upgrade dilemma

[piranha]

my kobo "wifi" is showing its age -- which is quite amusing, considering it's less than 2 years old. alas no more firmware upgrades seem to be coming along, since the company has now 2 further advanced models, and while always promising not to forget us "old" users, yeah right, i know insincere pep talks when i hear them. the interface is SLOW, parts of it are too slow for me to put up with anymore. organization? what organization. i have to modify filenames carefully so i can read them at all. also, the battery is holding less and less charge, and it's not replaceable.

i've taken to the ebook experience like a , uh, fish to water. ;) i hardly buy print books anymore, unless i know the author personally, or the book absolutely cannot be had in electronic format (and then i'll scan it). i love the light little thing; it weighs less than a paperback and it easier to hold, and takes less space to carry along. the e-ink is restful for my eyes. and i buy a lot of ebooks; more than i used to buy print books. there is no space issue with them. :)

so, i am thinking of upgrading. but i am not entirely sure buying another ebook reader is the answer. part of why i bought a kobo was that it was canadian, and i wanted to throw my purchasing power behind somebody other than amazon or sony, and hey, it was a nice thought for a "local" company to be successful in that market. which surprisingly they have been; in canada they have 46% of market share compared to 24% for amazon and 18% for sony. but now rakuten (a huge japanese conglomerate) owns kobo, so that incentive has gone away. sure, better rakuten than amazon, but still... no longer "local", no longer smallish. yes, i do have major peeves about large corporations.

still, the kobo "touch" looks decent, and it's come down in price which is now lower than what i originally paid for my first kobo. i am absolutely not going to buy a kindle, ever; amazon's walled garden philosophy makes me sick. am not all that interested in sony either. maybe a nook. maybe one of the "also ran" models, like from bookeen. or maybe i should be looking at android tablets? kobo's newest, the "vox", runs on android. that does away with the restfulness of the e-ink, and if android, why not get a real tablet then instead of a stunted ereader?

do you have an ereader and/or tablet? what do you love/hate about it? what would you buy instead if you were in the market? i'm not quite up-to-date with the tech anymore.

Comments

[afuna]

Note: I only have the Nook. I've played around with other ereaders but not for extended periods of time.

If I were to get an ebook reader right now? Nook Simple Touch with Glowlight (LED lighting built in -- still e-ink, but with built-in lighting which can be turned on or off, and apparently is not painful to the eyes)

Though -- just based on the few minutes I was playing in the store, I am massively envious of how the Kobo has the % read right in the list of books *g* (which the nook doesn't do)


Con for Nook: no way to buy things directly from it, if you're not in the US. I just sideload, but that may not be what you're used to.

[piranha]

oh, i totally don't care about buying directly from the device; in fact i am not doing it from the kobo because they force google analytics on me (and i'd have to root it to avoid that). i always side-load; and especially since i don't buy from just one place, it's just much better for me to handle library management myself.

yeah, kobo has had the % read all along. i don't know that i'd miss it if i no longer had it. i wordcount all my fiction so i know how long any given book is, and can pick according to my mood.

i wonder whether i can look at a nook anywhere around here. when it first came out, B&N wasn't smart enough to sell it outside of the US, or i might've bought one instead of the kobo at the time.

[liv]

I have a Sony PRS-505, which is the last model they made with a button interface rather than touchscreen. I've basically found exactly the same pros and cons you report here: I love the fact that it's light to carry and easy to read, I buy far more ebooks and spend far more money on ebooks than I ever did on paperbacks.

But yes, it's showing its age (which is only a couple of years *sigh*). Battery life degrades the worst, exacerbated by the fact that the machine won't charge over USB any more, so I have to actually plug it in to a wall socket, not always available when I'm travelling. It's getting to the point where I'm carrying a couple of dead tree books in my bag just in case I run out of battery, which sort of defeats the point of having a light, portable reader! And it's not getting upgrades and the interface and file organization are clunky. Worst of all is that the e-ink screen is also getting fainter and fainter with time, besides which it's prone to fail catastrophically; this is already my third reader in less than two years because of that problem.

