Kindle Paperwhite Review
e-Reader Reviews / December 23, 2012

So on my day off work this week I took a trip to Plattsburgh NY to purchase a Kindle Paperwhite. I’ve wanted one ever since Jeff Bezos presented the project launch back in early September, but they are not available to ship to Canada. I’ve been keeping an eye on Bestbuy.com for stock information and when they came in stock last week I decided to go ahead and purchase one. The bad When I first got it home, my initial reaction was, well, it’s nice, but not overwhelmingly so. I had been keen to see the new UI, but was exceptionally frustrated to know that as I had the cheaper special offers version there was only room for THREE books on the home screen in the new Cover View. THREE!!! Three!!! The rest of the space is taken up by Amazon advertising. That is ridiculous. Fortunately a quick Google search helped somewhat. Hint: From Home screen go to Settings -> Device Options -> Personalise Your Kindle and turn off Recommended Content. This will give you an extra three books on your home screen. Having said that, it is lovely to have book covers as a home screen rather than just…

Kobo Glo – First Impressions
e-Reader Reviews / October 6, 2012

I've had my hands on the Kobo Glo for a few days now, and it is a very nice device. I took some pictures to compare it with my Kobo Touch and Kindle Touch. Here is a picture of the three devices with the Kobo Glo unlit To my eyes, the Kobo Glo's screen is noticeably lighter than the Kobo Touch's and on a par with that of the Kindle Touch, making more of a contrast between the screen and text. With its 1GHz processor, page turns on the new Glo are considerably faster than on the Kobo Touch and the Kindle Touch. You may notice from the images that the Kobo Glo has dropped the physical home button. Personally, I'd have preferred that they keep it. Access to the Home screen is now via on-screen menus. The Kobo Glo comes with a slightly updated UI, which, according to the forums, and my own experience, is still rather buggy. Once or twice I noticed that the device got stuck on a page and I had to turn it off to get back to reading. I imagine a firmware update will be coming soon to fix this. It's annoying, but not…

Kobo Glo – First Impressions
e-Reader Reviews / October 6, 2012

I’ve had my hands on the Kobo Glo for a few days now, and it is a very nice device. I took some pictures to compare it with my Kobo Touch and Kindle Touch. Here is a picture of the three devices with the Kobo Glo unlit To my eyes, the Kobo Glo’s screen is noticeably lighter than the Kobo Touch’s and on a par with that of the Kindle Touch, making more of a contrast between the screen and text. With its 1GHz processor, page turns on the new Glo are considerably faster than on the Kobo Touch and the Kindle Touch. You may notice from the images that the Kobo Glo has dropped the physical home button. Personally, I’d have preferred that they keep it. Access to the Home screen is now via on-screen menus. The Kobo Glo comes with a slightly updated UI, which, according to the forums, and my own experience, is still rather buggy. Once or twice I noticed that the device got stuck on a page and I had to turn it off to get back to reading. I imagine a firmware update will be coming soon to fix this. It’s annoying, but not…

Gadget envy
e-Reader Reviews / October 1, 2012

Sigh. I really should not have spent yesterday evening looking at reviews for the Kindle Paperwhite eReader. They unanimously give the device a “glowing” review. Now I really, REALLY want one. This is a device I use on a daily basis, so it’s something I don’t mind paying for. In addition, it appears Amazon has discontinued the Kindle Touch, so there will be no more software updates. That is my excuse and I’m sticking to it! As I live in Canada, I am unable to purchase directly from Amazon, so I’ve had to go through shopereaders.com. They called me yesterday to confirm my order, and I will likely receive it the first week in November. Their first batch is 20, and I’m the 30th preorder. Other than the front lighting, new screen and capacitive touch, I’m very excited about the updated UI. From what I’ve seen on the review videos, it looks so much nicer with the book covers. On the other hand, I won’t have to wait as long for my Kobo Glo. Tracking indicates it’s halfway between Mississauga and Montreal, so I imagine it will arrive tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in person. I…

Gadget envy
e-Reader Reviews / October 1, 2012

Sigh. I really should not have spent yesterday evening looking at reviews for the Kindle Paperwhite eReader. They unanimously give the device a “glowing” review. Now I really, REALLY want one. This is a device I use on a daily basis, so it’s something I don’t mind paying for. In addition, it appears Amazon has discontinued the Kindle Touch, so there will be no more software updates. That is my excuse and I’m sticking to it! As I live in Canada, I am unable to purchase directly from Amazon, so I’ve had to go through shopereaders.com. They called me yesterday to confirm my order, and I will likely receive it the first week in November. Their first batch is 20, and I’m the 30th preorder. Other than the front lighting, new screen and capacitive touch, I’m very excited about the updated UI. From what I’ve seen on the review videos, it looks so much nicer with the book covers. On the other hand, I won’t have to wait as long for my Kobo Glo. Tracking indicates it’s halfway between Mississauga and Montreal, so I imagine it will arrive tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to seeing it in person. I…

