Kobo Wireless

Image fromhttp://www.kobobooks.com/ereaders

I got this eReader from a colleague at work, it is a white with lilac stitched background, which is quite pretty. She was willing to give it to me cheap too, considered the disastrous purchase I made last few weeks ago, the Pico Life W960, the Kobo is cheaper, although a secondhand.
First of all, the machine itself is pretty, it switches on pretty quickly too. When it switches off the frame does not go all blank, it will display the cover of the book you are reading when sleeping or powered off, you can opt to show or not to show cover, that is all.

The good thing is that it is light and has wireless. There are plenty of bad things about it, especially when you compare it with today's models. Lack of color, slow response time, low amount of supported files are just the inconvenient factors that affects people to go for Sony or Kindle. The worse is that the lack of support from their customer service, the email they sent me said, and I quote:

Kobo Cares

Kobo cares about your eReading experience so if you're looking for a specific book, have feedback or have an idea to share contact us.

Sincerely, Michael Serbinis (CEO)

I did email them,only to be shot down by their customer team brutally. I had asked if Kobo will be rolling out a new upgrade to support Asian languages, and their reply was:

Hi Ailyn,

Thank you for Contacting Kobo Customer Care. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Unfortunately you're unable to read Chinese or Asian fonts on the Kobo ereader.
Please feel free to contact us for further assistance.

Sincerely,

The Kobo Team.

I do not know about you, but I was pretty surprised that Kobo would brush its customers off like that. A request to include the upgrades for Kobo Touch to Kobo Wireless or its older predecessors did not seem too much to ask, was it? Probably a few more tweaks, or at least offer some consolation prize.  No why or a plan, they are clearly not supportive to their customers.

Anyway, apart from that, the Kobo Desktop sync is a total failure. I hate it so much that I uninstalled it within minutes of use. I would recommend Calibre, if you are thinking about switching ebook readers like me; Calibre can change book formats, like from mobi to epub, a great tool to have.


Finally, it took me 2 days to get my Kobo Wireless to be able to read mandarin writing. Take that, you non-supportive customer service! Yes it took me ages, and a lot of tries, but I can safely tell you know that pdf is probably the easiest way, with Calibre and its handy plugins =)
There are people who were successful in converting into readable epub formats for Kobo, but I have yet to decipher the complex language of l33t.
For those who are interested, mobile readers forum friends.

Summary: get the Kobo Touch if you want, because the new firmware includes font change, means probably a language font in the future; better still get a Nook or a Sony, or those Chinese ebook readers. For me, I just wanted a transitional eReader to use until I get my hands on something that I really like: colored e-ink, fast response, low weight, easy on the eye, bendable or can be folded to store and cheap.

Definitely not worth the $139.99 or even $99.00