New Color Libra and Clara now advertised in US

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have a solution for bad buttons. Get rid of the buttons.

Even bad buttons are far better than no buttons.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Even bad buttons are far better than no buttons.

Here you go.



With a working touchscreen, I see no reason for buttons of any kind.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Here you go.

Hey, that was a pretty good one

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Here you go.



With a working touchscreen, I see no reason for buttons of any kind.

I can explain how to remove the buttons, but they can't be added if they are not there. Many people like some buttons as well as a touch screen.

[mgrimace]

As a quick follow-up, I received my replacement Libra Colour from Kobo, no problem with the warranty replacement process and the buttons are working as expected (they actually 'click'). Excited to see Colour again having been back on the Libra 2 for a while

[compurandom]

I was forced to replace my forma (32G) and the only 32G option was the Libra Color. I've been using it for a week, so here's my review...

I find the color on the libra surprisingly good. It's been a pleasure to have it.
I wouldn't say it's photo quality good enough to hang on the wall, but it really looks good. For reference, one of my news feeds is APOD, and I was just reading the articles on my B&W forma, but on the Libra color, the pictures are not as good as on my computer, but they are enjoyable enough that I don't skip them anymore.

Lot of people have complained about contrast issues on the color. I use my device in many different lighting settings and I've noticed the contrast difference strongly.

In direct bright sunlight, it looks great. Contrast is fine -- but in this situation too good of a contrast can be blindingly bright.

In partial sunlight, I find the screen too dark, and in situations where I previously would have run with no light I find myself wanting to turn up the brightness, and with outside lighting, sometimes I can't quite get it bright enough.

Inside, even with the brightness turned up, I find the contrast to be not nearly as good as the B&W devices, but it's still comfortable to read, just the contrast difference is noticeable and turning up the brightness just makes it brighter without fixing the contrast. Some B&W pictures that looked good before are dark and muddy on the Libra Color. (But since I use the device for reading, this is disappointing but not a big deal.)

In the past, I've had a few documents (pdf, epub) that annoyingly set background colors. Some of those were completely unreadable on the B&W device and I had to go in and edit the document and remove the background color if I could or just read them on a computer when I couldn't. I've gone back to some of these documents for testing purposes. and I find the background color still annoying, but it is at least readable and doesn't make me want to abandon reading the document on the device.

So in summary, I definitely find the contrast of the color device to be noticeably worse than the B&W devices, but not bad enough to return it or abandon reading documents with it. Increasing brightness only helps up to a point. The color itself while not as good as a typical LCD monitor is still very good.

Overall, I'd say the tradeoff of poorer B&W contrast vs. color that gives contrast that didn't exist before in color documents is a worthy trade off and increases the range of documents I feel comfortable reading on the device without making any unreadable.

[JSWolf]

@compurandom if Kobo was to release a Libra BW, would you prefer that over the Libra Colour?

[compurandom]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@compurandom if Kobo was to release a Libra BW, would you prefer that over the Libra Colour?

Silly as it might be, I think my only criteria would still be if it had 32G or not. :-P

I'd say the color is inconsequential for at least 80% of my reading. But it's nice to have for at least some of the rest.