Initial reaction to the Kobo and Amazon product launches
e-Reader Reviews / September 6, 2012

So in the last 48 hours both Kobo and Amazon have released details of the next iterations of their ereader products. Full details can be found at the Kindle and Kobo websites. It should be noted that I watched the Amazon press conference, but all I know of the new Kobo offerings is what Kobo has put on their website. At the lower price point end of the scale, Amazon has refreshed the screen and reduced the price of their base model Kindle – it now costs just $69. It doesn’t have a touch interface. The Kobo base end model is now touch based, but reduced in size to a 5 inch screen. It costs just $79 dollars. As an advocate of e-reading it’s great to see that the entry level models are so reasonably priced. Naturally, I was most interested in the touch readers. The big selling feature of both the new Kobo and Kindle touch devices is the front lighting to allow you to read when in a darkened environment. I often like to read in bed in the morning when I wake up, and don’t like to disturb my husband sleeping next to me, so this is…

Initial reaction to the Kobo and Amazon product launches
e-Reader Reviews / September 6, 2012

So in the last 48 hours both Kobo and Amazon have released details of the next iterations of their ereader products. Full details can be found at the Kindle and Kobo websites. It should be noted that I watched the Amazon press conference, but all I know of the new Kobo offerings is what Kobo has put on their website. At the lower price point end of the scale, Amazon has refreshed the screen and reduced the price of their base model Kindle – it now costs just $69. It doesn’t have a touch interface. The Kobo base end model is now touch based, but reduced in size to a 5 inch screen. It costs just $79 dollars. As an advocate of e-reading it’s great to see that the entry level models are so reasonably priced. Naturally, I was most interested in the touch readers. The big selling feature of both the new Kobo and Kindle touch devices is the front lighting to allow you to read when in a darkened environment. I often like to read in bed in the morning when I wake up, and don’t like to disturb my husband sleeping next to me, so this is…

Kobo Vox – Update
e-Reader Reviews / June 9, 2012

I've had a day to play around with this now, and at this point I'm unlikely to keep it.  As I mentioned in my initial post, my main use for this would have been as a multi-platform e-reading tablet.  From what I've seen, it's going to struggle to fulfill that purpose, for me at least. What I liked The inbuilt functions seemed to work fairly well.  The main Kobo app is almost identical to the one on the iPad and works in much the same fashion.  I tested the Email, YouTube and Zinio apps, and again, all of them worked reasonably well.  My existing content downloaded to the machine with no trouble.  I also found the capacitive touchscreen to be reasonably responsive, which was a criticism I'd read in other reviews. I particularly liked the Kobo widget which brings your currently being read content right to your home screen. Being used to iOS, it took me a little time to get used to Android, but it wasn't that difficult.   You also can't really argue about the price – $169 is a pretty good deal – if you're prepared to accept the limitations.   I also really liked the 7…

Kobo Vox – Update
e-Reader Reviews / June 9, 2012

I've had a day to play around with this now, and at this point I'm unlikely to keep it.  As I mentioned in my initial post, my main use for this would have been as a multi-platform e-reading tablet.  From what I've seen, it's going to struggle to fulfill that purpose, for me at least. What I liked The inbuilt functions seemed to work fairly well.  The main Kobo app is almost identical to the one on the iPad and works in much the same fashion.  I tested the Email, YouTube and Zinio apps, and again, all of them worked reasonably well.  My existing content downloaded to the machine with no trouble.  I also found the capacitive touchscreen to be reasonably responsive, which was a criticism I'd read in other reviews. I particularly liked the Kobo widget which brings your currently being read content right to your home screen. Being used to iOS, it took me a little time to get used to Android, but it wasn't that difficult.   You also can't really argue about the price – $169 is a pretty good deal – if you're prepared to accept the limitations.   I also really liked the 7…

Checking out the Kobo Vox
e-Reader Reviews / June 8, 2012

As I received a nice tax rebate today, I decided to check out the Kobo Vox 7 inch e-reader Android tablet.  For the Canadians amongst you, FutureShop is offering $10 discount. Now, it's possible I will return it before the return period expires; the reviews I've read and seen on YouTube have been rather negative – sluggish, unresponsive machine, poor quality build – but I will see for myself. I am not expecting it to be comparable to the iPad – Apple's tablet has a dual-core Apple A5X custom-designed, high-performance, low-power system-on-a-chip with quad-core graphics and 1GB of RAM compared to the Vox's 800 Mhz processor and 512 RAM – and of course with at least $400 difference in price, you wouldn't expect them to compare.  I intend using them for different purposes.  I expect my iPad to remain my go to tablet of choice, and the Kobo to be purely e-reading based.  The main advantage I'm hoping to get from the Vox is that I will be able to read books from all three of my main sources – Amazon, Kobo and the local library – on one e-reader sized device.   This will also be my first experience with…