Kobo Glo release date probably 1/11

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Nil Einne

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#110255 5-Oct-2012 17:28

Hi,

Just to let people know, I contacted both Whitcoulls and Noel Leeming, and the Kobo Glo is supposed to be released on the 1/11 here. This is about a month after Canada, UK and a few other countries but isn't that bad and obviously better then the expected next year for the Kindle Paperwhite.

I didn't ask about pricing but from Google I noticed that the Kobo Glo was listed on NL/BB at $199 before. (This is about NZ$20 more then the US$129.99 price once you take in to account GST so isn't a bad price.) You may already be able to pre-order from NL in store.

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Nety

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#698267 9-Oct-2012 09:13

Nil Einne: ...but isn't that bad and obviously better then the expected next year for the Kindle Paperwhite.

Of course you can order the kindle paperwhite on Amazon and use something like Shipito or YouShop to get it here.

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Shakingaj

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#700479 13-Oct-2012 01:19

It says in this release early November, and good news you can get them in a number of places (Whitcoulls, paperplus, Take Note etc). And for $199 too.

scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1210/S00452/kobo-empowers-nz-booksellers-to-bring-ereading-to-their-cust.htm

oh happy days...

MurrayM

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#700533 13-Oct-2012 09:46

Excellent news! I much prefer the Kobo software to Kindle, so I'll be getting one of these when they come out here.

dman

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#709226 30-Oct-2012 15:42

nice!! I really liked my Kobo Touch,

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plambrechtsen

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#719254 19-Nov-2012 07:33

I went out and got a Kobo Glo for my daughter (just turned 8) from whitcolls and I think there are pros and cons for it. They didn't have any accessories in stock.. but I am sure they will turn up soon enough.

The Kobo doesn't support pinch & zoom which is a bit of a pain since we have another ereader the Sony PRS T2 which does support pinch & zoom.

The backlight I have to say is very pretty and it's got a clear picture easy to read.

Just a pain when you have some kids eBooks (Thea Stilton - The Journey to Atlantis) was the first ebook we purchased for my daughter, but all the pages of the book are JPGs rather than proper text. The resolution is only 400x600 so is tiny on the screen which is 758x1024... Complained to Kobo/Whitcolls about it... But probably going to need to remove the DRM, and resize the images and see how that goes.

Normal books which are text, just render beautifully. I would take it... but... not good look to steal your daughters birthday presents :)

MurrayM

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#719316 19-Nov-2012 09:41

You didn't get your daughter the Kobo Mini? I went into Whitcoulls yesterday to have a look at the new Kobos and the sales assistant told me the Kobo Mini was aimed at kids and teenagers. Certainly is a dinky little screen, would certainly fit into a pocket. Not sure what the resolution is but it looked good. After reading a few reviews I've decided to go for the Kobo Glo, which the review I've read said has the best backlight compared to Nook and Kindle. I also like the option of adding an SD card which you don't get with Kindle, and the reading stats Kobo offers looks interesting too.

plambrechtsen

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#719332 19-Nov-2012 09:54

MurrayM: You didn't get your daughter the Kobo Mini? I went into Whitcoulls yesterday to have a look at the new Kobos and the sales assistant told me the Kobo Mini was aimed at kids and teenagers. Certainly is a dinky little screen, would certainly fit into a pocket. Not sure what the resolution is but it looked good. After reading a few reviews I've decided to go for the Kobo Glo, which the review I've read said has the best backlight compared to Nook and Kindle. I also like the option of adding an SD card which you don't get with Kindle, and the reading stats Kobo offers looks interesting too.

The main thing that attracted me to the Glo was the backlight and like you the rave reviews I had read online, my daughter loves reading for an hour most evenings before going to bed and read quite a few reviews saying that the backlight was one of the best and natural to read when compared to the nook and kindle and didn't want to get her a tablet which she could play games on rather than actually reading, plus all tablets would be a LCD Backlight and thus good for a few days before needing charging rather than a true eink which goes for weeks.

I didn't want to go down the Kindle path as we have another ePub Sony ereader and wanted to try and keep all the formats of books in one format, being able to borrow books from the Wellington public library.

