First impressions of the Kobo

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:

• 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.

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.

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.

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?