Kobo in Disguise

[BobC]

I recently bought a Tolino Shine reader and when it started up I thought the interface and operation had a lot in common with my Kobo Glo.

Then, to my surprise when I looked at the About/Info page I saw the message :

tolino is developed and designed by

Rakuten Kobo Inc

despite the fact that on the case it says it was designed by Deutche Telecom.

BobC

[patrik]

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/de...-kobo--1178100

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BobC

I recently bought a Tolino Shine reader and when it started up I thought the interface and operation had a lot in common with my Kobo Glo.

Then, to my surprise when I looked at the About/Info page I saw the message :



despite the fact that on the case it says it was designed by Deutche Telecom.

I have a tolino epos and the firmware it is running is very different to the Kobo firmware. And I thought all the tolino's ran the same firmware. And, while the epos is a very nice, device, I the firmware lacks a lot of what I use on the Kobo, so I don't tend to use it.

Merging the devices and firmware probably does make sense for the companies. But, this is the first I had heard that it had started.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BobC

I recently bought a Tolino Shine reader and when it started up I thought the interface and operation had a lot in common with my Kobo Glo.

Then, to my surprise when I looked at the About/Info page I saw the message :

despite the fact that on the case it says it was designed by Deutche Telecom.

BobC

Tolino's assets were purchased by Kobo in Jan. 2017. At the time, statements were made that Tolino would remain the eReader brand name for German speaking regions.

Looking at the back of a Tolino Epos, it credits the device to Longshine Technologie GMBH.

The firmware for the Tolino branded ereaders is still Android based while the firmware for the Kobo branded ereaders is Linux based. There are some features on the Epos I would like to see in the Kobo firmware but there are a lot more features of the Kobo firmware I wouldn't mind seeing in the Tolino firmware (remembering my font selection between books, a wider selection of font sizes, not needing to hit the home button and explicitly mark the book finished, showing series information, etc.).

[BobC]

Originally Posted by davidfor

I have a tolino epos and the firmware it is running is very different to the Kobo firmware. And I thought all the tolino's ran the same firmware. And, while the epos is a very nice, device, I the firmware lacks a lot of what I use on the Kobo, so I don't tend to use it.

David,
Have you updated the firmware ? There is an an item on the Tolino website back in May 2017 :

We have updated the software for our tolino eBook Reader for you once again by integrating a number of major and minor improvements. Version 10.0 of the tolino eBook Reader software is now available for all tolino models and can be automatically downloaded via a wireless connection, free of charge.

My Shine came with Version 10 firmware and it has now been updated to 10.01. I assume that Version 10 was the first "Kobo" one.

BobC

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by BobC

My Shine came with Version 10 firmware and it has now been updated to 10.01. I assume that Version 10 was the first "Kobo" one.

How is the library interface for your tolino? And the reader program?

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

How is the library interface for your tolino? And the reader program?

The library offers both grid and cover views using three main heads :

Title , Author and Collections.

Various sorting options within each main head.

Collections is a bit odd as in addition to the auto-created "Finished" one and any you care to set up and assign books to it seems to set up some based on Authors (not all authors get a collection and some with only one book do so I'm not sure just how this is working)

The reader is straightforward, a bit like a cut-down version of Kobo; it allows additional fonts to be loaded and apparently must use Adobe RMSDK as it can handle Adobe DRM protected books. Pinch to change font size as well as the menu option.

Very satisfied with what was a cheap device (under GBP40 from Aliexpress). I have another Android based reader (Energy Systems eReader) that cost over twice the price and the two in-built readers there are somewhat below par.

I first thought it had Kobo origins when it started up and displayed the moving squares.

Unless you are in Germany, Switzerland or Austria and have registered it with one of the Tolino partner booksellers then half the home page is wasted and it just shows the last three books you have been reading.

I found how to put an English dictionary on it (there is a post somewhere on MR that deals with it - copying over the Kobo one doesn't work) and it works but the Quickdic dictionary is not what you would consider concise with some words getting into the double figures for pages of information.

BobC

[taos]

Originally Posted by BobC

Collections is a bit odd as in addition to the auto-created "Finished" one and any you care to set up and assign books to it seems to set up some based on Authors (not all authors get a collection and some with only one book do so I'm not sure just how this is working)

AFAIK, collections are - at least in the more recent versions of the Tolino firmware - based on folders. So, if e.g. Calibre creates directories according to author, all books in this folder (let's call it "Author 1") - even those in subfolders of this folders - are sorted into the respective collection (named in this case "Author 1"). You can only get one level of collections (so a (sub)collection of "Thrillers" under "Fiction" is not possible).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by BobC

David,
Have you updated the firmware ? There is an an item on the Tolino website back in May 2017 :



My Shine came with Version 10 firmware and it has now been updated to 10.01. I assume that Version 10 was the first "Kobo" one.

