Glo First impressions on the GLo

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by Bookripper

here are some more first world problems:

- so I started making shelves per category and series (example: terry pratchett's discworld (over 30 books). in explorer the books are numbered and in order. when I make a shelve and copy them in the shelve, the appear totally out of reading order. this is plain RIDICULOUS. they want us to make 1 shelve per book and number them, or what?? they didnt test stuff like this? disgraceful.

I could accept that shelves are a work-in-progress, if only I could organise my books in directories/folders while I wait for them to get it right.

Sadly, until then I limit the number of books on my Kobo.

[Bookripper]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I could accept that shelves are a work-in-progress, if only I could organise my books in directories/folders while I wait for them to get it right.

Sadly, until then I limit the number of books on my Kobo.

very sad indeed. I'm thinking about adding my entire book collection on the kobo, make a genfile list of my books, export that list to my tablet, "browse" books on that list, and then search it on the kobo. not practical, but that would save me from spending hours and hours of idiotic shelve making.

when I read some comments on this subject, it reminds me to the Apple/Android discussion:

1 - some users dont mind having the thinking done for them and simply accept the system, and every limitation it comes with.

2 - other users want to personalize, maximize and give the stuff a run for it's money...

more people should be like number 2 :-)

[arnoldus]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum.
Thanks for all the thoughts on the Kobo Glo! I've decided to buy one and am very pleased with it. The screen is very sharp and the contrast is very good.

There's just one small thing: The light is quite bright when I'm reading in the dark. I would prefer to be able to dim light a few more notches. Does anyone else recognize this?

It would be very nice if this could be solved with a firmware update or is this a hardware limitation?

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by Bookripper

here are some more first world problems:

- so I started making shelves per category and series (example: terry pratchett's discworld (over 30 books). in explorer the books are numbered and in order. when I make a shelve and copy them in the shelve, the appear totally out of reading order. this is plain RIDICULOUS. they want us to make 1 shelve per book and number them, or what?? they didnt test stuff like this? disgraceful.

The usual way this is handled is to change the title of the book to include the series name and sequence number. A very simple thing to do with a powerful library management tool like calibre. But virtually impossible if you insist on only using an antiquated file system.

- device crashes: 2
- my testbook all of a sudden had a "DRM-expiration", whatever that is, and was not accessible any more, even though the book has no DRM-protection (after re-adding it to the device it worked again

I've seen this once, so I am curious if you remember the steps before this happened.

Originally Posted by Bookripper

compared to getting this piece of [@#[ organised, life is peachy!

I don't say this very often, but based on the posts you have made, I think you should take the Glo back. It is obviously not going to work for you. But, I am curious about why you bought it. The things you think of as defects are well known as not part of the function of any of the Kobo ereaders.

[Bookripper]

@ Davidfor

"The usual way this is handled is to change the title of the book to include the series name and sequence number. A very simple thing to do with a powerful library management tool like calibre. But virtually impossible if you insist on only using an antiquated file system"

Of course I use Calibre. you just dont get my point. My books already ARE in proper order when I save them on my harddisk. in order, and sequenced. why should i do double work? you cal this antiquated, I call this CONVENIENT and SIMPLE. I love Calibre for fileconversion and such, but why should I use it to sort my books??
i've already done it faster and better myself... ID-tags and metadata are for sheep.
there's nothing more simple than allowing the tree-structure be copied, and allowing the filename to be used instead of the metadata. call this antiquated if you will, I swear by it and so far I always found a device that supports my way of thinking. you have to understand that some people have WAY too much and diverse data to enter every single thing in a separate specialized little system.

"I've seen this once, so I am curious if you remember the steps before this happened"

Nothing special: open the kobo desktop app on pc, connect the kobo, Freeze. reset button.
My pc then checked the Kobo memory on faults, found nothing, but it didnt happen anymore, so lets hope it stays this way.

