#blogjune Day 15 - alas poor Kobo..

The day I talk about my Kobo, and my sadness at annoying things

I have a kobo ebook and I like it. It can be a bit clunky when compared with even the flashy new versions of itself, no wifi etc. But it is a good practical easy to use e- reader, were it not for the vendor of my choice.

I chose to buy this from Borders in Australia. I had few problems and managed to follow the reasonably convoluted trail when I had  a difficulty, which mostly was a time thing,  "just wait, the problem will right itself" and usually it did.

I started to encounter other annoying difficulties with upgrades and compatability about the time Borders went into receivership, so help was necessary. I worked the problem until I had a query in with the helpdesk, and waited. The answer that came back, didn't make a lot of sense in the scheme of my concern, basically they suggested I download software I already had in the Kobo. 

About the time this became frustrating, I got my iPhone and I have been exploring that as a tool for everything, including e-books.
Consequently my Kobo has been neglected and lies dormant on the bedside table. (still at the top of the pile.)

I am now a bit further down the track recovering slightly from i-madness and feel the need to get back to the e- book, and I have to my mind a couple of choices.
1. Buy a new ebook ... Easiest thing to do, but $$
2. Use the Kobo with a new vendor.
3. Sit down and actually get my head around the stuff from borders, if I can, and if it is actually worth doing.
4. Purchase i-pad.

Problem with all of this is, time, skill, upgrade necessary, $$$ and what I actually want. Which is a light portable book.

I have been looking at the new e-books that take notes and do all sorts of 'new fangled' things, and I do 'lust' after a new one. However, I do like my Kobo and would hate to  just chuck it when it has a lot of life in it yet. (evil thought no. 1 - I could give it to Ms 14... Then I would need a new one :)

I am sad that I was so annoyed with the bookshops closing and that has affected my joy of the first e-book I have owned, and I didn't keep up. 
Also the iPhone is so easy to use, it makes everything else seem harder.
I also am a very visual learner and convoluted upgrades do my head in.

(evil thought no. 2  - I am leaning towards combining 2 of the choices above.)

Anyway, time for a ponder and a sleep, however Tony Delroy's issue of the day is the decline of the book shop, so I may have to listen.

@kalgrl
#blogjune

Kobo - e-book reader - a review

I have a Kobo e-reader, I have had it for a couple of weeks.
It came from New Zealand via Borders Bookshop. (there were none in Aus.)
I was sure it was the one for me when I picked it up a the Bookshop and
it was so light and the screen was easy to read and it had been recommeded
by @flexnib.

The first adventure was to learn how to use it - relatively simple to
turn on and begin to set up for reading the 100 novels that come with.

Charging was easy and working through the download of software was fine.
Moving around the books and selecting was easy, the reader bookmarks for you
and remembers where you are. The screen is not back lit and I like that,
it is about the size of a small paperback. You have a couple of choices with the
font and size. Books can be in alphabetical of title or author and you can put
PDF documents on the reader. (not tried that yet.)

I read a couple of the books included, Dracula and Alice's adventures and
then decided to buy an ebook from Borders.

The first thing I had to do was to download the upgrade of software. that
took a while and a bit of 'round the houses' guessing.

The I went to the book store and chose an e-book from a favourite author,
cheap as it had been out a few years and a good one for the first experiment.

Thats when everything went haywire - I clicked the boxes handed over the
money and nothing happened. The book was supposed to transfer to my account from there I could sync to the e-reader.

From there I followed a trail to find some help, as I assumed an incorrect
step on my part was the problem. the Homepage of the bookshop did not have
a visible contact for help, and I went down a wrong alley seeking information.
Honestly the Kobo people are very helpful, it just wasn't their problem.
Finally tracked down a 'help desk' for the bookshop, put in a query and
tah dah, they answered - generic email - which stated one problem they were
having was with downloading e-books and it should be fixed soon!

Four days later the book was ready to be sync'ed. Just my luck that they have
problems when I am downloading the first book - leads to insecurity of the
biggest with new tech.

I then decided to leave the purchasing of books for a while and read the 100
and try to down load some old Sci Fi from online sources.

At this point I have downloaded e-pubs, but I have yet to work out how to move
the files to the e-reader. When I have more time to figure it out I will.

Today I successfully downloaded three books from Borders and it all went very
fast and easy. the problems they had are now fixed. I need the books for
#ALIAAccess - airport waiting etc. (Yay!)

@kalgrl