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…

What’s on my Tablets?
Tech Reviews / August 2, 2012

So, I now have both an Android Nexus 7 and an Apple iPad. Many of the apps I have on both, so here’s a rundown of them. (NB iTunes links are for the Canadian store). All apps are free unless otherwise specified. On Both e-Reading Kindle (Apple iTunes, Google Play): Amazon’s app for accessing their e-book content. This is one of the first apps I downloaded. Kobo (Apple iTunes, Google Play): the app to access Kobo ebooks. The tablet version includes Kobo Pulse, Kobo’s interactive e-reading community. GoodReads (Apple iTunes, Google Play): GoodReads is the social network for readers on which I am very active. I also use it to keep track of my reading. Feel free to check out my profile. Zinio (Apple iTunes, Google Play): Zinio is the app and content provider I use for magazines. Although I have it on both the Nexus and iPad, the iPad’s larger 10 inch Retina display screen makes reading magazines an absolute joy. That is one type of reading I much prefer to do on my tablet than my eInk e-reader. Overdrive Media Console (Apple iTunes, Google Play): Overdrive is the app used to access Overdrive’s large library of ebooks for…

Dipping my toes back into Android
Tech Reviews / July 20, 2012

Those of you who have read my blog know that I am an Apple fangirl, and that I had been very disappointed in my brieftime with the Kobo Vox ereading tablet. That had been my first experience with Android, and although I was very disappointed in the Kobo Vox, I realised that was due to the tablet itself not the operating system. I really liked the 7 inch size of the Kobo Vox, and I had been considering a more general Android 7 inch tablet. I had been seriously considering the Galaxy 2 tablet, but then I heard about the new Nexus 7 and was blown away by the presentation and reviews. Just looking at the specs of the Kobo compared to the Nexus I can tell already my experience is going to be completely different: Kobo Vox: Operating system custom Android 2.3 CPU 800 Mhz Storage capacity 8 GB Memory 512 MB RAM Display 7″ multi-touch FFS+ multimedia display; 1024 x 600 resolution Nexus 7: Operating system Android 4.1 Jelly Bean SoC Nvidia Tegra 3 (T30L) CPU 1.2 GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 with additional low-speed companion core,[1] GPU 416 MHz Nvidia GeForce ULP with 12 cores Memory 1 GB…

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…