All the women who attended the She’s Connected Conference way back in October 2010 received a free KOBO eReader. I was one of them, and I will state for the record I was pretty excited about it. I love gadgets, and eReaders are something I’ve always wondered about. Would I like it? Would it be the thing that makes me give up printed books?
I’ve been using it for awhile now so I think I’m qualified to give my opinion on it at this point. And here it is: I don’t love it. And it’s not the killer app I thought it’d be.
It’s not exactly “use it right out of the box.” Oh, you CAN use it right away if you want. It comes pre-installed with about 100 older books. But it took me awhile to figure out how to get new books on there, especially library books – which is what I really wanted to use it for. Oh my goodness, what a pain in the butt THAT was. I had to download a copy of Adobe Digital Editions (at least it was free) and download library books to there, and from within the ADE interface drag and drop it to the Kobo (which sounds easy now that I say it but it took me a long time to get there.)
Interestingly enough, the Kobo has forced me to really examine my reading habits and figure out what I actally like about printed books. And these are things that I haven’t thought about before.
- I like flipping back a few pages to see where I was the night before, or flipping back to double-check plot points or past dialogue.
- I like bookmarking passages.
I also hadn’t thought much about how much battery life affects reading. (Obviously, right?) eReaders take batteries. The other night I picked it up and was met with a low-power message, and I couldn’t read because it was out of juice. It would be nice, if, when turning it on or off you were given a quick peek at how much battery power you have left. That way you can do a preventative upcharge at the right time. And here’s a newsflash: printed books don’t need batteries!
Also, noise. Or should I say, sound. Books offer a near-silent reading experience. The gentle shuffle of a page turn is music to my ears. Mark and I both read at night before we go to bed. It is so quiet you could hear a flea sneeze (if we had fleas) and I revel in this silence. Imagine Mark turning paper pages with their tiny flea-size shuffle shuffle sound and me, with my Kobo, which sounds something like this: CLICK! (Read a little bit.) CLICK! (Read a little bit.) CLICK.
The Kobo, with its big button that you need to depress every time you want to “turn” a page, breaks the stillness of our bedroom at night, an unwelcome intrusion that bugs me.
In a day and age where the norm touch screens have become the norm (we have an iPhone and an iTouch in our house and my father-in-law has an iPad) the button seems almost weird. It’s clunky and odd. And I find myself rubbing my thumb over it as I’m reading, which is deeply annoying but I am unable to stop. In fact, I hardly know how to hold the Kobo. It’s light enough to hold with one hand (this is a good thing), but then I need my other hand to press the button to turn the page. What do lefties do?
I have been wrestling with the thing that’s been bothering me most about the Kobo, and I have finally figured it out. It’s brand new – the unit I received was especially so, it was wireless whereas the previous generation of Kobo was not – but it still looks and feels old-fashioned. (And by old fashioned I’m talking circa 1995.) It looks and feels like I’m holding a large calculator in my hands… the plastic casing, even the faux-quilted texture on the back, which presumably is meant to give it some real bookfeel fails in this regard. I don’t know why this should bother me, but it does. Isn’t this the future of reading? The kind of thing we all expected in the new millennium and we’ve all been anxiously waiting for – like jetpacks and cars that fly?
You want to know something else? It smells weird. I’d find myself deep in thought, letting the Kobo slip and rest on my upper lip while I pondered something Lisbeth Salander said… and inhale at the same time and EW WHAT IS THAT?! It doesn’t reek, like the sulphurous hell of rotting eggs and and burning hair, but it makes me wonder what’s behind the casing. It’s not enough to alarm me, but the fact remains that you don’t (usually) get bad smells with paper. Ok, so with paper there’s a smell too; it’s ink, and ghosts of dry old trees, and a warm home, and maybe if it’s an older book these smells are mixed with a liberal sprinkling of pre-mildew and dust which may be hazardous to one’s health. Even so, there’s a comfort in that smell.
I’ve talked a lot about what I don’t like. Here’s what I do like; the Kobo is light and portable and it can store about 1000 books. It would be useful if you’re the kind of person who needs to drag around a stack of books, whether you’re travelling or moving, waiting at the dentist office, or living in a tiny apartment with no shelf space.
The display looks very much like paper, which has pros and cons. It’s pleasant to look at and there’s minimal glare, but you still need light in order to read. (Doh.) I only mention that because other eReaders are backlit like the iPad. (Which, by the way, has a night mode so it’s easier on the eyes. You can choose your display: black on white or white on black.)
I looked into a mini-light for the Kobo, and they had one at my local Chapters, but when I looked closely I realized that the battery life was only 20 hours. This doesn’t seem like very much.
I like having the ability to make the font larger if I need it to be. It also has a built-in dictionary, which has come in handy, but using it requires use of the clunky pad. (See above. CLICK.)
We have entered an age of multi-use devices, and this is where I’m torn. ETA: Should we we designing single-use devices like this? And as much as I like the iPad because of its multipurposeness, it is kind of heavy. It is not the kind of thing I can hold in one hand while I lie on my side, reading in bed. What’s more, an iPad-like devise might just encourage my ADD–like tendencies. Could I make it through a whole book while using iPad?
I might go on using my Kobo, maybe for library books, but it hasn’t convinced me to give up the comfort that comes with holding a paper book in my hand.
Do you have a Kobo reader? I’d love to hear what you think about it.