Deciding on a Kobo model

[murraypaul]

I'm looking for a new eInk reader, and want a colour-adjustable frontlight, so that has brought me to Kobos. I've been able to have a hands-on try of a Clara HD and a H2O2, but not a One.

I had a couple of questions that I think I mostly know the answers for, but would appreciate confirmation, in case the information I have is out of date.

The one thing I preferred of the Kindle display over the Kobo was that there was less wasted screenspace becuase of the big header and footer on the Kobo.
I understand that a simple config file change can remove these, without having to patch or jailbreak the device. Is this still possible, and does it cause any other issues with the reader?

It is possible to install applications, including an alternative reader, on Kobos. There are two ways, either KSM or KFMon. KSM does not work on the Clara HD, but KFMon works on all current models?

I can use calibre to sync not just files, but also collection information to the device?

The three devices (One, H2O2 and Clara) are all listed by Kobo as having ComfortLight Pro, but when I tested the H2O2 and Clara, there was a clear difference in the colour of the light at maximum shift, the H2O2 was orange while the Clara was yellow. And from what I've read, the One is almost red.
Does this match what others have seen? FWIW, I preferred the orange of the H2O2.

None of the current eReaders seem very good at navigating large numbers of files, so (assuming I stick with the stock reader rather than koReader), I would plan to sync combined eBooks, with entire series combined into a single book. That brings the number down to hundreds rather than thousands, but does mean that some of the books get very big, in the 10-30MB size and 20k-30k page count range. My old PRS-505 can handle these, so I can't imagine a modern reader would have a problem, but does anyone have experience with using very large books with Kobo readers?

Other than screen sizes, waterproofiness and possible screen colour shifts, are there any other differences I should be aware of between the three models I'm considering? (One, H2O2 and Clara HD).

Can anyone suggest a retailer in the UK that might have a One on display? I've tried John Lewis and a couple of PC Worlds.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I'm looking for a new eInk reader, and want a colour-adjustable frontlight, so that has brought me to Kobos. I've been able to have a hands-on try of a Clara HD and a H2O2, but not a One.

I had a couple of questions that I think I mostly know the answers for, but would appreciate confirmation, in case the information I have is out of date.

The one thing I preferred of the Kindle display over the Kobo was that there was less wasted screenspace becuase of the big header and footer on the Kobo.
I understand that a simple config file change can remove these, without having to patch or jailbreak the device. Is this still possible, and does it cause any other issues with the reader?

Yes, although it only applies to Kobo's own brand of ePub, kePub (which you can losslessly create via Calibre, either on the fly during transfer to the device or as a stored output format).

Patching is also pretty much fire'n forget with minimal impact/risks, once you get the hang of it, FWIW.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It is possible to install applications, including an alternative reader, on Kobos. There are two ways, either KSM or KFMon. KSM does not work on the Clara HD, but KFMon works on all current models?

Yes, KFMon is device-agnostic.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I can use calibre to sync not just files, but also collection information to the device?

Yes (as well as series metadata, which might be of interest to you, given one of your following question ).

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The three devices (One, H2O2 and Clara) are all listed by Kobo as having ComfortLight Pro, but when I tested the H2O2 and Clara, there was a clear difference in the colour of the light at maximum shift, the H2O2 was orange while the Clara was yellow. And from what I've read, the One is almost red.
Does this match what others have seen? FWIW, I preferred the orange of the H2O2.

There are two hardware revisions of the H2O², so that may be a factor here, although I've never actually seen *any* ComfortLight devices in person.
But as usual, I guess that the technology evolved between models, and that there are device-by-device variances, even across a single model line.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

None of the current eReaders seem very good at navigating large numbers of files, so (assuming I stick with the stock reader rather than koReader), I would plan to sync combined eBooks, with entire series combined into a single book. That brings the number down to hundreds rather than thousands, but does mean that some of the books get very big, in the 10-30MB size and 20k-30k page count range. My old PRS-505 can handle these, so I can't imagine a modern reader would have a problem, but does anyone have experience with using very large books with Kobo readers?

