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Perhaps I have a different use case. I spend very little time in Calibre but loads more time on my Kobo reader. The time I spend is so little that I have never
by mmsimanga 7y ago
Perhaps I have a different use case. I spend very little time in Calibre but loads more time on my Kobo reader. The time I spend is so little that I have never really noticed the user interface. I use Calibre to transfer books to and from my reader and occasionally download meta data for books. I know Calibre has functionality to download blogs and so on but I use Kobo's integration with Pocket[0] to read online articles.
[0]https://getpocket.com/ https://getpocket.com/
- esseti 7y agodo you integrate with pocket? i tried but miserably failed. it results in a mess of files and data that i can't read. do you have a source link or good link on how to setup?
- jbeales 7y agoOn your Kobo go to Hamburger Menu > Settings > Accounts, then do what it asks to sign in to Pocket. Once that's done you get a "My Articles" option in the hamburger menu, and that's your Pocket content.
- esseti 7y agodamn, i'm using the kindle. i wish it has this easiness of integration.
- jbeales 7y agoThought you were on Kobo for some reason. Might be worth grabbing a cheap one as a Pocket + Overdrive device, it's a pretty great combo ;)
- input_sh 7y agoI bookmark articles during the week using Wallabag (an open source Pocket alternative), which gives me an RSS feed that I use within Calibre's "Fetch news" feature to send the articles to my Kindle on a Saturday morning. I then go to a cafe next door and read them. They don't look like an ebook on a Kindle, more like a Kindle magazine. I adore that feature.
- AdmiralAsshat 7y agoInstapaper might work better for you for Kindle integration. The Kobo integrates Pocket natively, so it works seamlessly. It's one of the reasons I bought a Kobo. Native Overdrive integration was a huge plus, too.
- Mediterraneo10 7y agoI read most things on my Kindle, but from the moment I unboxed the Kindle I put it in airplane mode and have kept it that way. More privacy and better battery life. So, Calibre is useful as a way to get content and move it over to my e-reader over USB, and so I don't ever risk connecting to the e-reader maker's proprietary ecosystem. I would worry that even that Kobo Pocket integration is sending data to Kobo's servers.
- mrec 7y agoThe impact of enabling WiFi on battery life hadn't occurred to me. Do you have a rough sense of how big the hit is?
- andresgottlieb 7y agoIt's huge. I'd say around 10x (I have a 3rd gen Kindle)
- Terretta 7y agoAnd even worse with the 3G model if you are in a marginal coverage area. Didn’t discover a way to selectively disable 3G and keep WiFi on. Comparing new WiFi model to new 3G model, out of airplane mode, the 3G drains about 2x to 3x faster than WiFi model.
- elyobo 7y agoMassive. Wifi only goes on when it's needed for something.
- AdmiralAsshat 7y agoAnecdotally, when we bought my girlfriend her first Kindle about five years ago, we noticed it was requiring charging way more often than the back-of-the-box battery life quote of "weeks of battery life". Upon calling an Amazon agent, they referred us to the fine print for that quotation: > A single charge lasts up to six (6) weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless off and the light setting at 13. [0] We were still pretty pissed at the blatant false advertising (a hardcore book reader reads for only a half hour a day!?!), but moving forward, she keeps the device in airplane mode 95% of the time, only turning it off to download whatever new book she just bought. It increased to at least 2-3 weeks after that, instead of a single week. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite-Waterproof-Storage-Special/dp/B07PS737QQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Paperwhite-Waterproof-Storage-...
- jfb 7y agoYeah, the UI is appalling, but it works really well for normalizing the book metadata, and loading the books onto my e-reader. That's more than enough functionality for me.
- jpindar 7y agoCan you tell me more about how it is appalling? I'm trying to learn about UI, and vague descriptions are less helpful than specific ones.
- jfb 7y agoIt's non-native anywhere, and so your intuition fails you. Icons change behaviour, the fit and finish is terrible (many text labels do not line up, for instance). As I said, functionally, it is marvellous. But using it interactively is painful.
- andrepd 7y agoKobo's integration with Pocket is a killer feature for me. It's so seamless: reading an article on my phone, and at any time hit a button, grab my kobo, and continue reading from there.
- efdee 7y agoI have only used Calibre a few times, but doesn't the Kobo show up as a storage device, allowing you to drag/drop the books there? What advantage does Calibre offer purely for transferring?
- widowlark 7y agoUsing a simple plugin, you can save and convert your proprietary books to epub and similar. I do this with my kindle purchases.
- mmsimanga 7y agoYMMV. I probably have more books and documents than I will ever read. I use Calibre to manage this collection. It is easier to flip through my collection of books on a computer when deciding what to read next than on my ereader. Being able to download meta data helps me decide what to read next. I use the Calibre storage as my backup for my ebooks. My first ereader was a Kindle which I stupidly trashed while trying to swat a fly (true story). I then bought a Kobo. Calibre converted my books as I loaded them onto Kobo.
- Izkata 7y agoThere's a kobo driver for calibre that modifies epubs as they're transferred, for better support. I don't remember all it does, though.