Aura HD For U.S. Buyers...

[grooks]

Originally Posted by drew2720

grooks..in the same boat as you....ordered the 16th (is it something about the 16th? the people who ordered the 18th seem to be getting theirs), charged the 19th and still no shipping notice.

Would really like to just cancel, but I was hoping since they have had my money since the 19th that I would get a shipping notice today....

I've decided that if I don't receive either the device or a shipping notification by Tuesday, I'm canceling my order. I've contacted Kobo twice and both times have been told my order is processing. If I can't purchase this device then I'll just wait to see what Sony releases in the fall.

I really wanted to give Kobo a try but maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

[david8866]

Originally Posted by grooks

If your credit card has been charged then keep escalating the cancel request until you find someone who can do something about it.

Thank you for your advice. I have disputed with credit card company. I also concluded KOBO is not a company I'll trust.
Here is the short version. I on-line chatted again with KOBO customer service . My order was not found, with the information of invoice number, order number, my name, my phone number, my address. Then, I said I want to cancel my order and I insisted to chat with a supervisor; suddenly my order was found. I asked why it could not be found a few minutes ago, my chat was cut off. I tried on-line chat again, you guys can guess, my order was not found.
I called to all three phone numbers, no one can find my order; I decided to cancel it.
Someone called me back and assured me, my order will be shipped within another 15 days. And gave me another incident number.
I asked, each time I contacted KOBO, I got a new incident number, but nobody fellows up. Why do I need another incident number? Someone finally contacted me because of my cancellation. I asked, if my ereader needs service, how does it handle? Of course, I didn't get the answer; the purpose of KOBO calling me is to keep the ereader sale, and not prepared to answer anything else (or, authorized to answer anything else.)
I was willing to take firmware bugs. But "We don't have any answer, we don't know whether we will even answer your..., UNTIL we contact you." This is not the way to do anything.

[drew2720]

same here... I think I will cancel and then see what Amazon comes out with. I really like my Kobo Mini and was looking forward to a Kobo with a larger screen and high resolution, but the lack of customer service support and waiting a week to just get a shipping notice is just plain nuts!

[grooks]

Originally Posted by david8866

Thank you for your advice. I have disputed with credit card company. I also concluded KOBO is not a company I'll trust.
Here is the short version. I on-line chatted again with KOBO customer service . My order was not found, with the information of invoice number, order number, my name, my phone number, my address. Then, I said I want to cancel my order and I insisted to chat with a supervisor; suddenly my order was found. I asked why it could not be found a few minutes ago, my chat was cut off. I tried on-line chat again, you guys can guess, my order was not found.
I called to all three phone numbers, no one can find my order; I decided to cancel it.
Someone called me back and assured me, my order will be shipped within another 15 days. And gave me another incident number.
I asked, each time I contacted KOBO, I got a new incident number, but nobody fellows up. Why do I need another incident number? Someone finally contacted me because of my cancellation. I asked, if my ereader needs service, how does it handle? Of course, I didn't get the answer; the purpose of KOBO calling me is to keep the ereader sale, and not prepared to answer anything else (or, authorized to answer anything else.)
I was willing to take firmware bugs. But "We don't have any answer, we don't know whether we will even answer your..., UNTIL we contact you." This is not the way to do anything.

Sounds like they are pulling out every trick they can think of to keep the order active. At least I know what to expect if I do have to cancel the order.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by david8866

I can not even cancel my order. They still can not find my order, even they gave me two order numbers.
KOBO is an awful company in my book.

I couldn't agree more. My order was "lost" -- twice. Ordered on the 16th. I cancelled by phone on the 24th and was told it would be passed to the appropriate level. Finally received an email concerning cancellation on the 24th. Now they have charged my credit card, which I am disputing.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by drew2720

same here... I think I will cancel and then see what Amazon comes out with. I really like my Kobo Mini and was looking forward to a Kobo with a larger screen and high resolution, but the lack of customer service support and waiting a week to just get a shipping notice is just plain nuts!

I am in the same position as you. I am happy with my Paperwhite and do enjoy the Mini. The thought of a slightly larger display, with as-good-or better resolution was very alluring. I will be looking forward to Amazon's offering. Kobo is absolutely dreadful to deal with.