"I don't say this very often, but based on the posts you have made, I think you should take the Glo back. It is obviously not going to work for you. But, I am curious about why you bought it. The things you think of as defects are well known as not part of the function of any of the Kobo ereaders."

you could be right. And maybe all these shortcomings are normal for you, but this isnt the first generation of E-readers. I really expected something more manageable. Kobo makes a point in advertising that the device fits 30.000 books. in reality, adding 30.000 books on the kobo, using the sorting system you are so keen to defend, would be sheer madness. all my posts are based on this "false advertising", or whatever you wanna call it. anyway, If Kobo doesnt send me a satisfying promise of solution, or I cant manipulate the device into something I can live with, I probably will send it back.

cheers, Ripper

[Chi Cygni]

Bookripper

Soon Cybook Odyssey HD with FrontLight will come out. All Cybooks support folders. Maybe you should look into this. I have the small Opus and to create library is just to drag and drop folder over to Cybook on the computer. And it has SD card support. You could copy everything within minutes the way you want it. I prefer folders also, all these shelves and collections don't make much sense for me.

[Bookripper]

Originally Posted by Chi Cygni

Bookripper

Soon Cybook Odyssey HD with FrontLight will come out. All Cybooks support folders. Maybe you should look into this. I have the small Opus and to create library is just to drag and drop folder over to Cybook on the computer. And it has SD card support. You could copy everything within minutes the way you want it. I prefer folders also, all these shelves and collections don't make much sense for me.

SWEEEEEET. Kobo GLO = Kobo GO. thanks a lot!

[Haesslich]

Seems odd to complain about a feature that's never existed on a Kobo, a Kindle, or a Sony PRS series reader. Especially since they DON'T advertise folder support.

They're designed to sell books from their prospective vendors, and the side loading is more a bonus than anything. Only non-bookstore readers (like the Bookeen) or software readers on smartphones/PDAs ever had any real folder capability.

[Bookripper]

Originally Posted by Haesslich

Seems odd to complain about a feature that's never existed on a Kobo, a Kindle, or a Sony PRS series reader. Especially since they DON'T advertise folder support.

They're designed to sell books from their prospective vendors, and the side loading is more a bonus than anything. Only non-bookstore readers (like the Bookeen) or software readers on smartphones/PDAs ever had any real folder capability.

Well,

To start with, Kobo brags about the possibility of a 30.000 book-LIBRARY. NOT a 30.000 book-CHAOTIC MESS.
maybe if everybody made more complaints instead of just adapting to the system, the developers would actually change something.
I currently am in Belgium, there is no place where I can test the Kobo, I have to order it online.
The specs on the kobo website also give no indication about how the interface works.
My posts are not meant for the happy Ipad flock, who take everything as it comes and never see reason to be critical.
Kobo advertises a big library, I expect one. Not to turn a sorted and sequenced library in a pile of unsorted crap.
I dont care if the side loading is more a bonus than anything, they should make it work proper, period.

Anyway I'm asking my vendor for a refund as we speak.

[PeterT]

Bookripper; maybe you had to buy it sight unseen, but I think that if you had take time to research more fully, even by reading posts here, you woiuld have seen that, for what you wanted, the Kobo series of readers was not at all applicable.

[jusmee]

Originally Posted by Haesslich

They're designed to sell books from their prospective vendors,

I would have thought a ereader was designed to read books and to make money for the designers by being better at that task than the competition's offerings.

[Haesslich]

Originally Posted by jusmee

I would have thought a ereader was designed to read books and to make money for the designers by being better at that task than the competition's offerings.

Well, tell Sony that - they've spent years being awful at it. The didn't even really HAVE collections for a while. Between that and the LRX format...

Originally Posted by Bookripper

Well,




To start with, Kobo brags about the possibility of a 30.000 book-LIBRARY. *NOT a 30.000 book-CHAOTIC MESS.
maybe if everybody made more complaints instead of just adapting to the system, the developers would actually change something.
I currently am in Belgium, there is no place where I can test the Kobo, I have to order it online.
The specs on the kobo website also give no indication about how the interface works.
My posts are not meant for the happy Ipad flock, who take everything as it comes and never see reason to be critical.
Kobo advertises a big library, I expect one. * Not to turn a sorted and sequenced library in a pile of unsorted crap. *
I dont care if the side loading is more a bonus than anything, they should make it work proper, period.




