11 ms·

Kobo are giving you root access with telnet from the start. You can flash modded firmwares, change the backend servers to phone your own calibre-web instance, i

Kobo are giving you root access with telnet from the start. You can flash modded firmwares, change the backend servers to phone your own calibre-web instance, install ssh, koreader and even a tailscale vpn on it. They even have UART pins labelled on their board. These are amazing devices to play with. And they read pretty much everything you throw on their storage: epub, cbz, cbr, pdf..

throitallaway 2y ago
I moved from Kindle to Kobo for the sole reason that the backlight had tunable color temperature. I've ended up liking it for lot of reasons, including how open they are.
- zimpenfish 2y ago
  Kindle Paperwhite (and possibly others) have adjustable colour temperature too, with time-based automation. From a quick squizz, not quite the same as the Kobo (I don't think it has the "more blue in daytime" function) but just noting that it does exist on some in some fashion.
  - throitallaway 2y ago
    It's great that Paperwhite have caught up to Kobo in this manner. Back when I was evaluating replacing my (lost) Kindle I believe it was only an option on the top tier ($300+) Kindle.
pathartl 2y ago
I moved to Kobo because I bought my partner the Kindle Oasis and just after a year the battery couldn't hold a charge. I contacted Amazon and they would only give me 10% off a new device. I only found one person on the internet who was courageous enough to open one up. The screen was epoxied to the body with no way of opening the device without destroying the screen. So I got her a Kobo Libra H2O. Just as waterproof, significantly cheaper, and you can actually repair it. I ended up getting a Libra Colour for myself and love it.
- taspeotis 2y ago
  Don’t they have a 12 month warranty? What do you want Amazon to do after more than 12 months? 10% discount is above and beyond their obligations.
  - lwhi 2y ago
    It's completely reasonable to expect it to last longer than 12 months, especially considering this is their premium model.
    - donalhunt 2y ago
      In Europe, consumers should be getting longer protection than 1 year. May require a fight / small claims court submission to exercise one's rights.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
    Yes, every device should fail immediately upon warranty expiration. You should build a company founded on that principle. Call it GTL Pty Ltd Formerly known as Guaranteed To Last, but they dropped that naming and are now know simple as GTL after a social media smear campaign where people were saying ‘guaranteed to be the last thing you ever buy from that company’.
    - wizzwizz4 2y ago
      Oh, come on, they could totally own that smear campaign. "Guaranteed to be the last [class of device] you ever buy, unless you give it away." Something something heirlooms, put together a simple, 30-second narrative for the advertisement campaign, job done.
  - simion314 2y ago
    Would be normal/natural if we could change the batteries and not throw away devices when the battery fails even more natural when the device is not dirt cheep.
  - 2y ago
sphars 2y ago
I had no idea the extent that Kobos allow you to do these sort of things. Heavily considering a Kobo as my next e-reader once my PW3 gives ups. Is there a good starting resource for Kobo modifications like you mentioned?
- fvrther 2y ago
  Mobile read forum for most of it, but also heavily recommend kobopatch 1. https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases optional but nice to tweak some small ui details and get rid of ads 2. https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale to have a secure connection with your calibre-web instance, but you could also use self-signed certs 3. https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integration https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio... adding books to calibre-web will cause them to appear on the device the next time it syncs with calibre-web
  - sphars 2y ago
    Thank you! Will peruse over these
  - muhehe 2y ago
    There are ads in kobo? Is it normal or some sort of cheaper offering like kindles?
    - fvrther 2y ago
      No ads per se, but a recommendation tile and a kobo plus subscription tile on the main screen that just eats display space for nothing. I mainly use kobopatch to change the epub reader margins, get the page remaining in a chapter and block firmware updates and a few other details. Totally optional, it's just pure nitpicking here. Here is all my kobo modding work in this repo, you can also find what firmware mods are available... https://github.com/obynio/kobopatch-config/tree/master/src https://github.com/obynio/kobopatch-config/tree/master/src
sen 2y ago
I switched from Kindle to Kobo and out of the box it would hard-crash within a few minutes of using it, every single time. You have to pry the case off and remove the internal battery hard reboot it. I sent it in, waited 2 months for a replacement, and the new one (with new firmware) does the exact same thing. I despise Amazon as a brand but nothing comes close to the kindle hardware wise. Waterproof, indestructible, and never had it crash.
