer help with this problem to third parties.

Maybe there was a problem but it's been fixed. How long have you had your Kobo?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

Thanks, David. That's useful information. But I can remember asking Kobo support, and getting a response to the effect that they don't offer help with this problem to third parties.

Maybe there was a problem but it's been fixed. How long have you had your Kobo?

The Touch for 12.5 months, the Glo for three weeks. As far as I remember, it has always worked. TOC pages have always been OK. Superscripts for footnotes are the problem because they can be so small.

[John F]

Originally Posted by AlexBell

...

- I've been told by a reliable source that navigation links for chapters etc don't work on a Kobo if the ebook has been produced by other than Kobo. Is this so? Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how do people who design ebooks get around the problem?

...

IMO, navigation links "work", they just aren't practical to use. To use a link reliably, I need to set the font size to maximum, and even then, I may have to try several times before the link works (this is for end notes). For chapter links, I would say it takes three taps to activate (the first time, some times doesn't work, so it page forwards, so I have to tap to go back a page, and then tap on the link again and hope it works).

[ewphoenix123]

- I've been told by a reliable source that navigation links for chapters etc don't work on a Kobo if the ebook has been produced by other than Kobo. Is this so? Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how do people who design ebooks get around the problem?

They work fine as far as I can tell.

- Does anyone have experience with the Sony line and the Kobo line? How do they compare?

I have had every sony model since the 600 I think, including failed experiment like the first frontlit reader sony prs 700, upto the T1. I wasn't willing to spent money on upgrading to a T2 which wasn't a real new reader generation in my opinion, so I stumbled over the GLO and I'm happy with it.

Good:

# The touchscreen is not as "overresponsive" on the Kobo model as on the T1, and I think it is intentional.
On a T1 you get page turns when a fly sit on the reader, doesn't happen with the GLO.
But if you tap the screen like you would interact with a normal button, it works perfectly, at least for me. There are regular reports of missed page turns, or problems marking text, which I never experience.

# The quality of text and fonts is much better on the Kobo, you could get similiar good font drawing when you sideloaded Coolreader on a T1 and activated all it's fancy font improving options, which slowed down the device.
he Kobos have those built in, and alot of additional font customization options for the built in fonts. You don't have the other customization option coolreader offers. (paragraph apperances etc)

# Page turns are fast and fluid on the GLO, maybe a bit faster then the T2 with it's refresh every 6 pages.

Bad:

# You have to go through an annoying online upgrade and register process with your Kobo before you can read with it. (Or modify the sqldb on the device)

# Sony offers pdf text reflow, kobo doesn't

# Kobo constantly shows the page numbers at the bottom of the screen, and there is no option to turn it off. rather annoying.

# Kobo has a "bug" in its reader version that may leave large parts of a page empty when you don't set orphans and widows in the epub.

# Kobo offers the option to modify line-spacing on the fly, which is in it self a great feature, but by default the smallest setting is ~1.3 which is IMO much to big as a starting point.

# Kobos standard settings for Word Division is pretty bad, and hardly kicks in, but there is a plugin that fixes it.

# The dictionaries on the Sony are better, but you can create and sideload your own on the Kobo.

Same:

# Both support shelf management.

# Kobo added a proper Display of series information with the last update.

You may not see it by the list of flaws but IMO the Kobo GLO is hands down the better device.

The hardware is much better, the software is where it gets tricky.
When you compare both devices with it's standard software sony wins, when it comes to usability. You can put pretty much every book in the reader and it looks good enough to read, the only downside is that the fonts are not drawn as "good" and the contrast is a bit worse.

The standard text formatting on the Sony is better IMO, the line spacing is tighter which I prefer, and makes better use of the screen estate.

But to be honest if you only want a device that is to be used as is, get a kindle. Sony's were always for those that like to experiment, and Kobo fall in the same category for me.

To get the best out of both devices you want to tinker a bit.
For the Sony that means adding another android reading app, which improves the font quality, and makes it possible to completely configure the formatting on device, at the cost of some speed and stability. Also while the textformating on device is a neat feature, only used it once to set my preferred formatting standard and never changed it afterwards.

For the Kobo it means installing a hack that fixes the Word divsion, adding a new dictionary or two.
And by using a custom made convert setting in calibre to set a line-spacing of choice, and widows/orphans to 0 to fix the "half-empty page bug", you can get a well formatted reading experience as well. Pretty much the same as the on device configuration you get with cool-reader on the Sony, just that you do it in calibre.
The only real annoyance left to me on the Kobo are the pagenumbers on the bottom of the screen I can't get rid of.

[AlexBell]

Thanks for everyone's help. You've given me a lot to think about.

But since my only reason for getting yet another reader is to make sure the ebooks I design work on it maybe I'll think again. I have a friend who has a Kobo, and he has offered to check my ebooks on his Kobo.