So, this Kobo Glo is what I expected. Its selling point is the light, which works well and looks like the kind of lights you’d get on those 90s wristwatches. Can’t say much yet about its battery life since I just got it. The touch isn’t as sensitive as an iPad, so it took me a little while to get used to press just a tad longer than I’m used to, but otherwise it works.
Wi-Fi syncing works quite well for once (compared to the original Kobo), including syncing annotations. It automatically updates the reading location when you turn it to sleep, so no need to manually sync unless you want to sync new books and annotations.
The biggest change for me is its use of the latest e-ink technology, which supports fast partial screen updates. After a few pages (or seconds outside of books) there is a full screen refresh à la Kindle, but before the full refresh you’ll get instant page turns. There’s a tiny loss of visual quality in those partial updates compared to a full screen redraw, but it didn’t bother me much. At any rate, you can deactivate the feature in the settings by making full scree redraws at every page turns. Combined with a fast processor, opening books and most other actions are near-instant.
What else there is to say? It’s very light and comfortable and doesn’t feel cheaply made. Oh, and it has an easily accessible microSD card slot that reads (DRM-free) ePub files, PDFs and even CBZ files, though I still haven’t tried it yet. So, solid competition for the Kindle.
Published on October 3, 2012 at 21:36 EDT
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