MSE Blog: Kindle vs Kobo: Battle of the e-readers

lil.smartie

I have a nook Color, from Barnes & Noble in the US but coming soon to Waterstones here too. I love it, it's like the vox, it's a scaled down tablet running Android with a B&N skin but can run std android via SD card too.

Love my e-reader & my husband loves not having stacks of books everywhere! He can also log into my account via the app on his tablet.

Kate

Nervous_Dave

I think this is worth mentioning, for anyone looking at these.

I have both a Kobo Touch and a Kindle. "Politically" if you will, I much, much prefer the Kobo, because I find Amazon's DRM policy and their inflexibility in permitting other formats to be representative of the one of the more insidious sides of emerging technologies. Amazon technically still own any books you buy, and can withdraw them at any time. You can get around this using Calibre and various plugins, but it makes your purchasing more complex if you are not technically minded. The Kobo on the other hand, gives you the ebooks as your own, and the legal rights are fairly similar to a paper book.

I do recommend downloading Calibre by the way, and learning how to use it, if for nothing else than cataloguing great wealth of ebooks available for free in the public domain, backing up your collection, and the many other things the software allows you to do, but I accept this is probably not for everyone.

Having said all of the above, I can attest that the Kobo Touch at least, has some very serious and gratuitous design flaws. When it works, it is fine. But the main reason I bought it was the SD card expansion slot, because my ebook collection is about 8GB. The Kobo is completely unable to handle 4GB of books on the SD card, to the point that it slows down and is functionally useless. With 100 books on the main memory I have no problem, but I cannot use it for the main thing I wanted - a device that would hold my entire collection.

A search around the internet shows me this is not an uncommon problem. With every new firmware release it seems, the Kobo Touch adds in new and exciting features, which completely !!!!!! up various old ones. This might not be such a problem if old versions of the firmware were available online so the Kobo could be downgraded to restore whatever functionality the user was looking for, but they're not, and Kobo won't release them. The Kindle on the other hand, gets glowing reviews in terms of software updates. I have had zero issues with functionality.

For me then, the Kindle accompanied with a decent knowledge of Calibre is by far the better option, because it is predictably reliable. I would like the SD card expansion slot, but I suppose I will have to consider upgrading to a new model with that support if and when one is released, and does not suffer from the same problems as the Kobo Touch.

joop

I've lent my mum (87 years young) my Kindle Keyboard and she absolutely loves it. She has got lost once or twice and I have had to make dashes across town to set her back up again, but the fact that she can hold it in her arthritic hands; change the font size, and the sheer enjoyment she is once again getting from getting her nose in a book is fantastic!

So, I would like to buy her an e-reader and would really like some opinions on the advantages she might find from either the smaller kindle or the touch screen KOBO. How easy to negotiate are they, and also are they too responsive to a very dear but rather clumsy technophobe?

Thanks

Clowance

Nervous_Dave wrote: »

.... the Kobo Touch at least, has some very serious and gratuitous design flaws. When it works, it is fine. But the main reason I bought it was the SD card expansion slot, because my ebook collection is about 8GB. The Kobo is completely unable to handle 4GB of books on the SD card, to the point that it slows down and is functionally useless. With 100 books on the main memory I have no problem, but I cannot use it for the main thing I wanted - a device that would hold my entire collection.

A search around the internet shows me this is not an uncommon problem. With every new firmware release it seems, the Kobo Touch adds in new and exciting features, which completely !!!!!! up various old ones. This might not be such a problem if old versions of the firmware were available online so the Kobo could be downgraded to restore whatever functionality the user was looking for, but they're not, and Kobo won't release them. The Kindle on the other hand, gets glowing reviews in terms of software updates. I have had zero issues with functionality.

I don't have a kobo but find a large collection of books makes the kindle slow down to an unacceptable level, so I store most on calibre.
For Kobo, how about having several SD cards with however many books it can cope with on each one? Or would this require say 100 sd cards?
HTH
ps I find the search facility on Kindle absolutely dire, is it any better on Kobo - ie if you want to search within a book for something?

Cardikid

After reviewing all the e-readers (well the Kindle vs Kobo) I decided on the Kobo as you could borrow books from the library, much prefer free things!! On setup it appears that you have to download the library books to a PC and then connect your kobo and sync'ing. Unfortunately there is no version of the software for a Linux PC (which my internet PC is), so be warned if this is what you wanted the Kobo for it fails BIG TIME. I would most probably have gone for the Kindle if I'd known as I don't mind paying 20p for books. Considering the Kobo is supposed to run on Linux it seems very strange that they haven't followed this up with a Linux PC version, I suppose thats because its Adobe software and not theirs. Very miffed.

terra_ferma

Can Calibre help? I don't know much about Linux, so I'm not sure, but if you haven't tried it's worth finding out.

laura1976

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas and loved it so much i was raving about it to my mum, saying how great and convenient it is. She went looking at e-readers and was pretty much decided on the Kobo but wasn't sure which one to buy, so i bit the bullet and treated her to a Kobo Touch as an early mothers day pressie. She usually ends up with crappy slippers or something as she's so hard to buy for so i was chuffed to get her something decent. Well, i went up and set it up for her yesterday and it's RUBBISH in comparison! So so so disappointed with it, i wish I'd bought her a kindle now. We finally got it sorted so she knows how to download books and read them but it was a load of faff to set up and the screen reminds me of a calculator screen, my kindle is all pretty colours and really responsive. I've not really looked into the ease of getting cheaper books and from a wider variety of places so maybe that part will work out better, but for the unit itself Kindle wins hands down.

Former_MSE_Becca

laura1976 wrote: »

I got a Kindle Fire for Christmas and loved it so much i was raving about it to my mum, saying how great and convenient it is. She went looking at e-readers and was pretty much decided on the Kobo but wasn't sure which one to buy, so i bit the bullet and treated her to a Kobo Touch as an early mothers day pressie. She usually ends up with crappy slippers or something as she's so hard to buy for so i was chuffed to get her something decent. Well, i went up and set it up for her yesterday and it's RUBBISH in comparison! So so so disappointed with it, i wish I'd bought her a kindle now. We finally got it sorted so she knows how to download books and read them but it was a load of faff to set up and the screen reminds me of a calculator screen, my kindle is all pretty colours and really responsive. I've not really looked into the ease of getting cheaper books and from a wider variety of places so maybe that part will work out better, but for the unit itself Kindle wins hands down.

Hi Laura, thanks for your post. The Kindle Fire is more of a tablet than an e-reader. It's Kobo equivalent is the Kobo Vox, which has a coloured screen, like the Kindle Fire.

In terms of free books, check out this guide I wrote: Free e-books. There's some for Kindle and Kobo

HTH,
MSE Becca

laura1976

Thanks i will have a nose, and pass it on to mum too