Kobo Aura 2 vs. Tolino Shine 2HD: 212ppi vs 300ppi

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by mobama

I agree. And I would be happy to see the same warning sticker on badly designed/formatted ebooks/webpages.

Amen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Amen.

Don't buy any eBooks from Phoenix Pick. They make eBooks where the code is awful. There's your warning sticker.

[mobama]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Colors don't count. This is a greyscale screen.

Actually, they do. There's contrast to consider and there's inversion of colors, a good feature to have even in grayscale.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

As for styled, everything has a style even if you don't have a CSS. The defaults are a style. The idea is to find the style you like best.

+1

Originally Posted by JSWolf

With a Kobo, you can apply your style. With a Kindle, you have a less control over the style.

If I had to buy it, I would root the Kindle and slap my preferred app on it the first thing. Same as with Kobo. A fresh Kindle does not do epubs in the first place, as far as I know. This has been a decisive factor for me to avoid Kindles altogether. Thus far they have not produced anything hardware-wise and price-wise that would make me consider buying a Kindle. I have no partiality to Kindles.

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Don't buy any eBooks from Phoenix Pick. They make eBooks where the code is awful. There's your warning sticker.

Been there. Done that. Fully agree.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by mobama

As I said earlier: When one app/reader shows you the same amount of text on a 6.8" screen as another app/reader on a 6" screen with the same font faces and sizes, this is a difference that would make me prefer the latter app/reader to the former. Hardware-wise I would still pick the reader with 6.8" screen, particularly if the resolution does not suffer, but I would want to install another reading app there.

The reviewer actually stated that there was the same amount of text on the two screens. But, the reviewer also had the Kobo set to use large margins but had the Kindle set to use the smallest margins. If he had used the smaller margin options on the Kobo, he would have gotten more text. He also compared a kepub with whatever was on the Kindle. If he had used an epub like he did for most of the rest of the review, again, he would have had more text on the Kobo.

We evidently judge reviews by different standards. I'd blame him if he specifically set the device up to show it in worse light, but not for failing to set it up to show it in best light.

Nobody reviews "all the features". Every reviewer reviews the features that seem important enough to test, and when they review many devices and they do it often, a pattern of preferences emerges. I have looked through many series by the same reviewer and of others to compare. Many reviewers don't even set two devices side by side, even though they may talk (approvingly or disapprovingly) about other devices while having a single one to show. On youtube, this particular reviewer is as competent and objective as it gets.

Nate is a professional reviewer and commentator of eReaders and related topics. It is his job to do this. If this was a review on a generic tech site by generic tech reviewer, then I would have ignored the discrepancies in the review. And I'd have assumed that Amazon sent out the better review script than Kobo. But, then again, I probably wouldn't have watched it. But, coming from an eReader reviewer, I expect a different standard.

Just to be clear, one of the things I am complaining about is what started this. In the review, for the Kindle he showed how to adjust the margins and made a comment that they were useless. But, he had the Kobo set to a larger margin than the Kindle and didn't mention they could be changed. And at the time he demonstrated the Kindle margin changing, he actually had the Kobo reading settings displayed and didn't demonstrate the margin changing. And based on this review, you decided the margins on the Kobo device was ridiculously big and didn't realise they could be adjusted. Which means the omission in the review was pretty bad.

If you don't like his review, find a better one. Based on my own research, I am confident that you cannot find anything better. You will have to make a better one yourself.

And that is the problem, there aren't any better. To be honest, I mainly look at reviews of Kobo devices to see how wrong they got it. Though I look at the comparison review to get a better idea of the different sizes of the devices before I get to see one.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Don't buy any eBooks from Phoenix Pick. They make eBooks where the code is awful. There's your warning sticker.

Sorry Jon. The reason not to buy books from Phoenix Pick is that you don't like the books they sell. The code is immaterial as long as you can read the book. And the few I have gotten from them display quite well.

The code is only important if you have the need to edit the books. Most people have no need, they just want to read the book.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Sorry Jon. The reason not to buy books from Phoenix Pick is that you don't like the books they sell. The code is immaterial as long as you can read the book. And the few I have gotten from them display quite well.

The code is only important if you have the need to edit the books. Most people have no need, they just want to read the book.

I don't know if it's still true, but I have read where some of their older books prevented some of the reading software display settings from working.