I doubt we would ever need the SD card, since it has a 1.5gb or so flash installed, so you would have to have filled it up with a whole lot of ebooks to get it full. How could you possibly find something to read if your bookcase was that full :)

I have to say the backlight is great and nothing like a LCD backlight at all, I read for a short period of time last night in a low situation and my eyes liked the look of it.

The only thing that bugs me slightly was the bar down the bottom of the screen for the page reading. Yes you can turn it off from being a solid bar to be clear but that space seems to be lost for reading.. I would prefer to just turn it off all together. Which you can't seem to do.

Now we just need to find some books that are proper ebooks for my daughter to read.....

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MurrayM

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#719343 19-Nov-2012 10:05

I read a lot of text books and some of them can be 50MB or so in size. 1GB would let me store 20 of them on the internal memory, so that's why expandable memory is attractive to me. I'm glad you agree with the reviews about the backlight being good, I couldn't really test that in the shop!

networkn

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#719347 19-Nov-2012 10:09

The Glo is so inferior to the paperwhite "backlight". I couldn't imagine reading with a Glo personally.

Nety

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#720203 20-Nov-2012 16:30

Please stop referring to them as having backlights. That is the whole point you can not have a backlight with an ereader as it is not transparent. They all use lighting from the front of the screen.

networkn

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#720205 20-Nov-2012 16:33

Hence my referral is in quotations, as it's still the easiest way for non technical people to understand the effect.

Nil Einne

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#720262 20-Nov-2012 18:13

networkn: The Glo is so inferior to the paperwhite "backlight". I couldn't imagine reading with a Glo personally.

Out of interest are you going by actual physical experience with both or just based on reviews? (As the reviews I've seen have actually comparing the two have been inconsistent)

networkn: Hence my referral is in quotations, as it's still the easiest way for non technical people to understand the effect.

I disagree, referring to it as a backlight gives the impression it's a backlight which it is not and therefore causes unnecessary confusion, particularly since there are some alleged advantages. Far better to call it a front light as seems to be common and is somewhat accurate. If people don't understand what this means, they're free to explore it and get a better understanding of why it's referred to in that way. The quotations is easy to miss or ignore and doesn't really accurately convey the same idea.

Nil Einne

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#720264 20-Nov-2012 18:15

Nety:
Nil Einne: ...but isn't that bad and obviously better then the expected next year for the Kindle Paperwhite.

Of course you can order the kindle paperwhite on Amazon and use something like Shipito or YouShop to get it here.

I thought of mentioning that but decided not to bother since there are many ways to get the Kindle Paperwhite if you don't want to wait for Amazon to actually start selling them to you (e.g. parallel importers, TradeMe, eBay, the millions of mail/freight forwarders like the two you mentioned)

plambrechtsen

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#720455 20-Nov-2012 23:21

networkn: The Glo is so inferior to the paperwhite "backlight". I couldn't imagine reading with a Glo personally.

I dunno what your view is.. But I have been staring at my laptop for the last 3 hours working and my eyes are sore, now looking at the kobo it's a comfortable read in a completely dark room (reading in bed) with the light on. I'm pretty happy with it and worth the $200NZ IMHO.

networkn

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#720460 20-Nov-2012 23:50

Out of interest are you going by actual physical experience with both or just based on reviews? (As the reviews I've seen have actually comparing the two have been inconsistent)

Yes I was recently in the US, and I had a chance to view my Paperwhite directly against the Glo

I disagree, referring to it as a backlight gives the impression it's a backlight which it is not and therefore causes unnecessary confusion, particularly since there are some alleged advantages. Far better to call it a front light as seems to be common and is somewhat accurate. If people don't understand what this means, they're free to explore it and get a better understanding of why it's referred to in that way. The quotations is easy to miss or ignore and doesn't really accurately convey the same idea.

I have the paperwhite and I have shown it to a number of people and not one of them has ever NOT called it a backlight. You can correct people, but ultimately, it's the easiest way to describe it, even if it's not technically accurate. The way the paperwhite presents it's light it "appears" to be coming from behind the text. The display on the paperwhite doesn't resemble a front light in my opinion. I don't consider the quotations easy to miss or ignore unless I am not reading properly and if that's the case, I consider it my fault I didn't understand, not the fault of the author.