realusername 2y ago
Kobos are just a simpler mental model for non IT experts as well, you plug them in, they behave like a USB key, you can't get easier than that.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  That is exactly how Kindle first generation used to work, and thankfully mine still does its job.
- coder543 2y ago
  Kindles have literally always behaved like that, from the beginning. The very newest generation of Kindle changed the storage protocol from traditional mass storage (which was compatible with everything) to MTP, which is mildly annoying for Mac users, but it is still intended to just show up as a flash drive.
- eloisant 2y ago
  Behaving like a USB key is not a simpler mental model than "buy books on Amazon and they're on your device". I agree on the freedom for geeks, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking non IT experts want to deal with files.
  - goosedragons 2y ago
    Kobo has the same thing. Buy books on Kobo and they are on your device. But they also support ePub natively and ADE DRM natively so there's more options of where to source books before conversion.
freedomben 2y ago
Thank you! You just sold a kobo :-) I have a remarkable 2 and really like it, but my wife needs a new "Kindle" and I'd rather cut my finger off than pay Amazon to abuse me. Looking forward to trying out the kobo
- rusticpenn 2y ago
  Is remarkable 2 a good ebook reader?
  - necovek 2y ago
    Nope, though possibly with a custom workflow, it might be. I own a Kindle Scribe, Paperwhite (a couple versions) and reMarkable 2, and while I promise myself to set up an easier experience for using reMarkable for reading and then selling the Scribe, I didn't find the time so they "got me".
  - internet_points 2y ago
    It has no backlight, which I would find annoying, but i know someone who has read tens of thousands of pages on the remarkable 2. It's easy enough to copy epubs and pdfs to it though, and the screen is big which helps.
  - speerer 2y ago
    The actual experience of reading is quite good, but, it is not really fully-featured for EPUBs.I was trying to reflow text into a different font and size yesterday and it took forever. I ended up giving up. It is, however, quite hackable, and `rmapi` on GitHub allows you fine control of its (linux) system.
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    Fwiw, several stories here on HN about remarkable, so a search is probably worth doing if you've not read those other stories yet.
  - nunez 2y ago
    I have a reMarkable 2. It's better as a book annotator than a book reader, IMO. It's fine for my use case (reading during rest periods while at the gym), but I wouldn't use it as a full-time reader, as it can get quite slow and doesn't have very many eReader features.
yoavm 2y ago
This! I've worked on https://github.com/bjesus/air https://github.com/bjesus/air as a completely alternative and open source UI for my Kobo Clara HD. PostmarketOS support on the device is great and very recently an important patch that will allow us to use Wayland was also merged: https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/6102 https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merg...
- choobacker 2y ago
  This looks great. Is there by out-of-the-box usable e-reader that supports SSH? Air still has some manual steps/maintenance. For comparison, I've used PostmarketOS on Pinephone, and it required a lot of fiddly to get a poor experience. But maybe the simpler usecase of "just reading" has good solutions?
  - choobacker 2y ago
    Looks like I could use https://github.com/PNDeb/pinenote-debian-image https://github.com/PNDeb/pinenote-debian-image on my PineNote.
  - bobek 2y ago
    Boox devices are Android based, so also pretty hackable.
  - mattl 2y ago
    Remarkable Pro looks great and runs Linux and has SSH out of the box.
donatj 2y ago
I bought a pretty early Kobo like 10+ years ago and found myself very underwhelmed with the software situation. I sold it and went back to my kindle. Maybe it's time to take a second look. The hacker in me's interest is piqued. Frankly though, the biggest thing that keep me on Kindle these days I suspect are hard to replicate. For example, automatic audio book/kindle sync where I can switch back and forth, listening to the audio book in my car and reading at home in bed. For two, read.amazon.com where I can read from my locked down work machine without installing anything. The whole whispersync ecosystem.
- jamiek88 2y ago
  I don’t use any Amazon hardware but Kindle Unlimited has got me like netflix did back in the day. Trashy sci fi is my vice.
dewey 2y ago
I’ve recently looked into buying a replacement Kindle. In the end the Kindle hardware looks and feels much more premium with the display being even with the frame. I hope there’s new models coming from Kobo that address that soon.
dwayne_dibley 2y ago
I'm still daily using my kobo touch from 2011, my oldest piece of 'still in use tech' (other than the Wii, which the kids still bowl on!). Not being bound to an ecosystem, has really been a blessing - and in part kept it in use.
t-3 2y ago
