Paperwhite vs Glow Kobo - specs please

[sombreastre]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

If you really really really want this function, you could use Calibre's plugin (I forget its name) that bundles multiple books into one ebook. That way you could have all the books of the series in one ebook, and a single search from within that huge book would give you all the character info you want...

That's exactly the workaround I was looking for, thanks! I'll have a try with the plugin.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by sombreastre

That's exactly the workaround I was looking for, thanks! I'll have a try with the plugin.

Glad I could help.

[jsj]

Originally Posted by taming

You cannot read kepub or epub in landscape on the Touch. I have not seen anything in the adverts that suggests that you can use landscape to read those formats on the Glo.

I assume by "Touch" you mean Kobo Touch? As on the Kindle Touch, you can read in landscape (but obviously not epub format).

Formats don't matter as I can use Calibre to convert. No Landscape mode would be a deal-breaker for me though. I know I'm in the minority reading in Landscape, but so it goes.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by murg

Actually, it's currently Spring!

Isn't it pretty much summer all year round where you are anyway (compared to what we get in the northern half of the UK I'm pretty sure it is anyway !)

Originally Posted by scrapking

Isn't it actually still summer in the northern hemisphere for another day or two, and winter in the south?

I had to scrape some ice off my car windscreen this morning, summer is definitely over.

Originally Posted by jsj

I assume by "Touch" you mean Kobo Touch? As on the Kindle Touch, you can read in landscape (but obviously not epub format).

Formats don't matter as I can use Calibre to convert. No Landscape mode would be a deal-breaker for me though. I know I'm in the minority reading in Landscape, but so it goes.

Is the landscape mode really only for reading PDF's then if you can't use them for epub?

[jsj]

Originally Posted by l_macd

Is the landscape mode really only for reading PDF's then if you can't use them for epub?

I'm not sure if you're talking about the Kindle or Kobo here, but on the Kindle, as I'm sure you know, you can't read epub files. I generally use Calibre to convert to mobi files, and then I read them in landscape because that's how I like it.

As far as the kobo is concerned, I suppose until someone has one in their hands, we won't know if the Glo can display epub, or any other, files in landscape.

[Liesse]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

So unless you're planning to read olde English books or something from a very vocabularily intelligent author, I think you should be okay.

Thanks Mrs Often.

I really do think the dictionary lookup is a great feature of an ebook reader. I often come across new words while I'm reading (I learned "exsanguination" in the last paranormal romance I read on my Kindle) and being able to quickly look things up is an advantage over reading paper.

Another, perhaps slightly shallow, reason not yet mentioned for wanting a UK reader is because I think it shows care and thought being put into a product. If I am buying something containing a dictionary in the UK, that is launched as a product in the UK for a UK market, I hope it would have a UK English dictionary. Just as I'd hope the thing would have a US English one if I were an American buying it there. For instance, UK recipes shouldn't be in cups, shoe sizes should be less than 15 (mostly?) and we should be able to put things in metric if we want to (unless it's things we want to stick with imperial for, even when we're happily using metric for something else in the same sentence). I could sell a cookbook using cups no problem and it'd still be usable, but I'd want to make sure it used the UK norm measurement before launching it here. It isn't a huge thing, but it is certainly a nice small one. I suppose other dictionaries would have a cost impact for licensing, which would put up the cost of the product too.

I think my KKeyboard lets me change dictionaries to one I specify . I remember selecting the UK one it came with as an 'extra' as default and deleting the other.

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by jsj

I'm not sure if you're talking about the Kindle or Kobo here, but on the Kindle, as I'm sure you know, you can't read epub files. I generally use Calibre to convert to mobi files, and then I read them in landscape because that's how I like it.

Ignore me, I didn't read your post properly, missed you mentioning the Kindle! Yes I was meaning the Kobo Touch. If, as taming posted, you can't use the landscape orientation for reading your epub books, is it just for PDF files? Is that really correct, seems a bit daft?

