Mini Defective screen warrants replacement unit

[euro traveler]

Any Kobo Mini owners suffer a screen failure, yet?

Turned on my two month old Kobo Mini yesterday and was bummed out to discover a permanent horizontal line across the middle of its screen. I've been using it daily and have never dropped it and have always kept it in its hard-sided case.

I went to Kobo's website and initiated a live chat.
First she required I do a basic, then a factory reset and nothing changed. Surprise!
After uploading the same pics seen here, their rep authorized a replacement unit. Now, let's see how long it's going to take until I get a new Mini in my hands. The rep said to expect them to contact me again, via email, within 48 hours with return info.

I wonder what will arrive first? The replacement Kobo Mini, or my new TrekStor Pyrus 4.3 inch ereader from Amazon.co.uk that shipped from the UK to the USA on 1 Feb.? I think the Pyrus will.

I love my Kobo Mini and it has become my daily reader. I'm still using it until I ship it back since the line only barely affects a line of text.

[euro traveler]

My replacement Kobo Mini arrived from Taiwan via Federal Express today.
Took three weeks to the day since Kobo said they'd replace it. Not too bad.
My new Pyrus Mini arrived on 19 February.

[Mrs_Often]

Three weeks? To USA or Denmark? (Or is there a Denmark in USA? ) Hmm... sounds like rather a long time to me. However, you got to keep your first mini until you received the replacement. That I think is very good.

I can't help asking (I know I'm very rude), what was the Pyrus for if you love your mini?

[murg]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

I can't help asking (I know I'm very rude), what was the Pyrus for if you love your mini?

Please. What happens in Denmark, stays in Denmark.

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by murg

Please. What happens in Denmark, stays in Denmark.

[euro traveler]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Three weeks? To USA or Denmark? (Or is there a Denmark in USA? ) Hmm... sounds like rather a long time to me. However, you got to keep your first mini until you received the replacement. That I think is very good.

I can't help asking (I know I'm very rude), what was the Pyrus for if you love your mini?

I live in the USA, and spend 4 to 5 weeks in Europe each year. These days I spend almost all of that time visiting my Danish friends in Copenhagen. I've been to your country, Mrs_Often, 21 times

FedEx shipping label shows it was shipped on 21 Feb from Taiwan, and arrived at my home on the east coast of the USA on 25 Feb. I contacted Kobo's Customer Service on 5 Feb. Kobo said they were going to provide me with a return shipping address and I emailed them again yesterday for it. Haven't heard back from them, yet.

Yes, it was nice to still have my original Kobo Mini in the meanwhile. But I've been using my new Pyrus Mini for reading since getting that.

I bought the Pyrus Mini for two reasons. Its small size and my love of electronic gadgets. I had my Sony PRS-350 with to Denmark in October and even that was too big for traveling. I really wanted an ereader that fits into my pockets.

murg, you're right about "What happens in Denmark, stays in Denmark."

[Mrs_Often]

Thanks for the elaboration euro traveler! How fun that you're able to do that. It's nice over here isn't it?

Ah really, is the Pyrus even smaller than the Kobo Mini? How fun.

Originally Posted by euro traveler

murg, you're right about "What happens in Denmark, stays in Denmark."

Hee hee

[euro traveler]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

Ah really, is the Pyrus even smaller than the Kobo Mini? How fun.

Yes, the Pyrus Mini is quite a bit smaller than the Kobo Mini.

[Mrs_Often]

Ha nice, thank you for those images!



P.S. I love those books!
P.P.S. Doesn't that widow/orphan thing on the mini annoy you? I always set them to 0 to get rid of such large *nothing* space at the bottom of the page

[murg]

Originally Posted by euro traveler

Yes, the Pyrus Mini is quite a bit smaller than the Kobo Mini.

I'm waiting for the micro ereaders...

[Willa]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

I always set them to 0 to get rid of such large *nothing* space at the bottom of the page

How/where do you do that?

[euro traveler]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

P.P.S. Doesn't that widow/orphan thing on the mini annoy you? I always set them to 0 to get rid of such large *nothing* space at the bottom of the page

Yes, the Kobo Mini's "nothing" space does indeed annoy me. It stays there even when I set the margins to "0". The side margins go to "0", but the bottom margin remains unchanged. I've figured out how to use Calibre to remove the CSS info and allow for margin and font adjustments of my epubs on the Kobo Mini, so that's not the problem.

Sometimes the Mini will surprise me and fill in some of that space.

[kobokobe]

Originally Posted by euro traveler

Yes, it was nice to still have my original Kobo Mini in the meanwhile.

They just let you keep the old one while the new one was in transit? Did they ask for your credit card number and put a temporary hold on it at least?

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by euro traveler

Yes, the Kobo Mini's "nothing" space does indeed annoy me. It stays there even when I set the margins to "0". The side margins go to "0", but the bottom margin remains unchanged. I've figured out how to use Calibre to remove the CSS info and allow for margin and font adjustments of my epubs on the Kobo Mini, so that's not the problem.

Sometimes the Mini will surprise me and fill in some of that space.

It's not a margin thing. It's a layout thing where the reader decides to start a new paragraph on the next page to prevent 3 or less lines appearing "alone" of the beginning or end of a paragraph at the end of the page or the beginning of a new page respectively (see here for more explanation). The 3 lines are the standard in CSS settings. Maybe nice for non fiction and/or text books, but not for fiction.

Originally Posted by Willa

How/where do you do that?

You can manually set the orphan and widow values to 0, so that a paragraph will not start on the new page even if only one of the lines of the new paragraph would fit on the end of the page (or be left on its own on the next page). You have to set this each book separately:

Either have Calibre do it for you during the convert, by adding extra CSS code. See attachment.

Or if you don't want to do a full convert, you can add the CSS manually in Sigil or through the "Tweak book" and then "Explode" functions in Calibre.

In the book stylesheet.css (or other filename with .css), add some code into the body style (next to the other things that might already be there). Use a plain text editor and then save (and rebuild the book if you're using Calibre).

body {
	margin: 0px;
	widows: 0;
	orphans: 0;
	margin-top: 10pt;
}

The grey are not necessary, just examples of styles already present.


That'll fix the annoying gaps However, depending on your font and lineheight settings, there will still be a relatively large space between the text and the bottom of the screen, because the bottom menu space is always reserved and is rather big. If a letter that goes below baseline (like g or j) would only touch the top of the menu line the whole line of text would move to the next page. So, though the widows and orphans set to 0 gives a MUCH nicer screen fill, it's still not optimal in all cases (and even varies per page).

There might be a way to set the widows and orphans globally from within the .kobo/Kobo/Kobo eReader.conf file but it's not tested yet and uncertain if those options are listened to by Kobo.

[Willa]

Originally Posted by Mrs_Often

You can manually set the orphan and widow values to 0, so that a paragraph will not start on the new page even if only one of the lines of the new paragraph would fit on the end of the page (or be left on its own on the next page). You have to set this each book separately:

Either have Calibre do it for you during the convert, by adding extra CSS code. See attachment.

[
That'll fix the annoying gaps However, depending on your font and lineheight settings, there will still be a relatively large space between the text and the bottom of the screen, because the bottom menu space is always reserved and is rather big. If a letter that goes below baseline (like g or j) would only touch the top of the menu line the whole line of text would move to the next page. So, though the widows and orphans set to 0 gives a MUCH nicer screen fill, it's still not optimal in all cases (and even varies per page).

Fab - thankyou!

Such a shame you have to do it in Calibre individually each time - will start stuffing it in