Switching to Kobo from Kindle Oasis

[Dave_the_rave]

I am considering switch from Kindle Oasis > Kobo

I do not purchase books from Amazon store so most of them I get are ePubs already and I have to convert them to AZW/Mobi which ends up losing advance formatting and cover art etc which is quite annoying at this point. I dont know what are some the caveats of Kobo as I have never used any of them even once but I am quite curious.

I am very curious about few things on Kobo:
- How well it handles ePub format
- How is the Dropbox integration works? Does it also sync highlights and progress?
- Does it display book cover when synced from Dropbox?
- Hows overall experience of using it and which Kobo would be suitable for me being an ex Kindle Oasis user.

Lastly have you made a switch from Kindle > Kobo? What do you miss?

[Sirtel]

Dropbox is only available on the Forma and the Sage. Not on the Libra 2.
It doesn't sync any reading progress or notes. It only downloads the book, and yes, the cover is displayed.

As to the reading experience of epubs, personally I didn't like it out of the box. I had to patch my Kobo to get the epubs look the way I wanted. Of course YMMV, and the alternative is to use the KoboTouch Extended Driver in Calibre to turn your epubs into kepubs when sending them to your Kobo.

Some advantages of kepubs:
- they're faster, e.g. page turning
- you can zoom the images, which you can't do with epubs
- reading statistics in a book

The main advantage of epubs is better typography, but they're noticeably slower than kepubs.

I also came to the Kobo readers from the latest Oasis. Some comparisons between the Oasis and the latest Kobo devices:

- the Oasis is a bit faster than the Sage and noticeably zippier than the Libra 2
- it's a bit more stable (I've had my Kobos freeze or reboot a few times, never happened with the Oasis)
- the screens of the Sage and especially the Libra 2 are noticeably sharper and more contrasty than that of the Oasis. That (plus the customizability and Calibre integration) is the main reason I prefer them to the Oasis.
- there is a wealth of options to customize a Kobo reader and to install alternative reading apps like KOReader. You can do it even if you know zilch about coding and programming, there are detailed instructions even dummies like me can understand. A Kindle, unless jailbroken, has far fewer options to make the text look exactly the way you want.

The Sage has a newer processor than the Libra 2, so it's faster and of course its screen is larger. But it's also heavier and the battery life is not good.

The main attraction of the Libra 2 is its screen quality, which is excellent, better than the Oasis and the newest Paperwhites. Also the frontlight is more even than the Sage frontlight.

As to the Forma, I have never owned one, so can't say much about it. It has the same processor as the Libra 2, so it's slower than the Sage, and the screen contrast is not as good as the latest Kobos. OTOH it has a 8'' screen like the Sage, but weighs much less, and has better battery life.

[Dave_the_rave]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Dropbox is only available on the Forma and the Sage. Not on the Libra 2.
It doesn't sync any reading progress or notes. It only downloads the book, and yes, the cover is displayed.

As to the reading experience of epubs, personally I didn't like it out of the box. I had to patch my Kobo to get the epubs look the way I wanted. Of course YMMV, and the alternative is to use the KoboTouch Extended Driver in Calibre to turn your epubs into kepubs when sending them to your Kobo.

Some advantages of kepubs:
- they're faster, e.g. page turning
- you can zoom the images, which you can't do with epubs
- reading statistics in a book

The main advantage of epubs is better typography, but they're noticeably slower than kepubs.

I also came to the Kobo readers from the latest Oasis. Some comparisons between the Oasis and the latest Kobo devices:

- the Oasis is a bit faster than the Sage and noticeably zippier than the Libra 2
- it's a bit more stable (I've had my Kobos freeze or reboot a few times, never happened with the Oasis)
- the screens of the Sage and especially the Libra 2 are noticeably sharper and more contrasty than that of the Oasis. That (plus the customizability and Calibre integration) is the main reason I prefer them to the Oasis.
- there is a wealth of options to customize a Kobo reader and to install alternative reading apps like KOReader. You can do it even if you know zilch about coding and programming, there are detailed instructions even dummies like me can understand. A Kindle, unless jailbroken, has far fewer options to make the text look exactly the way you want.

The Sage has a newer processor than the Libra 2, so it's faster and of course its screen is larger. But it's also heavier and the battery life is not good.

The main attraction of the Libra 2 is its screen quality, which is excellent, better than the Oasis and the newest Paperwhites. Also the frontlight is more even than the Sage frontlight.

As to the Forma, I have never owned one, so can't say much about it. It has the same processor as the Libra 2, so it's slower than the Sage, and the screen contrast is not as good as the latest Kobos. OTOH it has a 8'' screen like the Sage, but weighs much less, and has better battery life.

Thanks for reply.

Seems like a tough comparison.