What you can't do on Kobo is use the page up and down buttons to scroll in the web browser unless you go through the effort of installing the cross-compiling toolchain and building a display server and a browser.
hresvelgr 2y ago
The Kobo Libra Colour has the best UX of a device I own, in that it's completely invisible. I can just read my damn books, highlight passages I think are noteworthy and save words I like the sound of. Everything just works, and the high seas experience is seamless.
zabi_rauf 2y ago
I love Kobo for that. I hooked UART with a Variometer (measure rate of climb in aircraft) and use it in glider soaring as a flight computer (good contrast on sunny day) Posted the details here: https://zabirauf.dev/blog/aviation/glider_flight_computer https://zabirauf.dev/blog/aviation/glider_flight_computer
ZeroTalent 2y ago
True. To play the Devil's Advocate, Kindle is exceptionally cheap (especially the older models) on Prime Days
magnetowasright 2y ago
They're also intentionally repairable! I've got a Kobo Libra Colour which is a newer model, and its product page links to ifixit. I love it so much.
forinti 2y ago
I really like my old Kobo, but I was a tad disappointed when I had to swap the screen. It's a very shoddy build. The screen is glued to the board and the battery is soldered. I felt like it was made to break when you try to open it.
a2800276 2y ago
Not to mention you're not blowing money up Bezo's botoxed arse.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Epa095 2y ago
There are also the onyx boox models, many run android, and it seems like you can install whatever you want. I have no experience with them myself, but I am curios.
- intothemild 2y ago
  I have a Onyx Boox Go Color 7, and I love it.
Shorel 2y ago
I moved away from Kobo because of the ancient USB port, and got my PocketBook with USB-C four years ago, and I am still using the PocketBook. With USB-C, Kobo would be a very good product. I guess they use it now.
- Gareth321 2y ago
  They do. It's great.
submeta 2y ago
Wow, this is so unbelievable, that I decided to sell my Kindle Oasis and get a Kobo. Thank you for this comment. I hate the restrictions on my Kindle.
JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
Do you know how much of this applies to older Kobos? I love my Forma but I'd rather start experimenting like crazy on a 2011 one first if I can.
ptx 2y ago
Newer devices apparently use secure boot and prevent modding the firmware, causing the developers of the Inkbox/Quill alternative distro to abandon the entire project: https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill
zelphirkalt 2y ago
I recently had a very bad experience with Kobo.com. Bought an ebook thinking I could simply download and view it on computer. haha was I naive... I could not download it from the website, instead the download gave me some XML file for some Adobe shit app, which would then download it. But I did not sign up to download and install Adobe shit on my machine. So another option is using the Kobo app. But guess what... they don't have it for GNU/Linux. And I thought maybe I can use it with WINE, but their friggin download link for the app did not even work in Firefox, even when allowing all the third party crap they put on that page to load. So that way was also blocked. OK, I thought, let's get it refunded then. But good luck!!! finding any kind of support e-mail address! All their docs and links brought me back to their chat bot, which did not help me and instead always directed me to the docs again. Worse, they have the audacity to state on their pages that only some ebooks are eligible for a refund and to find out whether yours is, they send you back into the docs and chat bot loop. I guess they don't want people to refund, so they made finding any contact info especially difficult. How to make a real shitty user experience 101, presented to you by kobo.com. With this it is clear to me, that I will never again buy any ebooks from them. For anyone, who does not own their Kobo device already, I say hands off this one! Maybe buy the book and download a DRM free ebook from ... elsewhere. That way you pay, can have a clean conscience and enjoy your ebook.
- testfrequency 2y ago
  DRM free ebooks are very few and far between, especially current titles. What you describe is a pain and all true, this is just the state of ebooks unfortunately. Kobo is not great at offering refunds like Amazon, as expected in many ways being a much more lean business not being propped up by AWS margins.
patja 2y ago
I love my Kobo reader and am happy with switching to it after a decade or more of daily Kindle use. But I think it is important to not over-sell it. It has had certain unexpected frailties, such as corrupting the database when I neglected to eject the USB device before pulling the cable, something that resulted in losing my notes and current progress. I also had to learn about the Kobo ePub format and install a Calibre plugin to get that working, otherwise some ePub files would rapidly drain the Kobo battery. I did not expect bad html/css to significantly affect battery life. I'm not sure I would recommend it to an older person or someone who doesn't have a little patience for tinkering.

