Archive for the 'toys' Category

Comparison: Kobo and iPad

Published on 27 June 2010 in ereaders, toys and reading. 5 Comments

Having played with both the Kobo and iPad for a bit now, I thought it might be worth noting my thoughts on these two devices, as ereaders.

Kobo:

  1. Light (221g), small, easy to hold in one hand. This makes the Kobo supremely portable and easy to carry around.
  2. You press a button to turn pages. Depending on my mood I find this to be either unobtrusive and just part of the reading experience, or annoying and slightly tiring (usually after I’ve read several chapters).
  3. I do get slightly annoyed because the buttons on the Kobo can get pressed while in my bag and I find myself right at the beginning of the book or looking at a completely different title altogether when I get the ereader out of my bag. It’s like having someone mess with your bookmark. I don’t have a case for it yet and do wonder what sort of case will prevent this sort of unwanted button pressing.
  4. eInk is definitely easier on the eyes. I can read and read and read on the Kobo and not feel any eyestrain. Reading outdoors or in sunlight - no problem.
  5. Buying from Borders is easy enough, pity they don’t have that many titles I want to read at present.
  6. On the other hand, the range of public domain titles is HUGE. I find myself actually wanting to read some of these classics. The idea of reading them on a computer screen was utterly unattractive to me but the Kobo means I have this amazing number of free books available to me. For instance I have just started reading The Warden by Anthony Trollope. (Thank you, Tom, for mentioning Trollope in the first place!) Am trying to stop myself from going nuts and downloading everything I’ve ever thought I ought to read…
  7. Lack of wireless connectivity is not a problem. This just means no distractions!
  8. Similarly, the single function (read, read, read) is also not an issue. There is an Easter egg on the Kobo, which when I first stumbled on it made me have a slight turn - oh no my Kobo’s got a weird virus! If you click on Help in the menu, then Home, then Help again, and voila! a poker game appears. (Yes it is possible to do this accidentally - see point 3 above)
  9. Long battery life. Because I keep connecting the Kobo to my pc to download things, I keep charging it, so I am not sure how long a full battery charge will actually last. However I can read for hours on it without decreasing the charge significantly. (the vendor says it can go for 2 weeks 0r 8000 page turns without needing a charge.)
  10. Doesn’t currently handle PDFs all that well. Font sizes can be too small. You can increase the font size but then you need to scroll up and down and across to read the document, which is irritating.

iPad and Kobo


iPad:

  1. Heavier in comparison (wifi model 680g) with the Kobo. This is not a big deal but I do find it more comfortable to hold the iPad with both hands.
  2. Touch screen is very nice, easy to flick from page to page.
  3. No problems with accidental switching on while travelling.
  4. I do find that the glare of the backlit screen can get a bit tiring after a while. I don’t find it very comfortable to look at outdoors, and in certain conditions the reflection on the screen makes it completely unreadable.
  5. Backlighting does mean it’s possible to read without other lighting.
  6. Where the iPad becomes an Uber ereader is the fact that I can use it with a range of booksellers - Borders, Amazon, Stanza. This means I potentially have a huge range of books available to me without having to go through any steps to remove DRM from ebook files, and convert them from one format to another etc.
  7. Wireless delivery is a huge, convenient plus when it comes to buying books. It would be far worse for my credit card if everything I wanted to read was actually available to me as an Australian reader…
  8. All the apps and alerts can be distracting. Oh wait, my Words game opponent has just made a move, let me go and see if I can beat their score…
  9. Battery life on the iPad is impressive for all the bright and shiny things it’s able to do (~10 hours), however the Kobo definitely beats it.
  10. PDFs display wonderfully on the iPad. In fact I think it will be The Device to use for catching up on all those stacks of journal articles and conference papers that I always seem to have following me around.

Other things: my iPad looks quite filthy. Dog hairs adhere to it, as do crumbs and lots and lots of finger prints. Luckily this doesn’t particularly bother me. Some of the apps for the iPad are amazing. There are loads of accessories for the iPad, too. Still waiting for Borders to start selling cases for the Kobo. I just hope they get enough stocks of whatever cases they choose to sell, given the huge run on Kobos (I believe they have sold out in Australia). The iPad seems to have sent ereader sellers into a spin and I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of change in this area over the coming months. What I really want is more content for Australian readers.

