Geek Toys: Kobo eReader
Some of you may remember my niggling sense of dissatisfaction with the Foxit eSlick I bought late last year- it died in under a month, spent 2 months in China being repaired, dreadful battery life. In July I bought a replacement device- the Kobo eReader. The two devices look and work similar so my review of the Kobo is going to be in comparison to the eSlick.
Pros
- The button press for Next Page require less effort than the eSlick. This doesn't seem like a big thing until you realise how many clicks you do and the strain it puts on your thumb.
- Screen quality is *fantastic*. Letters are crisper and clearer.
- it's primarily an epub reader, which are *tiny* so you fit a lot more books on
- construction feels more solid than eslick.
- the battery life is so much better. While it doesn't last the thousands of page-turns promised, I also don't need to recharge every day.
- the popup menu that you can get from anywhere is good.
- you can browse your library based on title or author, plus there is an option to select a specific letter to start browsing from.
Cons
- the library software only displays a max of 7 books a page and while you can jump letters it's still pretty unwieldy to browse through a lot of books. I ended up removing most of my books and while you can expand the current memory with a memory card I don't really see the point while there's no way to easily manage large numbers of books.
- while you can read pdfs it's a pretty technical version of reading. Print is tiny and enlarging it doesn't refit the content to the page so you have to scroll around. I ended up converting all my pdfs to epubs.
- the eSlick let you jump to pages to get through books. The Kobo requires chapters and you can move through chapters- which is good, except that converted files don't have chapters.
- it's managed to be even more right-hand oriented than the eSlick. They both have a 4-direction pad as the primary navigation device but where the eslick used the down motion to move to the next screen, the Kobo uses the right side. So it's even more unwieldy to try use your left hand to give your right-one a bit of a rest.
Overall I think the Kobo's a better device. It feels more solid, the screen quality and battery life are better, but the software could use some work especially in areas where the eSlick got it right- which was managing large collections of books on the device. Since Foxit are primarily a software company, it shouldn't be a surprise that that's the part where they stood out. If you could combine the two areas of strength, I think you'd get a really good budget eReader that doesn't tie you to the Amazon empire or give you eyestrain.
Pros
- The button press for Next Page require less effort than the eSlick. This doesn't seem like a big thing until you realise how many clicks you do and the strain it puts on your thumb.
- Screen quality is *fantastic*. Letters are crisper and clearer.
- it's primarily an epub reader, which are *tiny* so you fit a lot more books on
- construction feels more solid than eslick.
- the battery life is so much better. While it doesn't last the thousands of page-turns promised, I also don't need to recharge every day.
- the popup menu that you can get from anywhere is good.
- you can browse your library based on title or author, plus there is an option to select a specific letter to start browsing from.
Cons
- the library software only displays a max of 7 books a page and while you can jump letters it's still pretty unwieldy to browse through a lot of books. I ended up removing most of my books and while you can expand the current memory with a memory card I don't really see the point while there's no way to easily manage large numbers of books.
- while you can read pdfs it's a pretty technical version of reading. Print is tiny and enlarging it doesn't refit the content to the page so you have to scroll around. I ended up converting all my pdfs to epubs.
- the eSlick let you jump to pages to get through books. The Kobo requires chapters and you can move through chapters- which is good, except that converted files don't have chapters.
- it's managed to be even more right-hand oriented than the eSlick. They both have a 4-direction pad as the primary navigation device but where the eslick used the down motion to move to the next screen, the Kobo uses the right side. So it's even more unwieldy to try use your left hand to give your right-one a bit of a rest.
Overall I think the Kobo's a better device. It feels more solid, the screen quality and battery life are better, but the software could use some work especially in areas where the eSlick got it right- which was managing large collections of books on the device. Since Foxit are primarily a software company, it shouldn't be a surprise that that's the part where they stood out. If you could combine the two areas of strength, I think you'd get a really good budget eReader that doesn't tie you to the Amazon empire or give you eyestrain.