Tolino Vision Color (/ Shine Color)

[kyôdai]

Hey there,

In a surprise move Tolino also announced three new e-readers today.

• Tolino Shine: https://mytolino.com/products/tolino-shine/
• Tolino Shine Color: https://mytolino.com/products/tolino-shine-color/
• Tolino Vision Color: https://mytolino.com/products/tolino-vision-color/

The devices appear to be equivalent to Kobo's newest ereaders, the Clara BW / Color and the Libra Color (see here).

The biggest change for Tolino might be the software.
According to some news outlets Tolino will switch from their android based firmware to a new firmware based on linux. By the looks of it they might be adopting Kobo's firmware with some minimal changes.

EDIT:

The new Shine and Shine Color will be available starting May 7, for 119€ and 149€ respectively.
The Vision Color will be available in "June" for €199.

[Terisa de morgan]

Those pictures have a very familiar look....

[Quoth]

So finally Tolino is just the German brand of Kobo, rather than simply Kobo Hardware. It took a while, but it saves money. I guess the Android support/localisation folk in Tolino or Kobo are redundant or redeployed.

I do think a custom Linux makes for a better dedicated ereader than Android.

[geek1011]

That is definitely Kobo firmware. It'll be interesting to compare them and see if anything different in the builds, or if it's all determined at runtime.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I do think a custom Linux makes for a better dedicated ereader than Android.

You just have to make do with the software that comes with it - and I haven't found any of it to be even remotely sufficient.
And not to mention library administration

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

You just have to make do with the software that comes with it - and I haven't found any of it to be even remotely sufficient.
And not to mention library administration

What about library administration? Kobos have excellent library administration, and you can do it all automatically via Calibre, no manual work involved.

[beedaddy]

I think it's great that Tolino is now using the Kobo-based firmware. However, it looks like some functionality has been removed. For example, I don't see a series category in the library. Only authors and collections. However, this may not reflect the software version at the time of release.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

You just have to make do with the software that comes with it - and I haven't found any of it to be even remotely sufficient.
And not to mention library administration

I've seen nothing on Android as good as native Kindle eink, and Kobo is far better. Title, author, collection, Series, subtitle all work for library search on the Kobo ink, set by Calibre. Also Calibre can edit the info for the publisher and synopsis tabs of the ebook details.
Android also uses horrible MTP and has the huge overhead of all the Google stuff. I don't need that on a DEDICATED ereader. The eink is poor for anything other than reading novels. If I want apps, then I want a tablet with a decent 16M colour 200 fps screen instead of 14 shades, black, white and at best 10 fps.
I've had about 7 makes of Linux based dedicated ereader and several with Android. The only decent Android dedicated eink reader I used was the Sony PRS-T2, and it might as well have run the same Linux as the PRS-350 I have. The only point of Android is Playstore Apps, otherwise it's a pointless bloat.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Quoth

So finally Tolino is just the German brand of Kobo, rather than simply Kobo Hardware. It took a while, but it saves money. I guess the Android support/localisation folk in Tolino or Kobo are redundant or redeployed.

I do think a custom Linux makes for a better dedicated ereader than Android.

So no more built-in ADE?

Isn't Tolino an alliance of various eBook stores? Will that change? Or will there be eBook store choices built-in?

I wonder what this means for the old Tolino devices.

How long before the Tolino name disappears?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by rcentros

So no more built-in ADE?

If you look at the code base for the calibre ACSM plugin, it would seem to be entirely possible to have a Linux based ereader download an epub from a .acsm file.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by DNSB

If you look at the code base for the calibre ACSM plugin, it would seem to be entirely possible to have a Linux based ereader download an epub from a .acsm file.

You would have to be smarter than me to hack that. It's possible that it's still there, apparently they're still going to use the Tolino Cloud, so there may be several differences in the Tolino-ized Kobo firmware.

[Aleron Ives]

Yes the ACSM plugin exists, but nobody can release a product that uses a reverse-engineered copy of Adobe's protocol. The ACSM plugin does warn you that Adobe may ban your account for using it, since it's presumably against Adobe's TOS to connect with a third-party client, instead of ADE. The ACSM plugin is only safe as long as Adobe doesn't introduce new security measures that would allow it to detect that you're not using ADE.

[DNSB]

Considering that several brands of ereader already offer an alternative to ADE for downloading an ePub from the information included in a .acsm file, I would suspect that either Adobe doesn't care or they are licensing that capability.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by rcentros

How long before the Tolino name disappears?

I don't think that this is going to happen. Keep in mind that the Tolino brand is owned by the largest book stores in the DACH region, with Thalia being the largest shareholder with 33% ownership. They would be stupid to sell the platform, even if it is effectively maintained by Kobo.

https://www.northdata.de/tolino+medi...chen/HRA+98454

Every time you buy a Tolino your device is linked to the storefront you got the device from. And in most cases this will either be Thalia, Mayersche (which is owned by Thalia), Osiander or Weltbild.

[kyôdai]

I hope the new firmware will also be released for older models. Then I might consider getting a Vision 5 or 6.

The Tolino partners will once again offer some additional Sleepcovers, starting at €29,99. (They should fit the Kobo equivalent readers as well.)