This is about a gadget, canadians, water, Stephen Pastis, and my pants.
I have had four? dedicated eReaders. I had the original Sony Reader, the first touch model, a pocket (slightly smaller!) and now the T1. All of them Sony which is amusing because nobody has a Sony and I don’t particularly enjoy Sony as a hardware company.
That said, I do have a library of ePub books and if I get a new eBook reader … do I stick with something that reads ePubs so I don’t lose my library? Or do I go with Amazon because they are fine with throwing authors and publishers under a bus in an evil conspiracy to rule the world?
No. Seriously. Do you even know how Amazon operates as a company?
If I stick with ePub that leaves basically Sony (who refuses to release new hardware with a light after their regrettable experience with the worst eReader with a light ever), Barnes & Noble (who is doing everything they can to get rid of the Nook), and Kobo… dear sweet Kobo, the Canadian company who got bought by the Japanese conglomerate and may be the only possible competition to the Amazon monstrosity.
Kobo currently (let’s say I wrote this during LATFOB) has two models. The Glo which apparently has the best frontlit display of any eReader. The light is smoother than any others. (I didn’t realize this but the Nook Simple Touch with Light has a really uneven light). And the Kobo mini is amusingly small. They just announced a new model, the Kobo Aura HD which has better almost everything. It’s a larger display so you can see more text. It’s a higher resolution display so the text looks crisp and lovely. It’s frontlit so I can read in the dark. It has more storage space for more books. The biggest catch is of course it’s larger in general so I needed to know if I could put it in my pockets.
All of my gadgets must fit inside of a pocket of my jeans or I will not bother with it.
The iPad is not a gadget. The iPad is a computer.
The Sony Reader T1 fits in my pocket. It is thin and light and thus far I have not broken it.
The Nintendo 3DS XL fits in my pocket. It is chunky but it fits.
The iPhone has always fit in my pocket. Even back when I was using a T-Mobile sidekick that fit in my pocket.
I think the important thing to take from this is that all gadget manufacturers should take into consideration that convenience is important and the foolish people who might buy your unnecessary device (let’s call them “men”) don’t carry around handbags.
If I did it would be very heavy. And that wouldn’t be convenient.
Apparently I come from a line of people who would rather carry around stuff than have something cute and lightweight.
Anyhow, Kobo had a booth at LATFOB and they tweeted that they had like free water and pouch bags so people could hydrate … but by the time I got there they had run out. It was a very warm day and I assume that was fairly popular.
Thirsty?Come by the @kobo tent 994 and get one of our water bottles & fill it up with chilled water! #latimesfob twitter.com/Kobo_Live/stat…
— Kobo Events (@Kobo_Live) April 20, 2013
Ooo I’ve never embedded a tweet before. And that should include a link to the picture of water.
Anyhow Kobo had water and Stephan Pastis was going to sign there and so to make up for me ditching the signing line for him in the morning and I tried to go but he was gone, the water was gone, but they did have a Kobo Aura HD and I did fit in my pants pocket and I am seriously considering getting one.
Or I could just read in proper lighting.
Side note: today the Kobo Aura is available in fine retailers … ASSUMING YOU LIVE IN CANADA. I had asked the booth staff and they told me it would be available today but the website (and the Kobo twitter) assures me that the only way to get this amazing device is to order it through them online. I have an instant gratification complex and they are not gratifying my complex. So … maybe I’ll WAIT to order it and since this is apparently a limited edition model or something perhaps they’ll run out and I will cry.
Net gain: 0 books. 0 books signed. 0 ereaders purchased