throitallaway 2y ago

I moved from Kindle to Kobo for the sole reason that the backlight had tunable color temperature. I've ended up liking it for lot of reasons, including how open they are.

zimpenfish 2y ago
Kindle Paperwhite (and possibly others) have adjustable colour temperature too, with time-based automation. From a quick squizz, not quite the same as the Kobo (I don't think it has the "more blue in daytime" function) but just noting that it does exist on some in some fashion.
- throitallaway 2y ago
  It's great that Paperwhite have caught up to Kobo in this manner. Back when I was evaluating replacing my (lost) Kindle I believe it was only an option on the top tier ($300+) Kindle.

pathartl 2y ago

I moved to Kobo because I bought my partner the Kindle Oasis and just after a year the battery couldn't hold a charge. I contacted Amazon and they would only give me 10% off a new device. I only found one person on the internet who was courageous enough to open one up. The screen was epoxied to the body with no way of opening the device without destroying the screen. So I got her a Kobo Libra H2O. Just as waterproof, significantly cheaper, and you can actually repair it. I ended up getting a Libra Colour for myself and love it.

taspeotis 2y ago
Don’t they have a 12 month warranty? What do you want Amazon to do after more than 12 months? 10% discount is above and beyond their obligations.
- lwhi 2y ago
  It's completely reasonable to expect it to last longer than 12 months, especially considering this is their premium model.
  - donalhunt 2y ago
    In Europe, consumers should be getting longer protection than 1 year. May require a fight / small claims court submission to exercise one's rights.
- TheSpiceIsLife 2y ago
  Yes, every device should fail immediately upon warranty expiration. You should build a company founded on that principle. Call it GTL Pty Ltd Formerly known as Guaranteed To Last, but they dropped that naming and are now know simple as GTL after a social media smear campaign where people were saying ‘guaranteed to be the last thing you ever buy from that company’.
  - wizzwizz4 2y ago
    Oh, come on, they could totally own that smear campaign. "Guaranteed to be the last [class of device] you ever buy, unless you give it away." Something something heirlooms, put together a simple, 30-second narrative for the advertisement campaign, job done.
- simion314 2y ago
  Would be normal/natural if we could change the batteries and not throw away devices when the battery fails even more natural when the device is not dirt cheep.
- 2y ago

sphars 2y ago

I had no idea the extent that Kobos allow you to do these sort of things. Heavily considering a Kobo as my next e-reader once my PW3 gives ups. Is there a good starting resource for Kobo modifications like you mentioned?

fvrther 2y ago
Mobile read forum for most of it, but also heavily recommend kobopatch 1. https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases https://github.com/pgaskin/kobopatch-patches/releases optional but nice to tweak some small ui details and get rid of ads 2. https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale https://github.com/videah/kobo-tailscale to have a secure connection with your calibre-web instance, but you could also use self-signed certs 3. https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integration https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/wiki/Kobo-Integratio... adding books to calibre-web will cause them to appear on the device the next time it syncs with calibre-web
- sphars 2y ago
  Thank you! Will peruse over these
- muhehe 2y ago
  There are ads in kobo? Is it normal or some sort of cheaper offering like kindles?
  - fvrther 2y ago
    No ads per se, but a recommendation tile and a kobo plus subscription tile on the main screen that just eats display space for nothing. I mainly use kobopatch to change the epub reader margins, get the page remaining in a chapter and block firmware updates and a few other details. Totally optional, it's just pure nitpicking here. Here is all my kobo modding work in this repo, you can also find what firmware mods are available... https://github.com/obynio/kobopatch-config/tree/master/src https://github.com/obynio/kobopatch-config/tree/master/src

sen 2y ago

I switched from Kindle to Kobo and out of the box it would hard-crash within a few minutes of using it, every single time. You have to pry the case off and remove the internal battery hard reboot it. I sent it in, waited 2 months for a replacement, and the new one (with new firmware) does the exact same thing. I despise Amazon as a brand but nothing comes close to the kindle hardware wise. Waterproof, indestructible, and never had it crash.

realusername 2y ago

Kobos are just a simpler mental model for non IT experts as well, you plug them in, they behave like a USB key, you can't get easier than that.