Anyway *I'm asking my vendor for a refund as we speak.

And Kobo (and most other reader sellers who own ebook stores) talk about the MAXIMUM CAPACITY of the device 32000 books based on 1MB per book maximum, when using a 32GB MicroSD card. Just like Apple and their iPod advertising, that's the maximum amount of capacity for your library. This doesn't mean the library functions are there; certainly iPod Touch devices didn't get on-device playlist management until iOS 5 or so. Didn't stop them from selling like hotcakes.

Seriously - if you'd taken five minutes to go to their website (see here, you'll notice the lack of folder support. They describe shelves - aka 'Collections' for the Sony PRS readers, and similar systems for the Kindle. And given that you knew how to find this place, a few minutes of reading (which I'd expect a person into eReaders to do) would've saved you the bother of going out to buy it.

As for their 'not saying', I'd have to say this is pretty clear about what they DO support:

Sort your eBooks alphabetically, by title, or by author name just as you would a physical bookshelf (sorry, colour coordinating isn’t available on the Kobo Glo). Plus, it’s super easy to keep track of your faves with large cover images, multiple views, and custom lists.

Note the 'sort by alphabet, title, or author name' and 'custom lists'. Nothing about 'sorting by folder'. Most bookstore-affiliated readers do not sort by folders, since they're designed to sell books that their online bookstores sell (although Kobo really needs to up their on-device bookstore; Kindle's store is quite easy to use, as compared to having to explicitly 'search' on the Kobo).

Besides, if you've been through the forums and read a bit, you'll probably realize others have asked for better sorting options, and have offered criticism of various issues which Kobo has at least acknowledged (and then fixed) in some cases. Say... the Vox's lack of Play Store support, or on-device management of Shelves. Still, for your purposes, I'd have suggested a Pocketbook, a Bookeen, or another device which isn't tied to a single bookstore.

[ijdod]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Bookripper; maybe you had to buy it sight unseen, but I think that if you had take time to research more fully, even by reading posts here, you woiuld have seen that, for what you wanted, the Kobo series of readers was not at all applicable.

With all respect, that's not entirely fair. I ran into the exact same issues with my Glo, and I knew what the Kobo interface looked like (I borrowed a friend's Touch). What I didn't expect was even the sorting features (shelves) to be virtually useless as soon as there's more than 100 or so of them. I'm not even talking about ease-of-browsing, or the fact that a search would have been nice, opening the shelves takes more than 10 seconds of you start adding shelves...

[Chi Cygni]

I finally had a chance to test Kobo Glo in a shop. Love the light, it's beautiful. Never seen any lighted reader before. Easy intuitive UI. I liked the shape too. Very nice ereader. Still, a) I have 3 ereaders now b) can't afford it for the moment c) curious what Bookeen will come up with soon since I'm used to their environment (and folders)

Scrap a an c, if only I had 139 € to spare

just 1 question

Most bookstore-affiliated readers do not sort by folders, since they're designed to sell books that their online bookstores sell

I really don't understand what it has to do with allowing for folders organisation? Surely within the bookstore there are different genres, authors etc? JUST WHY NOT?

[soulfuldog]

Originally Posted by Chi Cygni

"Most bookstore-affiliated readers do not sort by folders, since they're designed to sell books that their online bookstores sell"

I really don't understand what it has to do with allowing for folders organisation? Surely within the bookstore there are different genres, authors etc? JUST WHY NOT?

I don't think it has anything to do with being affiliated to a bookstore or not (don't see why that would make any difference)? I'm not sure what the reasons are for the likes of Sony, Kobo, Amazon etc not supporting folders, but there must be some reason why they think it's a good idea to use tags for organising books instead of folders.