Yeaaaah, I personally wouldn't. It's ePub, the format is already hard enough to deal with in an efficient manner, don't hobble yourself .

I guess it's going to be a case of which is the lesser of evils for you: slower Library nav (lots of books), or potentially slower in-book nav (humongous book) .

And possibly a game of diminishing returns: hundreds of books might already be enough to affect navigation, so a couple hundreds more might not make enough of a difference to care about at that point .

You'll probably be moving around via the Search more than the Library at that point anyway, and that works pretty well even on large libraries, so, meh .

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Other than screen sizes, waterproofiness and possible screen colour shifts, are there any other differences I should be aware of between the three models I'm considering? (One, H2O2 and Clara HD).

Can anyone suggest a retailer in the UK that might have a One on display? I've tried John Lewis and a couple of PC Worlds.

Age? (One -> H2O² -> Clara HD).
Rumours that the next device will be an updated One?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

None of the current eReaders seem very good at navigating large numbers of files, so (assuming I stick with the stock reader rather than koReader), I would plan to sync combined eBooks, with entire series combined into a single book. That brings the number down to hundreds rather than thousands, but does mean that some of the books get very big, in the 10-30MB size and 20k-30k page count range. My old PRS-505 can handle these, so I can't imagine a modern reader would have a problem, but does anyone have experience with using very large books with Kobo readers.

The key is not the size of the file but the size of the text files inside the file. Check out the Quality Check plugin for calibre. Under Check ePub Structure, try the Check oversize html files option. Sometimes a simple epub to epub conversion with calibre will fix these though I prefer using Sigil to split the files and do other cleanup. At times, I've merged books in a series and ended up with files larger than 50MB but as long as the html files are reasonable sized, I've haven't seen any issues. I also have multiple books that are in the 200-390MB range for a single book but these are cooking related books that are heavy in images.

I swapped the 8GB uSD card in my Clara HD for a 32GB uSD card and currently have ~9000 books on it. My main method of looking for books is search and I haven't seen much in the line of speed issues with that number of books.

[John F]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Yes, although it only applies to Kobo's own brand of ePub, kePub (which you can losslessly create via Calibre, either on the fly during transfer to the device or as a stored output format).

...

It has been a while since I looked at this, aren't there some caveats? Doesn't the right sided text get clipped if you have full justification enabled? You would need to tweak the epub, or use patches to solve the clipping problem?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

And possibly a game of diminishing returns: hundreds of books might already be enough to affect navigation, so a couple hundreds more might not make enough of a difference to care about at that point .

The plan is to have Collection == detailed genre, Book == series.
That way neither list is too long, and I can make genre more or less detailed to maintain the balance.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DNSB

The key is not the size of the file but the size of the text files inside the file. Check out the Quality Check plugin for calibre. Under Check ePub Structure, try the Check oversize html files option. Sometimes a simple epub to epub conversion with calibre will fix these though I prefer using Sigil to split the files and do other cleanup. At times, I've merged books in a series and ended up with files larger than 50MB but as long as the html files are reasonable sized, I've haven't seen any issues. I also have multiple books that are in the 200-390MB range for a single book but these are cooking related books that are heavy in images.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm using the calibre EPubMerge plugin to do the file combinations, and that seems to handle this correctly, the individual book files are kept separate in the merged book, so there shouldn't be any single huge internal ePub files.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

The plan is to have Collection == detailed genre, Book == series.
That way neither list is too long, and I can make genre more or less detailed to maintain the balance.

FWIW, I agree with NiLuJe. I'm not sure crowbar-ing many books into one makes for a better reading experience.

