Kobo on sale at WH Smith

[julesjones]

For those of you in the UK, when I went into Smith's on Friday night I discovered that the Kobo sale is back on. The Mini is 30 quid, the Touch is 40, and one of the high end tablets was reduced from around £160 to £100. There were also various offers on the accessories.

While I have some niggles with the Mini, particularly its touchscreen, I'm very glad I bought mine and think it's good value at the price (as long as you don't mind Kobo's insistence on linking the hardware to a Kobo account whether or not you ever use the account).

The Touch isn't just bigger than the Mini, with the standard 6" screen format, it has better technical specs, including better screen, larger battery and on-board memory, plus a memory card slot. I prefer the Mini because with my hand problems it's easier for me to hold, but most people would probably prefer the Touch.

Comments

[choirwoman]

I love my Kobo Touch! I'd probably run to WHSmith and buy a spare (or one to give away) if I was in the UK. As it is, we bought the twins their own for their 18th birthday (last Monday) at just over 100 euros each.

My other half has a Kobo Aura, and I envy the backlight on late summer evenings on the roof terrace but otherwise I'm very satisfied.

[julesjones]

At that price I'm seriously considering getting a Touch as well, to use at home where I can put it in a stand if necessary. But I'm not sure if it synchs books that weren't bought through Kobo, which affects the usefulness of having two of them.

[choirwoman]

I recommend Calibre for keeping track of what is where. (I think I have a total of two books bought via Kobo; the rest are Gutenberg, and fanfic, and my own and my friends', and bought from elsewhere, and illegal rips.)

[julesjones]

I installed Calibre when I got the Mini, but have not really used it yet. Most of what's on there at the moment is sideloaded Hugo Voting Packet, so I haven't yet needed file management software to keep track.

I had a Kobo account already, had bought a couple of things from them to put on the CyBook, and decided that they were my distributor of choice for commercial ebooks -- it's one reason why I was willing to spring for the Mini then and there when I first saw it at $STUPID_PRICE instead of going home to research it first. But dear god their desktop app is a piece of junk...

[watervole]

Which is why you'll end up using Calibre all the time once you get used to it. Sony's decktop ap is junk too. It takes real effort for me to go out and seek different software, but Sony managed it - and lost my custom as a book buyer in the process.

[julesjones]

I do need to sit down and start organising stuff, because I've had a binge on the free and sale stuff recently. Most of this is Kindle format so I'm reading it on the desktop anyway, but I'll end up forgetting what I've got.

[cunobaros]

I've had my Kobo Glo for a bit less than a year now, and love it. I heartily second the recommendations for Calibre, too. I've bought most of my books from publishers and authors, and downloaded from Gutenberg, but have bought the occasional book via Kobo or Amazon, too.

I just tell Calibre to import, and to convert .mobi to .epub, when needed. (There is a well known and well loved open source plug-in that strips DRM from Kindle books, by the way.)

[julesjones]

Yes, I need to get hold of that plug-in. I have a number of legally bought Kindle books which I need to convert to use on the Cybook and the Kobo.

[cunobaros]

It's made by Apprentice Alf

[choirwoman]

I'm glad I don't use the desktop app, then! (they don't have it for Linux. Stupid of them, because what their reader is running *is* basically Linux)

[jthijsen.livejournal.com]

I second the kobo recommendation as I'm very happy with mine. I actually like the connection to the kobo store, since the books there are quite reasonably priced.

[julesjones]

The problem is that the connection is compulsory, and that there is no password protection on the device. Which means that if you have your credit card details on your Kobo account for convenience, your credit card is open to abuse by anyone who picks the device up and decides to order a few things on your behalf. You can unlink the card, but it's a security hole until you do. And some people just don't like the idea of the device phoning the mothership so that Kobo can watch their reading habits.

But I'm perfectly happy to buy books from Kobo -- as I noted on the Dreamwidth comment thread, the reason I was willing to buy the Mini then and there without going home to research it first was that I already had a Kobo account and had settled on Kobo as my first choice ebook store. ePub, no DRM unless the publisher requests it, reasonably priced...