Today, I bought myself a new kobo, the largest model, the forma. I did this despite already having a small kobo that I don’t use that much. There are a number of reasons I avoid using it:
- when using a font large enough that I can read it easily, there isn’t that much text on a page
- page turning is slow
- sometimes I hit the wrong spot and the page doesn’t turn
- sometimes I can’t tell if several pages turned instead of one page
- putting a book on the kobo is a nuisance
- the extra expense to get a physical book isn’t that much more than a kobo version
- all these issues mean I seldom use my small kobo
So far the bigger kobo seems to be solving most of those issues. Most importantly, page turning works better. There is a physical button you can also use to flip pages on the big kobo, however, this bar could have been designed better because the “new page” bar is part of the same bar used to go backwards a page. When concentrating on a book, it is easy to press the wrong part of the bar.
Another reason I got the new kobo is that some of the books at the public library are readily available to e-readers but not in physical form. This new kobo can connect directly to your public library account. This makes borrowing a book and putting it on the e-reader a quick and easy process. And there is a bonus reason for getting the bigger, newer kobo – it is water proof, you can take in the tub or the swimming pool and if it gets wet, it will still work.
There are still frustrating aspects to the kobo system. For example, right now, I have “overdrive” selected which is the name given to the feature allowing access to the public library. When doing a search when within “overdrive”, one would think the search result would be library books available to me. But I’m being shown books that are available for sale instead. I have to re-select “overdrive” to get the correct search.
But overall, I like this new kobo and am getting good use from it.