[Terisa de morgan]

Anyway, all this discussion about installing a better app, I don't know if it makes a lot of sense. If I'm reading it right, Tolino is not an open Android ereader, but you have to root it for installing any app (similar to installing koreader in Kobo). so, I think "you can install your app" doesn't apply from the beginning.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by mobama

If I had to buy it, I would root the Kindle and slap my preferred app on it the first thing. Same as with Kobo. A fresh Kindle does not do epubs in the first place, as far as I know. This has been a decisive factor for me to avoid Kindles altogether. Thus far they have not produced anything hardware-wise and price-wise that would make me consider buying a Kindle. I have no partiality to Kindles.

But, when you buy a Kindle now, the chances are you won't be able to jailbreak. So with a Kindle, the best thing is to buy it if it will do what you want as is.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by swapjim

I'm between these two readers. The Kobo has 212ppi while the Tolino (also in wiki) has 300ppi.

I think the Kobo is an overall better device. The only thing that's stopping me from getting it is that it has lower PPI. How big of a deal is going from 212 to 300 PPI? Will I notice anything?

They're similarly priced, so money is not a factor in my decision.

I have an original Kobo Aura (212 PPI) and a Nook Glowlight 3 (300 PPI) that the better half uses.

If you compare the two side by side, the Glowlight's screen is clearly better. But it's not so superior that it has made me want to abandon my Aura. For day to day use, I don't think the jump in PPI is nearly as important on an e-ink device as it is on a tablet.

At this point, if my Kobo were to curl up and die, I'd replace it with whatever device offered the features I consider important. The screen PPI wouldn't be as important to me.

[Mary Louis]

For me I think screen resolution is a primary concern especially in low light. Interesting suggestions and helpful since I am currently covering very dense academic materials in a company sponsored training course for pmp Keeping the strain on my eyes low and reduce fatigue is paramount.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Mary Louis

For me I think screen resolution is a primary concern especially in low light. Interesting suggestions and helpful since I am currently covering very dense academic materials in a company sponsored training course for pmp Keeping the strain on my eyes low and reduce fatigue is paramount.

In low light, contrast can be more important. With Kobo, you can increase the weight of the fonts system fonts and that increases contrast.

With the patches, you can set path the firmware to allow adjusting the weight for side loaded TrueType (.ttf) fonts.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by mobama

If I had to buy it, I would root the Kindle and slap my preferred app on it the first thing. Same as with Kobo. A fresh Kindle does not do epubs in the first place, as far as I know. This has been a decisive factor for me to avoid Kindles altogether. Thus far they have not produced anything hardware-wise and price-wise that would make me consider buying a Kindle. I have no partiality to Kindles.

Good luck with "rooting" a Kindle or Kobo eInk ereader. For one thing, rooting is generally used when referring to Android devices. For the Linux based Kindle eInk ereaders, the preferred term seems to be jailbreak. For Kobo's, rooting/jailbreaking is not necessary. As for slapping your preferred app on it? That's a very limited selection for either platform given that neither runs Android. I won't get into the issue that if you purchase a Kindle with firmware 5.9.2 or later you are out of luck with jailbreaking at this time though the jailbreak does seem to survive an update to 5.9.2/5.9.4 for most people.

For your comments about reviews, if I see a comparison review where the intent of the reviewer is not to display each device at it's best, I have grave doubts about the reviewer. The worst example I saw was a comparison of a Kobo Aura One (KA1) and a Kindle Oasis v1 (KO1). Much like the review video you linked, he tried to make the two devices display the same text on screen, whinged about the KA1 being bigger than the KO1 -- perhaps a 6" screen compared to a 7.8" screen might have something to do with that? -- and then whinged about the weight of the KA1 compared to the KO1 without it's battery/cover. Not to mention the funniest part where he complained about the font choice on the KA1 since his favourite Amazon fonts were not present.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Good luck with "rooting" a Kindle or Kobo eInk ereader. For one thing, rooting is generally used when referring to Android devices. For the Linux based Kindle eInk ereaders, the preferred term seems to be jailbreak. For Kobo's, rooting/jailbreaking is not necessary. As for slapping your preferred app on it? That's a very limited selection for either platform given that neither runs Android. I won't get into the issue that if you purchase a Kindle with firmware 5.9.2 or later you are out of luck with jailbreaking at this time though the jailbreak does seem to survive an update to 5.9.2/5.9.4 for most people.

Though I don't agree with most of mobama's points, if Kindle is Linux based, 'rooting' is the right term. You hear about rooting with Android, because Android is Linux based: What is rooting?

And I don't follow Kindle much, but can't you install Koreader on a rooted Kindle?

[mobama]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

And I don't follow Kindle much, but can't you install Koreader on a rooted Kindle?

At least there is a specific Koreader build for Kindle available here.