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Kobo ereader - anyone got one?
cjwood23 - 20/3/12 at 12:12 PM

Chaps,
Looking for an ereader - getting through loads of books now that I'm a train commuter and carrying hardbacks etc in my bag is getting to be a bit of a pain.

Like the look of the Kobo (either the wifi or touch version), and the 'open format' appeals to me as it means that I don't have to faff around converting stuff (limited time in the evening with kids and stuff!).

The question I have is are the amazon ebooks compatible with the kobo without conversion? or am I better off gettng them from other sites?

Also like the idea that I can borrow from my local library - how does that work???

Cheers

britishtrident - 20/3/12 at 12:43 PM

Forget the Kobo it is just a very slow Android Tablet and the screen isn't that great for reading.

Either get a proper Kindle or as an alternative load the Kindle app on to a smart phone. You can get the Kindle app for most smart phones, tablets netbooks and PCs. On an Android phone the quality is really good I do most of my reading on my Orange San Francisco Android phone because it is with me everywhere.

I tried the Kobo reader app for Android and its pretty poor.

GeoffT - 20/3/12 at 01:24 PM

quote:

Forget the Kobo it is just a very slow Android Tablet and the screen isn't that great for reading.


.....I think you're probably referring the the Kobo Vox, which is, as you say is an android tablet. The two models referred to by the o/p are genuine e-readers.

I've got the Kobo Touch, like yourself I dismissed the Kindle because of it's inability to handle epub files, the most popular format. To be honest though, there are plenty of file converters around so I'm not sure that's really an issue and it's rumoured that Kindle's future offerings will support epub anyway.

Mine seems to do the job well enough, the screen is pretty sharp and clear, if a little unresponsive to touch sometimes. The batteries don't seem to last quite as long as the manufacturer claims - but do they ever really?

Can't really compare it with any others as it's the only ereader I've ever had.......

cjwood23 - 20/3/12 at 01:52 PM

Just been and had a play with the kindle and kobo.
Have to say I didn't like the kindle that much - the buttons on the side seem a bit of a faff.
Yes the screen takes a bit longer to refresh on the kobo but I prefer the controls.

For £80 I think I'll give the kobo touch a punt.

My council are also trailing the ebook lending too - might save me a few quid on books!

splitrivet - 20/3/12 at 02:10 PM

Bought the daughter a kobo from asda 59 nuggetts seems ok.
Cheers,
Bob

[Edited on 20/3/12 by splitrivet]

Slimy38 - 20/3/12 at 02:12 PM

If you need file conversion, I recommend Calibre. Very easy to use, and can do batch conversions which is great if you have lots of books that you just want to convert into a single file type.

Oh, and it's free!

MikeRJ - 20/3/12 at 05:19 PM

quote:
Originally posted by cjwood23
Just been and had a play with the kindle and kobo.
Have to say I didn't like the kindle that much - the buttons on the side seem a bit of a faff.
Yes the screen takes a bit longer to refresh on the kobo but I prefer the controls.

For £80 I think I'll give the kobo touch a punt.

My council are also trailing the ebook lending too - might save me a few quid on books!


Just shows how people have different preferences - I love the buttons on the Kindle which allows you to move forward and back through pages without even moving your hand and I could see a touch screen (Kindle or Kobo) annoying me very quickly.

The lack of epub support really isn't an issue for anyone that can spend a couple of minutes using Calibre. It is such a great bit of open source software that I felt compelled to donate money to the developers.

splitrivet - 20/3/12 at 06:11 PM

Shouldnt need to convert a Kobo will handle mobi, epub and pdf.
Cheers,
Bob

bobinspain - 21/3/12 at 08:50 AM

Just shows how people have different preferences - I love the buttons on the Kindle which allows you to move forward and back through pages without even moving your hand and I could see a touch screen (Kindle or Kobo) annoying me very quickly.

The lack of epub support really isn't an issue for anyone that can spend a couple of minutes using Calibre. It is such a great bit of open source software that I felt compelled to donate money to the developers.






Bought the Kindle3 for SWMBO three months ago (see previous thread on here). She's a total technophobe, so I got the 4Gb wifi enabled version just in case she couldn't get on with it. (that way, I could pass it on to my daughter).

Bought 5,000 crime novels for 4 quid on ebay, (used calibre to download), and my wife hasn't picked up a paperback since.

It's the way forward. Perfick !

cjwood23 - 21/3/12 at 10:46 AM

Cheers guys.
Lot of usefull feed back.
I don't think there's much to choose from between the kobo and kindle to be honest.
They both seem to handle MOBI and PDF's, seems that the kindle wifi also has an inbuilt email address - wasn't aware of that.
The kobo has more capacity as you can add the SD card, so the fact that you can just drag stuff onto the card helps, thinking this might be usefull if I don't want to take my work laptop or hard copies of PDF's with me for meeting prep.

Can't beleive how many DVD's are on ebay with 1000's of books!!

Thanks again.

GeoffT - 21/3/12 at 03:16 PM

quote:

They both seem to handle MOBI and PDF's,



......the Kobo isn't brilliant at handling PDF's, you often find you end up with a tiny, almost unreadable font, or the very bottom line gets chopped off halfway up the characters. A quick conversion to epub (another vote for Calibre here) solves the problem though.

Not sure if the Kindle is any better in this respect....?

Geoff.