Gadgets galore

Published on 22 June 2010 in toys, reading and technology. 4 Comments

For a household that is composed of people who don’t describe themselves as Apple fans, we sure do have a lot of Apple gear. Below, two iPads, three iPods, one iPhone.

Gadgets

All of these devices are still in use. The iPod Shuffle and iPod Touch are mine, and I use them at different times.

The Shuffle is great when I go away on short trips as its long battery life means I don’t need to worry about charging it while I am away.

The iPod Touch I’d have to say has been my absolute favourite gadget for a while now. I play games on it, read tweets and feeds, and check my email. I have all my music on it. It’s a 32gb model and almost full. Now that I have an iPad, I’m not sure whether the iPod Touch will be retiring. I suspect not, at least not for the time being, as there are still a couple of games on it that I enjoy playing. I haven’t bothered to try to get iPad versions of these games, mainly because I’m not sure how good they would be to play on the iPad.

As for the iPhone, because I got it after having used an iPod Touch for many months, it didn’t have the wow factor for me. That said, I’ve gotten very used to having a smartphone, and it’s wonderful that you can do so much with it. I check and write email on it more than I use it to make calls I think.

The iPad? Well, we became a dual-iPad household very quickly, despite scoffing at the idea of the device initially. (Note to self: don’t scoff. Or at least don’t do it so publicly.)

I think I know what aspect of the iPad’s Bright Shininess attracted me once M brought one home: the fact that the iPad could be the Uber Ebook Reader. It’s the Apps, darling! On the iPad, the ebook apps are actually attractive to me. I currently have four ebook apps on my iPad:

  1. Kindle
  2. Borders Kobo
  3. Stanza
  4. iBooks (this almost doesn’t count as there isn’t much content available. Currently it provides Australian readers with some 18,000+ public domain titles only, which I can get/read elsewhere.)

On the iPod Touch/iPhone, the reading experience felt too… small… constrained. I don’t particularly enjoy reading on the little screen. (I know others haven’t minded this. I suspect it’s just me.) On the iPad however this reluctance has disappeared. So far I have read two ebooks on the iPad - one using the Kindle app, the other using Stanza. The iPad means that I now have access to many more different ebook sellers (and formats). This is A Good Thing, even though the content is still very patchy. I have to keep reminding myself to be patient, and that ebook availability is going to change over the coming months. Do ebooks really only constitute 1.5% of book sales at present?

I haven’t been using my black Kobo since I got the iPad, but I don’t think I will necessarily stop using it. It’s just that I don’t have anything on the Kobo that I really want to read at the moment. (Yes, I have the 100 classics. I have to be in the mood.) On the iPad my reading was perfect escapism for my long weekend mood: Village Affairs by Miss Read (Kindle) and Clear and Convincing Proof by Kate Wilhelm (Stanza). (English village school marm nostalgia, and a case of murder most foul solved by super lawyer. Perfect!)

The Kobo is very comfortable to hold and to look at when you’re out and about. The iPad is heavy enough that it’s definitely more comfortable if you lean it against something. If the lighting is wrong and there is too much reflection on the iPad screen you aren’t really able to read properly. However the backlit screen does mean you can read in bed at night with minimal disturbance to your bed partner.

I wish I could predict where we’ll be in five years with ebooks - actually no, I think we’re in enough of a state of flux at the moment that it’s hard to say where we’ll be in a year! Price cuts? Will someone work out a great distribution model that works for everyone (publishers, authors, readers)? Will the one Uber Ereader be available?

I’ll just keep reading.

First impressions of the Kobo

Published on 30 May 2010 in toys, reading, books and technology. 4 Comments

I collected a black Kobo ebook reader from Borders in the city on Tuesday. I gather the demand has been quite high, with stocks now sold out in Australia. (They sold out in the Perth shop on the first day these were released in Australia, 19 May 2010; they got more in quite quickly, but are now advising people to place their orders quickly if they want one.) With a $200 pricetag I think many people (like me) can justify satisfying their curiosity and buying one.