What do you plan to do when you buy a new book in a series where you've already done the consolidation? Presumably you'll need to re-consolidate the books. Because of the way the Kobo database works, you'll also need to physically delete the old mega-book from the device before re-sending it. In this scenario simply copying new over old wouldn't work. It all sounds like a lot of extra effort to me.

Of course you're free to try whatever you want to do. After all, it's part of the fun of a new gadget

[NiLuJe]

@John F: IIRC, the most glaring issues have been resolved by FW updates a while ago.

I'm patching the FW, and I've never hit anything out of the ordinary with kePubs (Granted, the most complex layouts I ever had to deal with are in plays).

EDIT: I think we have an up-to-date epub vs. kepub table of pros & cons hidden somewhere around here .

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Can anyone suggest a retailer in the UK that might have a One on display? I've tried John Lewis and a couple of PC Worlds.

To answer my own question, in case anyone else is interested, the answer is WH Smiths, if you are lucky or prepared to do a lot of work.
I went to the Reading WH Smiths, and it is as though someone got a bunch of devices in about two years ago, unboxed them and fixed them to a display stand, then walked away and completely forgot about them.
The devices on display were the H2O (original, not edition 2), Aura edition 2 and Aura One, so nothing since late 2016. They didn't seem to have any of them actually as boxes for sale, I think the boxes were Touch and Glo.
None of the devices had ever been connected to the network and setup, so they were just sitting at the initial setup screen, useless to actual demo functionality.
I set up the One on a tethered hotspot and had a good play on it.
Ultimately as soon as I got to use it, I knew it was the one I wanted, the flush screen alone made it worth it for be, getting dust in the gap between the screen and the bevels bugs the hell out of me.

John Lewis seems to have discontinued all Kobo models except the Clara, and the standard PC World setup is also just to have a Clara, so actually getting hand-on with other models has been quite difficult.

By comparison, buying the One was very easy, as Argos stock all the models.

[rashkae]

Err, some correction with regards to full screen text.

Yes, you can enable full screen option by manually adding a line to the config file.

One thing to do note is you might also want to add the option to disable fast page flipping. Otherwise, full screen text will occupy parts of the screen that you can not select for dictionary/highlighting/annotation.

Full screen reading works with *both* regular epub and Kobo Kepub, but each have different caveats.

With regular epub full screen, there is no top or bottom margin. So text ends up right against the bezel. Some people who hate wasted space appreciate this. On Kepub, the user preference margin size is applied around the entire screen, top, bottom, and sides.

With Kepubs, there are text clipping issues. You can work around ie by either, tweaking the epubs, applying the relevant patches from the Kobo developer forum here, or using the abilities of the Kobo extended driver to modify css on the fly when using Calibre send boos device, (I've documented this method in the ultimate tricks/tips thread. It's a rather large how-to for an e-reader, but the advantage to this method is you only have to do it once, and it survives updates.)

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Other than screen sizes, waterproofiness and possible screen colour shifts, are there any other differences I should be aware of between the three models I'm considering? (One, H2O2 and Clara HD).

The One has significantly worse battery life. The RGB LEDS seem to consume more power, while at the same time, battery size was actually reduced compared to all other Kobo models. With Light on, expect about 15 - 18 hrs reading time. (Roughly half of what you would get from other Kobo models.)

The One has infamously poor touch screen accuracy. This does seem to have improved with recent updates, but is far from perfect. You probably won't notice for the purpose of reading/turning pages, but the on screen keyboard, if you ever use it, and especially text selection, are terrible. Touch screen on H20's and Clara HD are... as perfect as I've ever seen. On the H20 2nd edition however, capacitive touch is visible, as a very very faint and fine grid, and makes the screen look much darker in natural light only. Not nearly as bad as the original Kobo Aura however, that was just horrendous.

The Clara HD has introduced new bugs with Kepub file format that causes text extend past screen and clip. I haven't identified exactly all the causes that trigger it,, but after 3 books in a row that work perfectly in other Kobo models but are broken on Clara HD, I just gave up and shelved the device in my annual fit of frustration with Kobo.