I would like to know how do you now transfer epubs from computer to Kobo. Do you prefer to convert them to kepubs and then send them using dropbox? Plus I am kind of missing the point here for using dropbox if its not syncing anything such as highlights then its just as good as sending ebooks using Send To Kindle app or am I missing something? Also I can see the weight being a concern as Oasis being the lighter than Libra2.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Dave_the_rave

Thanks for reply.

Seems like a tough comparison.

I would like to know how do you now transfer epubs from computer to Kobo. Do you prefer to convert them to kepubs and then send them using dropbox? Plus I am kind of missing the point here for using dropbox if its not syncing anything such as highlights then its just as good as sending ebooks using Send To Kindle app or am I missing something? Also I can see the weight being a concern as Oasis being the lighter than Libra2.

I mostly use Calibre to send my books to my Kobos (this requires a USB connection). On the Sage I use kepubs, on the Libra 2 I prefer epubs (they just look better there). Of course you can use the USB transfer without Calibre.

The advantage of using Dropbox is to get the books not purchased directly from Kobo to your Kobo device wirelessly. In this it's like the Send-to-Kindle, yes, but unlike the latter you cannot sync the reading progress of your sideloaded books between different devices. Only Kindles and AFAIK Pocketbooks can do that.

Note that you cannot send kepubs via Dropbox unless you change the file extension from .kepub to .kepub.epub.

As to the weight, I don't find the Libra 2 more difficult to hold than the Oasis. Even easier, because the metal back of the Oasis is pretty slippery and not particularly ergonomic. The Libra is much grippier.

The Sage is considerably heavier, but still not too heavy to hold in one hand IMO.

[LDB]

I can't help you a lot but I've been a Kindle reader for well over 10 years. I've had a Kobo Aura One for about 3 years. I like reading on the Kobo more than the Kindle. I find the screen clearer and sharper. Not a huge amount but enough to notice. It seems the fonts can be adjusted more than on the Kindle. I just read books I get through a few daily emails, straight from the Amazon and Kobo sites. I don't sideload or edit or whatever. But just for overall pleasure reading I prefer the Kobo. Good luck with your research and decision.

[Ron100]

Lastly have you made a switch from Kindle > Kobo? What do you miss?

Nothing, honestly.

To be open, I've recently gone from a Voyage to a Libra 2.

I had an awful experience with a Clara after my Paperwhite 2 died, hated it to be honest. It felt cheap and nasty in hand to me.

The good folks here convinced me to give Kobo another shot and I'm so grateful they did. So when the aging eyes told me 6" wasn't cutting it I gambled on Kobo.

The Libra 2 is simply outstanding, Amazon have a huge, huge amount of work to do in order to compete with this device IMHO.

The screen is excellent, on a par with my Voyage. The warm lighting puts it one up.

Buttons are well placed, not noisy, not soft, just right.

I couldn't care less about formats being a calibre user but it handles epubs just fine for me. I don't fiddle with formatting, I have neither the knowledge nor the patience but so far I've had no issues.

The reading experience (as it should be on any ereader) is outstanding, I pick a book, it opens and we're off. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that for me.

Getting a new device also gave me the kick I needed to finally organise my library properly, and following the Wiki kobo guide was no problem.
Coming from Kindle I can assure you the way Kobo handles collections & series is literally night and day compared to a kindle.

My biggest concern, especially after the Clara was build quality and I'm happy to say the Libra 2's is excellent. On a par with any of my previous Kindles, and say what you wish about Amazon but I always thought they turned out a well made product.
I thought it was slightly slippery, although I haven't seen anyone else complain about it but a Kwmobile case which are cheap and cheerful has solved that for me.

I have one, one little snag. I would like the header to display the time in 24hr. Being a Kobo device, I have absolutely no doubt there is a way of doing this.

[hobnail]

Originally Posted by Dave_the_rave

Lastly have you made a switch from Kindle > Kobo? What do you miss?

Same as Ron100, absolutely nothing. I also have an Oasis which collects dust now. I'm a bit of a nutjob for wanting a ragged right margin, so that the ereader doesn't have wonky spacing between the words (giving me wonky space at the end of the lines, which doesn't bother me). The kobo makes ragged right easy. I also love the various ways the kobo can present your library, with the series grouped together in a folder, likewise the authors, and collections.

I get almost all of my books from Amazon and use calibre to convert them to epub and then send them to the kobo. I use the DeDRM plugin to strip the DRM so then I can convert them.

[Dave_the_rave]

@hobnail @LDB @Sirtel

Thanks to all of you for opinions I can now understand why I should prefer Kobo. Now the only concern for me is to finding a way to get it to my country being in a non US/CA/EU part of the world.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by Dave_the_rave

Thanks to all of you for opinions I can now understand why I should prefer Kobo. Now the only concern for me is to finding a way to get it to my country being in a non US/CA/EU part of the world.

Where are you? I'm not in US/CA/EU, and I buy my Kobos from a bricks n mortar local store.