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Kobo announces color e-readers

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Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#131

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

ornornor wrote: post #53
hgyjnbdet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know you could do that! I've only been using it as intended.

On most (all?) kobos, you can also upgrade the storage to whatever you want because it’s a microsd card slotted into the board. Just copy the system partition over to the new sd, expand, done. Mind you, I never needed to do it because 4 or 8GB is a ton of ebooks. I’ll probably never need that much space anyway. But if you’re reading larger files, might be handy.

> On most (all?) kobos, you can also upgrade the storage to whatever you want because it’s a microsd card slotted into the board.

Nah, that's no longer universally true. Pretty sure the Sage and Elipsa use soldered eMMC storage instead of micro SD.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#133

Post by babypuncher »

> Both use E Ink’s latest Kaledio color screen technology, which has subtle, pastel-like hues and drops from a 300ppi grayscale resolution to 150ppi when you view content in color.

Sounds like color accuracy might be poor, which means comics might not fare so well.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#134

Post by ornornor »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #131
ornornor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most (all?) kobos, you can also upgrade the storage to whatever you want because it’s a microsd card slotted into the board. Just copy the system partition over to the new sd, expand, done. Mind you, I never needed to do it because 4 or 8GB is a ton of ebooks. I’ll probably never need that much space anyway. But if you’re reading larger files, might be handy.

> On most (all?) kobos, you can also upgrade the storage to whatever you want because it’s a microsd card slotted into the board. Nah, that's no longer universally true. Pretty sure the Sage and Elipsa use soldered eMMC storage instead of micro SD.

That’s a bummer, it was a neat feature.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#135

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

ornornor wrote: post #134
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On most (all?) kobos, you can also upgrade the storage to whatever you want because it’s a microsd card slotted into the board. Nah, that's no longer universally true. Pretty sure the Sage and Elipsa use soldered eMMC storage instead of micro SD.

That’s a bummer, it was a neat feature.

It was, especially since I consider that a hindrance to using the newer devices for 10-years, which the older ones can happily do with a properly-imaged new SD card. Even though I love my Sage, it makes me consider whether I should grab a Libra 2 if I ever see it on the cheap, just to have a comparable device that still has the memory on a SD card.

The Kobo's that just launched claim they will have better repair-ability through a partnership with iFixIt, so maybe we'll see how that impacts the ability to change the storage.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#136

Post by propter_hoc »

À friend of mine has a Boox color e-reader and absolutely loves it. There's a lot of skepticism out there (I was a skeptic myself before she bought it) but it's honestly quite impressive.

She made a post on reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/18ns9z3/three_da...

It has some pictures - the color really does add something. Glad to see Kobo doing this too.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#137

Post by rahimnathwani »

jsheard wrote: post #50
gnicholas wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that the contrast is not as good, and IIRC the color resolution is also a bit lower (but is not bad overall). But people who plan to read B/W documents could still benefit from a device like this because it makes highlighting much better, and it enables color-based reading enhancements like BeeLine Reader (which improves focus while reading). I'm certainly biased (I created BeeLine), but IMO the color scree…

> It's true that the contrast is not as good, and IIRC the color resolution is also a bit lower It's generally halved, i.e. the display is 300dpi in mono mode, but 150dpi in color mode.

Halving the DPI in each direction (vertical and horizontal) means you end up with only a quarter of the pixels: 0.4 megapixels instead of 1.6 megapixels.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#138

Post by sireat »

WolfeReader wrote: post #22
teroshan wrote: post #4

Know that while useful in some scenarios, I'd avoid buying a color e-ink display if you're still going to primarily be using it for B&W colors. To quote the eBook Reader Blog [1]: > The main drawback with color E Ink screens is they look darker than regular B&W screens because of a color filter layer that is applied over the top of the screen, which makes the contrast appear lower. Kaleido color screens are really ju…

I've used a Pocketbook Color for over a year now. And yes, it is a somewhat darker screen, but that mainly just means I turn on the frontlight in some cases where I wouldn't have needed to with other e-readers. I've otherwise been having a good time with it - comics and PDFs benefit greatly from the color screen, and regular text is fine too.

Agreed, I picked up Pocketbook Color for 150 Euros on a sale and it has become my main bedtime reader.

Disclaimer: I've been using e-ink based readers for over 10 years. My current lineup is Kobo H20, Remarkable2 (which I sort of love/hate), and Sony DPT-S1 (which is fantastic for bigger PDFs).

B&W is fine on color e-readers. I actually enjoy the washed out color look as well.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#139

Post by unsupp0rted »

What's stopping Kobo (or somebody else) from making a calm color e-ink smartphone?

Calm as in no animations, b&w + a couple bright accent colors, say like red for icon badges.

People seem to like the b&w e-ink smartphones, but a color one would be a homerun.

Re: Kobo announces color e-readers

#140

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #115
kstrauser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my Kobos (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39993062 ). When they die, I'll replace them with another Kobo. It's so easy to get things onto them. For my Libra, plug it into a computer (or iPad) with a USB cable and it shows up as a drive I can drag files onto. The Elipsa supports Dropbox and Google Drive so I can add files those ways, too. It also has built-in Libby integration that lets me reserve and…

I liked my Kobo, but it bricked itself after only about a year. I took it apart, and a voltage rail was shorted out. I didn't even finish the first book I put on it!

I read at a similar pace.
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