I don't want a crippled Android device, I want a black-and-white e-ink dedicated reader with a battery life of at least days, preferably weeks. And I don't want touchscreen, and I'm about as allergic to Amazon as you are, so I think that leaves me with the low end Kobo when I have to replace my current one. I really do not want to be having to buy a new hundred dollar device more frequently than annually, it's environmentally as well as financially irresponsible. But as far as I can work out, only the Kindle is really durable, and it's not worth selling my soul to Amazon for, so I'm kind of caught.

[green_knight]

I know of exactly one person who is on their first Kindle - it appears that Amazon's customer service is very good about replacing Kindles which fail for whatever reason; but at least in the circles I move - where people take their e-readers places and use them; a device that only ever sits in a cupboard might be different - Kindles aren't all that durable, as far as I can tell.

I've not looked at any ereaders, so I can't help with that. (I have an iPhone, that's ereader enough for me. I don't think I would buy an e-ink device.)

[kore]

it appears that Amazon's customer service is very good about replacing Kindles which fail for whatever reason

Yeah, but apparently a lot of the time when you get a replacement, it's a refurbished one - not new. My Kindle is constantly acting up these days, but I don't want to just get a replacement because I've heard stories from people about shitty ones.

sigh.

[kore]

I have a Kindle - I bought it not that long ago - and they are really not that durable, or not much more than ordinary e-readers, anyway. Amazon customer service comes right out and says the life expectancy is about two years, which is pretty much what the warranty is for.

[piranha]

oh, battery lives -- don't get me started! (too late ;).

all companies lie about battery life. or rather, they get very "creative" about it. when i bought my first kobo, it came advertised with 8000 page clicks, which i translated to 8000 pages of reading before it would need a battery charge. that sounded amazing.

and it was. amazing fantasy. because no, i don't even get remotely close to 8000 pages read on a single battery charge, not even when the device was brand new. ~1000 max. i did actually test this once, and you CAN get 8000 page clicks, if all you do is click, one right after another (and not all clicks register as a page turn). so that means i have to recharge it every couple of days (and lately that has shrunk to 1.5 days, which translates to every day, since i hate running out of battery in the middle of a read).

same with the vaunted "4, 6, 8 weeks" of battery life. yeah, if you read max an hour a day and power the reader off every time. i don't. i read several hours a day, sometimes in short spurts, and i don;t power the thing off because it takes too long to boot from cold. if and if i used wireless, it would run out of power much sooner.

the kobo isn't what i'd call very durable either; the button needs super-glue surgery after just a few months, and it feels overall too flimsy to just throw in my bag; i always put it in a more stable cover. it does survive falls from a bed onto carpet, but i wouldn't want to drop it onto hardwood when standing up. none of these things are built to last -- which makes sense if manufacturers estimate a 2 year life span. from what i've read, picketbooks and sony's are somewhat more sturdily built than the rest.

you might want to look at pocketbooks -- i will too.

why don't you like touch? i think i might like it if it's the right kind of touch, though i am mostly not into gestures. not sure whether i am just hidebound. the kobo's big right-hand button is not particularly great for me ergonomically.

i keep wanting something that's built for MY hand, you know? but none of them are.

[jesse_the_k]

I'm subscribing to this post, because I adore e-reading, and my iPod Touch works pretty damn well. Except only around two sentences fit on one screen :(

[piranha]

*nod*. the paramour won an ipod touch and i inherited it, but i can't abide reading on it. i use it to listen to music and to play games. same with my android phone -- there's just not enough screen for me to be comfortable reading anything beyond a text message.

[foxfirefey]

You might have some luck looking at posts or making one in the ebooks community!

[zeborah]

I rather like my Pocketbook 360 (which doesn't do DRM and I think is also no longer produced but Pocketbooks that do do DRM are still produced). Not local-to-you but still a small company so that might be a draw for you?

[piranha]

oh, pocketbook, of course. thanks for the reminder! yeah, that would definitely be an option.. i remove all DRM anyway, so it doesn't matter whether the device supports it. the 360 was too small for me at the time, but i should check into their newer ones.

[maize]

I was a relatively early adopter (by North American standards). I started with a Sony PRS-505, then later got a Sony PRS-600 I believe was the model? Their first "touch" one. I've used many Kobos, although none of the current generation. And I'm now switching between my Android phone and my iPad.