My epos is running firmware 11.1.0. I believe there is in update be readied, but I don't know exactly when it will be released.

I didn't have the epos with me earlier when I replied. But, I can see the "Rakuten Kobo" in the about screen. I had looked at it before when I first got the device. I would guess that May 2017 would be about right for the change of credit in the ownership. But, from a discussion elsewhere, I don't believe that Kobo have completely taken this over yet. Starting to, but I'm pretty sure the development is in the same hands as before. Though they might be employed by Kobo now.

Looking at the firmware the epos is running, I don't see a similarity to the Kobo firmware. The look and feel is very different. Navigating around the device doesn't feel at all the same. To me, the similarities are in places that it would be hard to do something different. Overall, I do like the device, but I like the Kobo Aura ONE better. There are things I hope Kobo adopt from tolino, but there is a lot more I would want on the tolino.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by taos

AFAIK, collections are - at least in the more recent versions of the Tolino firmware - based on folders. So, if e.g. Calibre creates directories according to author, all books in this folder (let's call it "Author 1") - even those in subfolders of this folders - are sorted into the respective collection (named in this case "Author 1"). You can only get one level of collections (so a (sub)collection of "Thrillers" under "Fiction" is not possible).

Yes, the collections are made from the first level directory within the "Books" directory. Calibres default save template means that there will be a collection for each author. I'm currently using:

{#kobobookshelves}/{author_sort} - {series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}

Where #kobobookshelves is a custom column I maintain for fairly random collections. I should sort out a better set of collections, but I'm not using it enough to worry me to much.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

How is the library interface for your tolino? And the reader program?

From my point of view, the tolino interface is a simpler version than the Kobo. The home screen is divided into two sections. The top two-thirds shows the current book and the two most recent plus a link to the library. The bottom third shows the shop you are linked to with five books and a link to the shop. There is also a status bar across the top (icons for USB connection, time, WiFi, light, battery) and menu and search buttons underneath.

The menu takes you to the setting, browser, accounts and info.

In the library, there are three sections: Titles, Authors an Collections. These are basically the same as Kobo. But, at the bottom of Authors, the bar has the alphabet across it and tapping one takes you to the page with that letter.

The book lists are similar to Kobo: cover on the left, title, author and status stacked next to that, and a menu icon on the extreme right. The status for books being read is nice. It is a bar with an indicator of how far through the book you are with x/y at the end to show the current page and total pages. There is a cover view that shows six books with the title, author and status bur underneath.

The book metadata is minimal: title, author, format size and date added. I really miss the synopsis.

The ePub renderer is RMSDK based and probably as good as the Kobo. But, the font and layout settings are probably closer to a Kindle: 11 sizes, three lines spacing options, three margin sizes, seven fonts, but you can add your own. There is a landscape mode for reading. The ToC shows the page number for the start of the chapter. Tapping the page number at the bottom brings up a navigation bar similar to Kobo but tapping the page number on this gives a go-to-page prompt.

For calibre users, the collections as mentioned elsewhere is pretty much it. The book status is stored somewhere I can't see when connected.

Overall, there are a lot of things to like. And the tolino epos is a very good ereader. But, I prefer the Kobo firmware. I do use the functions the Kobo has and missed these when I was exclusively reading on the epos at Christmas (after giving my wife my Aura ONE). I went back to the Aura H2O when I went back to work. I'm just waiting to see exactly what the Clara HD is before deciding it I am buying myself another Aura ONE.

[Terisa de morgan]

Thank you, @davidfor. So, waiting for Clara is.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by BobC

David,
Have you updated the firmware ? There is an an item on the Tolino website back in May 2017 :

My Shine came with Version 10 firmware and it has now been updated to 10.01. I assume that Version 10 was the first "Kobo" one.

BobC

My Epos is currently on version 11.2 -- the one that got posted and then promptly pulled from the site over a WiFi bug. So far no information on an ETA for the replacement release. See this link for more information: Firmware 11.2 für die Tolinos bringt Fortschrittsbalken in die Bibliothek.

A couple of items to add to davidfor's comments. If you use the line spacing, alignment and margin settings with the 3 choices in each category, my Epos pretty much dumps the CSS styling. There is a file that can be edited for the standard fonts to allow some changes to the font sizes but I haven't yet managed to get it to work for sideloaded fonts. The Epos pops up a message box when opening an epub3 file (there is an option to not show this again but I want to see the message).