Touch Nook STR: Issues, Bugs, Annoyances, and Petty Quibbles

[beautifulsoup]

Originally Posted by SCION

Also, it's nice to have control over the page refresh rate. Currently set for refresh every three pages. There's a big difference between every page and every six pages.

Control over refresh rate? How do you do that?

[rahulm]

Originally Posted by beautifulsoup

Control over refresh rate? How do you do that?

It's a setting on the Kobo. The Nook refreshes the e-ink display every 6 pages, but you can set it to anywhere between 1 and 6 on the Kobo.

[DiannaInVA]

I just picked up my new touch. I'm sort of on the fence about it. I will probably keep it but I'll also keep my original.

What I love: the size and weight are fantastic.

What I don't like: the reader only displays the page number. I like the header on the origional nook that had the book name and time of day. On the new one, the only way to see that is by pressing the center of the screen. Very annoying. I wish they could make that a setting so we could display the header bar all the time if we want. I wonder if that is available in the rooted nook ereader software.

The other thing I don't like: when I put the touch beside the origional in a dim room, the original screen looks whiter (aka brighter). I thought the new one had a brighter background?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by SCION

There's no noticeable difference in speed, just clarity. On the Kobo, the page transitions are more noticeable when compared to the NOOK. That can be just as annoying to some as the traditional eInk flash. I have mine set to three simply because I don't want to see the flash every page or two. Also, on the Kobo I don't believe there's a way to quickly scroll through pages like the NOOK can.

I guess I don't understand the nature of the tradeoff between less eInk flash and clarity. On my Nook STR it doesn't seem to matter (or I don't notice) whether it is page #1 or page #6 - they look equally clear/unclear. And forcing refresh with n/n doesn't make it clearer (though that tends to fix ghosting).

The problem I have with nook is that the fonts are never as clear and dark as I believe from my observations/experiments that it is possible to make them. More frequent full-refresh wouldn't help.

[John F]

Originally Posted by SCION

Font Size = 24 positions (24th giving you 7 words on the screen)

Line Spacing = 9

Margins = 5

Thanks

[EldRick]

The whole thing about the page flash is pretty silly, when you compare it with the annoying, and even longer, interruption in reading when you turn a real page with a real hand.

An overblown non-issue, IMHO: just blink when you turn a page (almost everyone does) and you'll never see it...

[SCION]

Originally Posted by EldRick

The whole thing about the page flash is pretty silly, when you compare it with the annoying, and even longer, interruption in reading when you turn a real page with a real hand.

An overblown non-issue, IMHO: just blink when you turn a page (almost everyone does) and you'll never see it...

Lots of folks (like me) do a good deal of reading on their tablets. For them, the flash is noticeable when they transition to their eink device. What may be overblown to some may be a personal preference to others. Let's not be so quick to write others off just because we're not of that mindset.

[SameerH]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for the information! It sounds, as always, as though each has its pros and cons. Isn't it a pity that there's no single device which combines all the best features?

Hi Harry,

I'd encourage you and others on this forum to let us at Kobo know what you feel is missing from the Kobo touch that would influence your purchase decisions.

We're trying to provide very frequent firmware updates that respond to our customers' (and potential customers') requests, and would love to hear from you.

Thanks!
Sameer.

[rahulm]

Originally Posted by SameerH

Hi Harry,

I'd encourage you and others on this forum to let us at Kobo know what you feel is missing from the Kobo touch that would influence your purchase decisions.

We're trying to provide very frequent firmware updates that respond to our customers' (and potential customers') requests, and would love to hear from you.

Thanks!
Sameer.

Why can't the B&N people do community involvement like this?

I emailed them asking for it specifically and I just got a canned "Your feedback is very important" reply.

If the next Kobo has physical page turn buttons, consider it a guaranteed purchase on my part. I absolutely love how you guys have been so sensitive to the community's input.

[SameerH]

Originally Posted by SCION

There's no noticeable difference in speed, just clarity. On the Kobo, the page transitions are more noticeable when compared to the NOOK. That can be just as annoying to some as the traditional eInk flash. I have mine set to three simply because I don't want to see the flash every page or two. Also, on the Kobo I don't believe there's a way to quickly scroll through pages like the NOOK can.

Hi Scion,

You should be able to slide through pages quickly by using the slider control when you open the menu while reading (tap in the middle of the page).

Let me know if you can't find it.

Thanks,
Sameer.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by SameerH

Hi Scion,

You should be able to slide through pages quickly by using the slider control when you open the menu while reading (tap in the middle of the page).

Let me know if you can't find it.

Thanks,
Sameer.

[baronrus]

It may also be worth mentioning here that if you are unhappy with any of the 7 installed fonts on the Kobo you can add any TTF or OTF that you want. That means that you can have any font you want as light or as bold as you want. You are not locked in to the ones that come with the device

[linux_author]

long-time ebook reader (fav device until my new STR was Nokia N800)

my beefs (some echoed here, one new?):

1. home page is DRM'd; no user control
2. list view too big; should be able to compact
3. cover view should offer at least two sizes (e.g., more books listed)
4. some instances of link-click will automagically initiate wifi, while others will not

which reminds me of a puzzler when first playing with my STR:

after purchase, then setup, three books appeared on my reader - i thought 'cool! free books just for buying!'

however, after setting up my microsd card, transferring ebooks to/from my 'puter, i could not find the books anywhere on the STR!

and then i remembered: a long time ago (two years?), when BN first released an OS X reader, i had registered and downloaded the .app and put several free books into my BN account...

by golly, those books were still there when i bought my STR and showed up during what i can only surmise was an initial 'sync' during registration of my device...

and of course [slap to the forehead] i couldn't delete them or find them internally on the 'Nook' partition because they were in the 'cloud'!

deleting the books at BN from my account removed the books from my Nook immediately upon a sync...

which spurs me to bring up this point:

i am not a big fan of DRM'd devices; the STR won me over on the external card, no real need for wifi, and long battery life - my biggest fear is getting a 'push from the cloud' with content that i don't want or that will hobble my device's functionality...

that said, even if the STR never gets an update, i'm still happy enough

and IMHO the calibre.app is the best accessory for this device

willie

[JayB]

If I buy a backup reader for my 950 it will probably be the Kobo.

The hyphenation on the Nook STR was crazy. On one page in those screenshots posted by Scion I counted 8 hyphens. I would rather have a slightly ragged edge than a million hyphens.

My 950 has very few hyphens per page.

[beautifulsoup]

Originally Posted by rahulm

It's a setting on the Kobo. The Nook refreshes the e-ink display every 6 pages, but you can set it to anywhere between 1 and 6 on the Kobo.

Thank you!