The advantages basically come down to only having to tote one thing to do all the stuff I want to do. For that, my phone has been best, and reading on it is surprisingly reasonable -- much more than I thought it would be. However, I find that my phone lacks in other areas. (For example, it's not as nice as the iPad for playing games.)

So most of the time -- like, 99% of the time -- I read on my iPad. It's not as nice as your Kobo for reading. The emissive screen *is* less comfortable, although you get used to it (and it's nice being able to read in the dark). The biggest drawback is that it's very heavy compared to a Kobo or a Sony Reader, and cumbersome to hold one-handed. I did eventually get a technique down which is comfortable and handy on public transit, but it took a while, and I have pretty big hands and arms.

I've lately been considering buying a Kobo Touch, but only because I'm starting to feel guilty about charging my iPad every night, where I used to charge my Sony Reader once a month. We'll see. I'm not sure that the cumulative energy savings are better for the planet than buying a whole new device, with the attendant manufacturing and disposal footprints, etc. Plus, it would mean going back to carrying multiple devices or just doing without on those days where I start reading and realize I don't have any focus and feel like just playing a game.

So in short, the iPad is a notably inferior reading experience to a dedicated eReader in almost every obvious metric, but it all kind of washes away in a sea of "you get used to it", and for me, I found that the convenience factors far outweighed the aesthetic considerations.

(Another plus: Because you can install apps on it, I can read via Bluefire Reader, which is a good ePub (with Adobe DRM supported) reader that isn't also owned by a device manufacturer. I like that separation of church and state. I buy most of my books from Kobo, although occasionally from Sony and more occasionally from other stories, or borrowing from the library, and they all seem to work fine).

Disclosure: One of my partners works for Kobo. I don't think I boosted Kobo much in this, but just in the interest of openness.

[piranha]

i looked at the ipad, and it's just too large and heavy for me, and the shiny shiny screen makes my eyes hurt when they just think about reading on it. what is it with all the shininess anyway? i had to actually seek for a wide screen monitor that wasn't shiny -- i don't CARE whether it gives a sharper image; i don't want my screen to glare at me.

i have to charge my kobo wifi every 2 days -- i read a lot, and let it sleep the rest of the time, so that's not really much better. but yeah, the e-ink and the lightness are definite selling points. i might give up the e-ink, but only for a really amazing screen, i think.

this is my 2nd kobo; the first one (which i bought as soon as it came out) was replaced at no charge because the button conked after only a couple of months. this one's button has lived longer, but i had to superglue it -- that seems an incredibly common experience, and they no longer replace them as easily from what i hear. one reason the touch is tempting to me is that it no longer has that blasted button.

[maize]

I agree about the shiny vs. matte trends in screens. When I bought my previous computer, I actually had to pay extra for a matte screen. When I bought the one I'm using now, matte wasn't even an option. (It's a desktop, so I *can* try to angle it so I get less glare, but it still irritates me.) I actually find glare on the iPad to not be a big problem, possibly because the screen is so bright, except if there are a lot of fingerprints on it. This does lead to the slightly annoying practice of having to pack a microfibre cloth in the case and clean it every two or three times I use it. I would say that the size and weight *are* big factors, though. I wonder if something intermediate, like a Playbook or something, would work better? Although I must admit that I'd be wary of buying RIM technology right now if I wanted it for the long haul. But I'm sure other manufacturers make lighter-weight, 7" tablets. (There have been piles of rumours lately that Apple may be releasing a 7" version of the iPad.)

[piranha]

fortunately it seems the shininess fad has peaked -- staples had 3 decent, different non-shiny monitors this time -- last yeah when i checked they had one tiny, low-end.

*laughs at the microfibre cloth*. actually i am already carrying one for my android phone -- and my glasses. for some reason i really hate fingerprints on screens -- i mean, if they distort, sure, it makes sense to hate them, but i hate them out of principle. weird.

considering how fast the tech moves, i've decided not to care whether RIM will be around in two years (though i hope for them that they will be). but yeah, the 7" tablet seems to become quite common. toshiba makes some lovely tablets too.

apple is on my personal shitlist, so i'm gonna treat them mostly like i treat amazon, except i am not ready to give up my mac. *sigh*. why are so many large corporations evil. why can't we all just get along and sing kumbaya? *snicker*.