pjmlp 2y ago
That is exactly how Kindle first generation used to work, and thankfully mine still does its job.
coder543 2y ago
Kindles have literally always behaved like that, from the beginning. The very newest generation of Kindle changed the storage protocol from traditional mass storage (which was compatible with everything) to MTP, which is mildly annoying for Mac users, but it is still intended to just show up as a flash drive.
eloisant 2y ago
Behaving like a USB key is not a simpler mental model than "buy books on Amazon and they're on your device". I agree on the freedom for geeks, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking non IT experts want to deal with files.
- goosedragons 2y ago
  Kobo has the same thing. Buy books on Kobo and they are on your device. But they also support ePub natively and ADE DRM natively so there's more options of where to source books before conversion.

freedomben 2y ago

Thank you! You just sold a kobo :-) I have a remarkable 2 and really like it, but my wife needs a new "Kindle" and I'd rather cut my finger off than pay Amazon to abuse me. Looking forward to trying out the kobo

rusticpenn 2y ago
Is remarkable 2 a good ebook reader?
- necovek 2y ago
  Nope, though possibly with a custom workflow, it might be. I own a Kindle Scribe, Paperwhite (a couple versions) and reMarkable 2, and while I promise myself to set up an easier experience for using reMarkable for reading and then selling the Scribe, I didn't find the time so they "got me".
- internet_points 2y ago
  It has no backlight, which I would find annoying, but i know someone who has read tens of thousands of pages on the remarkable 2. It's easy enough to copy epubs and pdfs to it though, and the screen is big which helps.
- speerer 2y ago
  The actual experience of reading is quite good, but, it is not really fully-featured for EPUBs.I was trying to reflow text into a different font and size yesterday and it took forever. I ended up giving up. It is, however, quite hackable, and `rmapi` on GitHub allows you fine control of its (linux) system.
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago
  Fwiw, several stories here on HN about remarkable, so a search is probably worth doing if you've not read those other stories yet.
- nunez 2y ago
  I have a reMarkable 2. It's better as a book annotator than a book reader, IMO. It's fine for my use case (reading during rest periods while at the gym), but I wouldn't use it as a full-time reader, as it can get quite slow and doesn't have very many eReader features.

yoavm 2y ago

This! I've worked on https://github.com/bjesus/air https://github.com/bjesus/air as a completely alternative and open source UI for my Kobo Clara HD. PostmarketOS support on the device is great and very recently an important patch that will allow us to use Wayland was also merged: https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merge_requests/6102 https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/merg...

choobacker 2y ago
This looks great. Is there by out-of-the-box usable e-reader that supports SSH? Air still has some manual steps/maintenance. For comparison, I've used PostmarketOS on Pinephone, and it required a lot of fiddly to get a poor experience. But maybe the simpler usecase of "just reading" has good solutions?
- choobacker 2y ago
  Looks like I could use https://github.com/PNDeb/pinenote-debian-image https://github.com/PNDeb/pinenote-debian-image on my PineNote.
- bobek 2y ago
  Boox devices are Android based, so also pretty hackable.
- mattl 2y ago
  Remarkable Pro looks great and runs Linux and has SSH out of the box.

donatj 2y ago

I bought a pretty early Kobo like 10+ years ago and found myself very underwhelmed with the software situation. I sold it and went back to my kindle. Maybe it's time to take a second look. The hacker in me's interest is piqued. Frankly though, the biggest thing that keep me on Kindle these days I suspect are hard to replicate. For example, automatic audio book/kindle sync where I can switch back and forth, listening to the audio book in my car and reading at home in bed. For two, read.amazon.com where I can read from my locked down work machine without installing anything. The whole whispersync ecosystem.

jamiek88 2y ago
I don’t use any Amazon hardware but Kindle Unlimited has got me like netflix did back in the day. Trashy sci fi is my vice.

dewey 2y ago

I’ve recently looked into buying a replacement Kindle. In the end the Kindle hardware looks and feels much more premium with the display being even with the frame. I hope there’s new models coming from Kobo that address that soon.

dwayne_dibley 2y ago

I'm still daily using my kobo touch from 2011, my oldest piece of 'still in use tech' (other than the Wii, which the kids still bowl on!). Not being bound to an ecosystem, has really been a blessing - and in part kept it in use.