[ShellShock]

I read quite a bit of historical fiction by British authors, and the British English dictionary of my Sony PRS 650 does a very good job with unusual words, like bibi, maidan, tulwar etc. Are words like this in the Kobo English dictionary?

[robko]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I read quite a bit of historical fiction by British authors, and the British English dictionary of my Sony PRS 650 does a very good job with unusual words, like bibi, maidan, tulwar etc. Are words like this in the Kobo English dictionary?

Just checked and I didn't find these in the Kobo dictionary. But it does bring up another nice feature of the dictionary: you can type a word in to look up (i.e. you can type any word you'd like to look up or translate, you don't have to highlight it in a book to use the dictionary).

[ShellShock]

OK thanks. Bit of a shame really, because I really like the Sony dictionary, but would rather have the other features of the Kobo Glo. I'm surprised that maidan is not in there, surely it is not that unusual a word?

[sombreastre]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

I read quite a bit of historical fiction by British authors, and the British English dictionary of my Sony PRS 650 does a very good job with unusual words, like bibi, maidan, tulwar etc. Are words like this in the Kobo English dictionary?

Looks like the Kindle 4 English dictionary has those too:

tulwar: indian: a sword, type of sabre
bibi: indian: a man's wife (dated: a man non-european gf)
maidan: (in the indian subcontinent) an open space in or near a town, used as a parade ground or for events such as public meetings. <origin> from urdu and persian maidan, from arabic maydan.

Maybe kobo dictionaries are not of the highest quality? (just a speculation)
Anyone else has had problems finding not-so-common words with them?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by taming

You cannot read kepub or epub in landscape on the Touch. I have not seen anything in the adverts that suggests that you can use landscape to read those formats on the Glo.

Actually, the Kobo Touch already supports landscape mode for kepub. Easiest way to test this is to open the Kobo Quick Tour/Welcome to Kobo. Tap in the middle of the screen. Tap on the icon next to the wrench (box with 4 triangles around it). You have a zoom slider on the left, what look like they should be horizontal and vertical re-size buttons which do some rather odd resizing and a box with an curved arrow pointing down. Tap on that arrow and the display will rotate 90 degrees each time you tap it. The tap zones do not rotate though which makes page turning a bit strange at times.

I will admit that this is the only kepub file I've seen that exhibits this behaviour -- well, actually, if you switch the language to Japanese so you can open the Japanese version of the Quick Tour which shows the same behaviour.

Will this ability show up for any other epub/kepub books? I flunked Oracle 101 so I can't give any help with that question.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Liesse

I could sell a cookbook using cups no problem and it'd still be usable, but I'd want to make sure it used the UK norm measurement before launching it here.

But remember an American cup and a British cup while both defined as 8 fluid ounces use a different size fluid ounce (imperial fluid ounce is 28.4 ml while American is 29.6 ml). The imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces or 568 ml while the American pint is 16 fluid ounces or 473 ml. As a Canadian, I had to deal with both measurement systems often at the same time and I welcomed the kinda switch to the metric system since while I still deal with two measurement systems, at least now the names are different. Take a trip across the border and fill your fuel tank -- imperial gallon was 160 fluid ounces or 4.544 litres while the American gallon was 128 fluid ounces or 3.789 litres. Now I just need to worry about litres and American gallons.

[Mrs_Often]

Adding your own dictionary to the Kobo Touch has been discussed previously (December 2011): https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=159823 That thread also concludes "nope, can't."

I haven't seen a plead for the ability in the Kobo Touch future firmware request thread though (that I can remember anyway). Maybe we should all jump up and down in there asking for either a better dictionary, or the possibility to put your own in: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=139965 I would also prefer a real UK dictionary for the same reasons Liesse mentions (well, except for the cups and ounces stuff because I get so confused with all that weirdness. Just use ml! Agh!).

[clsdclsd]

About the dictionaries check this thread:

https://getsatisfaction.com/kobo/top..._in_dictionary

It seems the built-in dictionaries have very limited word set (probably it's the same as the "MW pocket dictionary" which is available for mobile devices and has only 15-20000 words)