[maize]

I should add that from a reading and ergonomics perspective, I think the Sony PRS-505 was the pinnacle. Unfortunately, it's quite old, so it's likely going to be the same scenario you're already in. Their Touch technology made the screen and interface not as nice, and I haven't looked at their very latest offerings.

My Touch is still going strong -- I gave it to a friend. My PRS-505 would have been going strong except that I dropped it once in a sort of "perfect storm" way such I actually propelled it at the floor with considerable force, the cover caught on something and flung itself open, and it struck corner-first on the polished concrete floor of our offices. Even with that, the device was still completely fine, but the plastic power switch had popped off, so the only way to turn it on from sleep was to plug in a USB cable (to an active device) so it would wake up. Still, I commend that even after a moment of that kind of violence, everything but one tiny bit of plastic was fine. I could probably have fashioned a replacement power switch had I tried.

In short, the Sony devices have been pretty rugged. My wife, who has always had Kobos, has gone through several in a much shorter time.

[kore]

I got a Kindle pretty much out of brand-name stupidity a while back - I wish I hadn't, and had gone with a Nook. A while back coffeeandink did a big post on e-readers: http://coffeeandink.dreamwidth.org/1135083.html?nc=70#comments

[piranha]

oh, don't fret -- i might have have gotten a kindle too if i hadn't already hated amazon. some of the kindles are darn sexy.

thanks for the link!

[firecat]

I read books on my LJ Optimus phone running Android and on my iPad. WRT the former, I've found an unexpected bonus in reading on a tiny screen -- I have it configured to display about 1/3 of a mass market paperback page, which is just enough for me to read in one gulp. (As my eyesight has gotten worse, I spend more time losing and trying to re-find my place on the page of a paper book.) However, I only read fluff on it, because the device is too small to comfortably interact with in terms of bookmarking/searching/taking notes.

On both the phone and the iPad I have a reader app that lets me change the brightness of the screen with a swipe. Changing the brightness while I read helps with eye fatigue. (I suspect that e-ink is still more restful though.)

[piranha]

i tried reading on my phone, and just.... no. i'm amazed that people can, if they read any serious amount at all. your example hadn't occurred to me -- that's a good point. i am losing my place more often as well, but that seems to be a scrolling-only issue so far; as long as paging actually does a proper page (which both apple preview and the kobo can do), there's nothing to get lost. i've had bad eyesight all my life, it's a little amusing that it seems to be taking its time getting worse -- thank ghu.

i've been pondering one of the new, almost ridiculously large smartphones, like the galaxy note. since i'm not actually using the phone much as a phone, but for shopping lists, games, and geocaching, that might actually work out. except, yeah, the e-ink. i really do like that; i spend too much time in front of an LCD anyway.

*mope*. why doesn't anyone make the perfect device just for me?! i want a phone that's a full personal PIM, that's easy to carry, has an actual keyboard, and is large enough to read ebooks on, in colour e-ink, *snicker*. oh yeah, and cheap. and comes with a pony.

[flarenut]

I have a nook color, which I like but hardly ever use because I also have a xoom and my smartphone. The nook is a bit heavy, but it's nice that it Just Works for the most part. I read on my phone pretty much everywhere, on the xoom at night in bed and occasionally around the house.

I guess that the weight doesn't really bother me for any of these, although I know it sometimes does for my spouse. Most of the books I read are from feedbooks, not because I like the selection but because at current ebook prices I'd be spending a couple grand a year easy, and I have to save that money for more laser diodes and stepper motors...

[piranha]

I'd be spending a couple grand a year easy, and I have to save that money for more laser diodes and stepper motors..

yeah, i am spending that easily. we all must have our priorities. ;) i am fortunate as a reader, that books come ahead of just about anything else. but yeah, the prices are evil (outside of the small publishing gay romance/smut category). oh no, i am not gonna go off on a rant about stupid licensing models, since i have decided to ignore them anyway. i want my used books, dammit, and i want them electronically. i know publishers never liked them anyway, and have gleefully found a way to do away with them for ebooks -- but then they whine incessantly about piracy? yeah, people, like that's surprising?

the nook is heavy? oh, the colour nook. i expect all the colour LCD models are considerably heavier than the e-ink ones. another point to stick with e-ink for me. it really does make a difference, since i mostly read in bed and can't just lay the thing down.