kobo

[prateek76]

Just looked at kobo touch ereader on whsmith website (http://www.whsmith.co.uk)
Looks like a great alternative to kindle touch (which would be launched, only amazon knows when).

Same technology, but many more supported formats. Anyone has any experience with kobo .. new touch or old version? Feedback on bookstore and service?

[Bluecube]

Can't comment on first and experience but I've sold a fair few books through Kobo in the Oceania area and the feedback I've had from readers there is that Kobo is pretty good.

[Top_gun]

I played with the Kobo in one of the WHSmiths stores in London and it was easy to flick the pages by using swiping on the screen. The screen did not have any traces of fingerprints.

[prateek76]

Thanks Top_Gun and Bluecube.
Gives me confidence in moving forward. I also see that Kobo has more support for open formats compared to Kindle. Seems like a good thing.

[nonstandard]

Also had a quick play with a Kobo Touch in WH Smiths - it was reasonably snappy and I quite liked it. The Kobo Touch has more font control than a Kindle, and you can upload your own .ttf fonts with a little messing. The Kobo also wins in that it is slightly less of a gateway to a DRM-locked bookshop, supports html, rtf, plaintext, pdf and epub. I'd say a copy of Calibre ebook format converter/swiss-army-knife would be an essential bit of freeware to go with your ebook of any flavour. Kobo and Calibre also seem to be in active development with new versions arriving frequently, so there's a good chance that common bugs are being addressed.

[Cheapy]

I agree with all thats said here so far about the kobo touch and it was just a pick up and use device for me. While I did try the new Sony PRS-T1 I actually found it a lot harder to use than the kobo touch and I didnt like the Kindle 4 as the page turn buttons are a bit of a fiddle to me being so small.

Just double check that Kobo,WHSmiths, Waterstones have your favourite authors and their prices compared to amazon. I may be getting one over christmas so will be happy to quickly post my impressions on it when I recieve it.

[Top_gun]

I'm just wondering whether anyone has bought a Kobo. The more I read about it, the more I like it. I also understand that you can add ebooks from Amazon to Kobo.

[wasabi]

I've got the basic fifty quid non-touch one - I don't want to touch the screen so the button is a plus for me. Had it for about a month a so far very very happy with it. Get calibre (free convertor app) to convert between book formats.

[Cheapy]

You can only use the non DRM books from amazon. Iv been using the Kobo touch for past few months and i think its great. The kobo store is good but there a few things that stop it from being as good as amazon. But I think its worth the money and you arnt as tied down to stores like with the kindle.

[oldboy47]

Possibly a little late from the entry by Top-Gun but I have a Kobo touch and it is great. As well as the Kobo books I have also loaded material from Project Guttenburg and many PDF files that I keep meaning to read. The SD card slot is a really big bonus.

I did load up quite a few of the free Kobo books and also looked at a number of low cost ones - in most cases they were OK but not great reads.

[shaithis]

I believe it's rootable and able to be turned into a full android tablet...