I recently (Christmas of 2024) acquired a new Kobo Clara Colour. Here are my thoughts:
What I Want
I still have plenty of dead-tree books left to read. For me, an e-reader will be for reading classics (ie: public domain, available for free from sites like Global Grey E-Books and Internet Archive Books). Furthermore, I'm looking for something light and portable so I can take a whole bunch of books with me. I may want to highlight, but I doubt I'll ever anotate.
I wish I wish I wish whenever you bought a book, you'd get a code that you could enter into a site somewhere and download an e-version of that book. Even if it was DRM'd, I'd be happy. But it seems like book publishers are worse than record labels, and long-time readers will know how I feel about them.
This is what I want with an e-reader:
- I want a desktop app and a mobile app.
- On the desktop, I want to drag'n'drop EPUBs, MOBIs, PDFs, etc. onto the app, apply any metadata, and organizing, then hit a sync button.
- Upon syncing, I want that EPUB, MOBI, PDF, etc. to show up on my e-reader device, and my phone app.
- As I read that book on any of those devices, I want my progress to be synced automatically to the other devices.
To me, that's the minimum of any e-reading software. If you make an e-reader device, your app should do all of the above. And it should do it all seamlessly.
My Thoughts and Observations
- I thought e-Ink needed external light to read, but e-readers have added backlights lately that can be switched on or off. This one has a backlight that can be dimmed, but not turned off. The blue light dims later in the day, but still isn't as good on the eyes as no back-light.
- I was disappointed that the Kobo desktop app doesn't work the way I described above. There are desktop and mobile Kobo apps. They do allow you to purchase from the Kobo store, and borrow from your local library (with OneDrive). And those books are synced across devices and apps. But you can't drag'n'drop books into the desktop app.
- The way to get books from elsewhere onto your device is by using Calibre, which is what I'm doing. IMO using Calibre feels hacky. I don't mind hacky....but it feels like you should use hacky solutions for things outside normal operations (like, say, removing DRM from a book, or using a lesser-known e-reader). But normal usage should not require hacks like that. And adding ebooks from places other than the Kobo store or library should be considered normal operations.
- Also, it's a wee bit heavier than I was expecting. Lying down and holding it it one hand above me can get tiring.
- If I add a series/number in a Series to a book's metadata in Calibre, that never shows up after I sync. According to a bunch of tutorials, you're supposed to sync to your Kobo, eject the Kobo, plug it back in, and then the Series data will show up. But that hasn't worked for me, ever.
Overall, though, I'm not unhappy with my Kobo. But I am now curious about lesser known ones.