[NiLuJe]

@rashkae: Huh, my bad, I was convinced it only worked with the kePub renderer, thanks .

To expand on the clipping issue, AFAIK, the only remaining issue is with the bottom line, which may, with some unfortunate mix of fonts, font sizes, line spacing and margins (or lack thereof), cause it to be slightly clipped (i.e., straddling across two pages).

With patches applied, it's never been a real issue, in the rare cases where it still happens (usually for a few pixels, fewer than the font's descent, and usually in very specific cases, like title pages, with a mix of multiple font sizes/line-spacing values).

----

As for input accuracy, I sincerely hope you've never used a Kindle before, because even on the H2O, which supposedly has great input for a Kobo, it's still pretty terrible by Kindle's standards .

As @rashkae said, it's perfectly serviceable for reading purposes, but as soon as you start trying to highlight stuff or take notes, it gets fairly painful (again, especially if you switch between devices a lot. Otherwise, you tend to get used to the quirks and intuitively manage to somewhat deal with them).

In my case, that hasn't stopped the H2O from becoming my "daily driver", but it hasn't stopped me from being frustrated with it either, even more so when I happen to be digging up the PW2 to test stuff in Kindle-land .

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@rashkae: Huh, my bad, I was convinced it only worked with the kePub renderer, thanks .

To expand on the clipping issue, AFAIK, the only remaining issue is with the bottom line, which may, with some unfortunate mix of fonts, font sizes, line spacing and margins (or lack thereof), cause it to be slightly clipped (i.e., straddling across two pages).

Not quite,, the question aboiut clipping was with regards to Full screen Mode. And there are two different clipping bugs specific to full screen reading on Kepub.

If there are left/right margins defined on the page, text will clip on both sides. Page margins need to be set to 0 for proper display. (Margins on Paragphs not affected)

Second, there is a subtle bit of clipping on the right hand edge of text. You will only see it on certain characters. (Italic f in most fonts makes it very clear, though all fonts have a few px missing on the right side.). this is corrected by adding a couple pt padding to the left/right of Paragraphs and Indents.

I never felt that text selection on H20 is in any way worse than Kindle. In fact, the H20 second edition is much better/faster/more accurate than the KOA 2 (This mostly applies to Kepub.. there are some performance issues with normal epub.)

[NiLuJe]

@rashkae:

I do still have a CSS override on conversion (via the kePub output plugin) for

@page {margin: 0;}
div, p {widows:1; orphans:1;}

which possibly explains why I never even experienced the L/R issues . And that's in FS mode.

[koboy]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

To answer my own question, in case anyone else is interested, the answer is WH Smiths, if you are lucky or prepared to do a lot of work.
I went to the Reading WH Smiths, and it is as though someone got a bunch of devices in about two years ago, unboxed them and fixed them to a display stand, then walked away and completely forgot about them.
The devices on display were the H2O (original, not edition 2), Aura edition 2 and Aura One, so nothing since late 2016. They didn't seem to have any of them actually as boxes for sale, I think the boxes were Touch and Glo.
None of the devices had ever been connected to the network and setup, so they were just sitting at the initial setup screen, useless to actual demo functionality.
I set up the One on a tethered hotspot and had a good play on it.
Ultimately as soon as I got to use it, I knew it was the one I wanted, the flush screen alone made it worth it for be, getting dust in the gap between the screen and the bevels bugs the hell out of me.

John Lewis seems to have discontinued all Kobo models except the Clara, and the standard PC World setup is also just to have a Clara, so actually getting hand-on with other models has been quite difficult.

By comparison, buying the One was very easy, as Argos stock all the models.

i like to buy from Argos because you have peace of mind that if for any reason you are not 100% happy with whatever it is you have bought you can take it back and either exchange it or get a full refund. hopefully that won't apply on this particular occasion enjoy

best wishes koboy