Pros:
Kobo front view

  • The Kobo is light and pleasant to hold. I like the “quilted” back, which helps one’s grip on the device. It has a 15cm screen and weighs a mere 221g (lighter than many paperbacks!). More specs and features here, if you’re into that sort of thing.
  • Font setting and sizing. There are two font types: serif or sans serif. I prefer the serif font. There are five size settings for fonts. I have set it to the smallest setting which seems to make the reading experience most book-like. It’s now very clear to me why I haven’t particularly enjoyed reading on the iPod Touch – the screen was too small and I didn’t like the fact that you could be reading one sentence per screen. The continuity of the text was broken for me by having to scroll through screens too often. With the Kobo, depending on the formatting of the particular book, it can be almost exactly like looking at the page of a paper book.
  • You don’t have to turn the reader off when you’re not reading. With eInk, unless you are “turning a page” practically no energy is used for the display, and hence the battery charge lasts a long time. Borders/Kobo says a charge can last a fortnight.
  • Simple controls. The D-Pad (Directional Pad) is simple to use for flicking from page to page. I love the fact that there is a lot of space to hold the Kobo without accidentally hitting any other buttons. It also looks unfussy.
  • ePub format. I’m glad the Kobo accepts this format which does mean you can put ePub books from other sites on the reader. It also handles PDF.

Kobo back view
Cons (more like quibbles):

  • Content. There isn’t that much contemporary content I’d like to buy and read from Borders at the moment. I have bought one ebook: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, but that’s it. There are a few titles listed in the Borders ebook section that would interest me - but I’ve already read them (it probably doesn’t help that I read lots). Others have noted this dearth of content for Australian readers. Still, with the iPad now out, and Google about to launch their ebook store, it’s likely that ebook availability will improve over the coming months. (On a professional note, I’m really going to have to see what publishers are doing for ebooks that we in libraries can lend our users.)
  • Formats. It would be nice if the Kobo could cope with more formats. (It’s possible that this won’t be such a big issue. I have installed Calibre on my machine. This application converts ebooks from one format to another. Must experiment more.)
  • Time it takes to load. When starting a new chapter the Kobo takes a few seconds (around 15 - 20?) to load. When you’re reflecting on what you’re reading this is fine, but if the book is nail-bitingly exciting this is a minor annoyance.
  • Accidentally hitting the side buttons or on/off switch (on top on the device). Again, not a big deal, but I’d rather not have to reload my book because I switched off the reader by mistake.

The eInk refresh isn’t that difficult to get used to. I wonder why I reacted so negatively to it (for I did) the first time I tried an ebook reader. I think the first ebook reader I looked at was the Iliad. Perhaps I needed to give it more time and actually try reading things on it before making my judgement. Granted, I only played with those readers briefly and didn’t take them home to try reading documents or anything like that. I guess it’s hard to have a really informed opinion just by looking at something for a few minutes. (Isn’t this what I usually say about any tech? – you have to really try it, engage, participate before you can really say if you like it or not. A brief once-over, or worse, just reading someone else’s review of a product or service, isn’t enough for you to form a judgement.) This time I am liking it.

Kobo with other things

Although the Kobo comes preloaded with 100 public domain books, I have already downloaded a few books from Project Gutenberg. Perhaps I can use the Kobo to increase my reading of The Classics. This would be no bad thing.

The Kobo on my desk

I have now finished Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and The Call of the Wild by Jack London on the Kobo. I am surprised, the Kobo is an enjoyable reading experience.

I don’t know what this means for my reading habits yet. I still have stacks of paper books I want to read, and most books that I want to read are not available electronically. Am I going to keep reading classics and the odd contemporary title that I can get online, because I like the Kobo experience so much? Am I really going to stop reading paper books? Or will the novelty of the Kobo (for it is definitely a novelty at the moment) wear off?