And what good is a larger display when the bottom has such a large blank margin? I get more words to the page with my PW.

[taming]

I know people complain about the bottom space, but I did a comparison of two pages set up exactly the same way on the Glo and the Aura. I found that the Aura displayed 4 more physical lines of text, but 8 additional lines worth of content (that is, four lines that were on the next page on the Glo appeared on the original page of the Aura).

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by taming

I know people complain about the bottom space, but I did a comparison of two pages set up exactly the same way on the Glo and the Aura. I found that the Aura displayed 4 more physical lines of text, but 8 additional lines worth of content (that is, four lines that were on the next page on the Glo appeared on the original page of the Aura).

I don't think people complaining are previous Glo users (at least not mostly), but people used to other readers that do a better job of utilizing their screen real estate to begin with and thinking how nice it would be if the Kobo did too. Coming from a Kindle (primarily), Sony and Bookeen Opus this is the first I've encountered anything like this.

Nor do I recall seeing the widows and orphans issue on any other devices (random pages with an inch and a half of blank space bugs me more than the default amount of space at the bottom).

[taming]

I wish I had a camera. I am quite sure that the pages I used in this little experiment was on pages without excess white space or a widows and orphans issue. Kobo had fixed that at some point in the past, and now it is back. I am as sure as I can be that it is very high on their list of things to be fixed next. I am using kepubs (both native and those that the epub-kepub plugin create) with Georgia. So far that is a format/font combination that seems not to result in display problems. There may be others.

[Lyn2012]

Originally Posted by taming

I know people complain about the bottom space, but I did a comparison of two pages set up exactly the same way on the Glo and the Aura. I found that the Aura displayed 4 more physical lines of text, but 8 additional lines worth of content (that is, four lines that were on the next page on the Glo appeared on the original page of the Aura).

It would be helpful if someone could do the same comparison between the Aura and Paperwhite. One of the comparison pictures I saw on another website review showed the PW displaying 2 MORE lines than the Aura, however the font, size, line height etc. wasn't mentioned so although they looked the same, I can't be 100% certain.

[llcj]

I thought I would throw my two cents in. I prefer how Kobo displays books. It is one of the reasons I bought a Kobo device rather than one of the competitors' devices. I find what some others prefer crowded and unreadable.

[Cdesja5]

Originally Posted by taming

I know people complain about the bottom space, but I did a comparison of two pages set up exactly the same way on the Glo and the Aura. I found that the Aura displayed 4 more physical lines of text, but 8 additional lines worth of content (that is, four lines that were on the next page on the Glo appeared on the original page of the Aura).

Taming, is that 4 extra lines on the original or 8? In the "Impressions" thread you say 8 (which is double..) big difference! So which is it? Just curious!

[jmilica]

Originally Posted by Lyn2012

It would be helpful if someone could do the same comparison between the Aura and Paperwhite. One of the comparison pictures I saw on another website review showed the PW displaying 2 MORE lines than the Aura, however the font, size, line height etc. wasn't mentioned so although they looked the same, I can't be 100% certain.

Yes, I would also like to see someone comparing Paperwhite and Aura. From what I have seen so far, Aura looks surprisingly off putting...And I so wanted front lit epub reader

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I don't think people complaining are previous Glo users (at least not mostly), but people used to other readers that do a better job of utilizing their screen real estate to begin with and thinking how nice it would be if the Kobo did too. Coming from a Kindle (primarily), Sony and Bookeen Opus this is the first I've encountered anything like this.

Nor do I recall seeing the widows and orphans issue on any other devices (random pages with an inch and a half of blank space bugs me more than the default amount of space at the bottom).

Same here. I'm coming from Sony, and I've never seen any of my Sony's hitch with the large white space thing. I'm reading a Feedbooks public domain title right now, and I'm sometimes seeing half the page blank.

On my own created epubs, I have always set widows and orphans to zero, those epubs are displaying nicely, though I would like to see a bit more space at the top of the screen and about a line less space at the bottom. I also wish the line spacing went lower.

Kobo has room for improvement, though I do really love the screen!

[haydnfan]

I've decided that I have had enough. I don't mind waiting, but I do mind kobo taking my money and then not offering anything in return. Charge when you ship, not before. I've called CS and cancelled my order.