t-3 2y ago

What you can't do on Kobo is use the page up and down buttons to scroll in the web browser unless you go through the effort of installing the cross-compiling toolchain and building a display server and a browser.

hresvelgr 2y ago

The Kobo Libra Colour has the best UX of a device I own, in that it's completely invisible. I can just read my damn books, highlight passages I think are noteworthy and save words I like the sound of. Everything just works, and the high seas experience is seamless.

zabi_rauf 2y ago

I love Kobo for that. I hooked UART with a Variometer (measure rate of climb in aircraft) and use it in glider soaring as a flight computer (good contrast on sunny day) Posted the details here: https://zabirauf.dev/blog/aviation/glider_flight_computer https://zabirauf.dev/blog/aviation/glider_flight_computer

ZeroTalent 2y ago

True. To play the Devil's Advocate, Kindle is exceptionally cheap (especially the older models) on Prime Days

magnetowasright 2y ago

They're also intentionally repairable! I've got a Kobo Libra Colour which is a newer model, and its product page links to ifixit. I love it so much.

forinti 2y ago

I really like my old Kobo, but I was a tad disappointed when I had to swap the screen. It's a very shoddy build. The screen is glued to the board and the battery is soldered. I felt like it was made to break when you try to open it.

a2800276 2y ago

Not to mention you're not blowing money up Bezo's botoxed arse.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Epa095 2y ago

There are also the onyx boox models, many run android, and it seems like you can install whatever you want. I have no experience with them myself, but I am curios.

intothemild 2y ago
I have a Onyx Boox Go Color 7, and I love it.

Shorel 2y ago

I moved away from Kobo because of the ancient USB port, and got my PocketBook with USB-C four years ago, and I am still using the PocketBook. With USB-C, Kobo would be a very good product. I guess they use it now.

Gareth321 2y ago
They do. It's great.

submeta 2y ago

Wow, this is so unbelievable, that I decided to sell my Kindle Oasis and get a Kobo. Thank you for this comment. I hate the restrictions on my Kindle.

JansjoFromIkea 2y ago

Do you know how much of this applies to older Kobos? I love my Forma but I'd rather start experimenting like crazy on a 2011 one first if I can.

ptx 2y ago

Newer devices apparently use secure boot and prevent modding the firmware, causing the developers of the Inkbox/Quill alternative distro to abandon the entire project: https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill

zelphirkalt 2y ago

I recently had a very bad experience with Kobo.com. Bought an ebook thinking I could simply download and view it on computer. haha was I naive... I could not download it from the website, instead the download gave me some XML file for some Adobe shit app, which would then download it. But I did not sign up to download and install Adobe shit on my machine. So another option is using the Kobo app. But guess what... they don't have it for GNU/Linux. And I thought maybe I can use it with WINE, but their friggin download link for the app did not even work in Firefox, even when allowing all the third party crap they put on that page to load. So that way was also blocked. OK, I thought, let's get it refunded then. But good luck!!! finding any kind of support e-mail address! All their docs and links brought me back to their chat bot, which did not help me and instead always directed me to the docs again. Worse, they have the audacity to state on their pages that only some ebooks are eligible for a refund and to find out whether yours is, they send you back into the docs and chat bot loop. I guess they don't want people to refund, so they made finding any contact info especially difficult. How to make a real shitty user experience 101, presented to you by kobo.com. With this it is clear to me, that I will never again buy any ebooks from them. For anyone, who does not own their Kobo device already, I say hands off this one! Maybe buy the book and download a DRM free ebook from ... elsewhere. That way you pay, can have a clean conscience and enjoy your ebook.

testfrequency 2y ago
DRM free ebooks are very few and far between, especially current titles. What you describe is a pain and all true, this is just the state of ebooks unfortunately. Kobo is not great at offering refunds like Amazon, as expected in many ways being a much more lean business not being propped up by AWS margins.

patja 2y ago

I love my Kobo reader and am happy with switching to it after a decade or more of daily Kindle use. But I think it is important to not over-sell it. It has had certain unexpected frailties, such as corrupting the database when I neglected to eject the USB device before pulling the cable, something that resulted in losing my notes and current progress. I also had to learn about the Kobo ePub format and install a Calibre plugin to get that working, otherwise some ePub files would rapidly drain the Kobo battery. I did not expect bad html/css to significantly affect battery life. I'm not sure I would recommend it to an older person or someone who doesn't have a little patience for tinkering.