Someone Else's Kobo

Neil's small 'Book Mill' e-publishing imprint, is about to start publishing on Kobo, which needs a different format to the Kindle (e-pub rather than mobi - for the technically minded!).  So, we thought we ought to buy one to see how the books look on it and what kind of functions we need to put into them.  There's no standardisation in e-publishing - a cover that's the right size for Kindle will leak over onto another page on a Kobo, but be too small for an I-pad.  Hyperlinks that work on the Kindle, won't on Kobo.   An e-publisher needs to know what they're dealing with.

To it was off to WH Smith to buy a Kobo.  Neil took the dummy box off the rack and took it to the counter - the assistant went upstairs and came down with the same box, though this time filled with a Kobo, put it through the till and into a bag.  But when Neil got home and took the Kobo out, it was covered with fingerprints, the sticky plastic on the screen was crumpled as if it had been taken off and put on again and it had obviously been used.  Back to the shop.  The assistant apologised, popped upstairs, came down half an hour later with the same box but - we were assured - a new Kobo inside. 

Home again and unpacked the Kobo from its box and discovered that the sticky plastic over the screen wasn't smooth and the handbook with it had been well-thumbed.  Suspicious we turned the device on according to the instructions and the set-up menu failed to appear as it was supposed to do.  When we finally got into the settings we discovered that that was because it had already been set up by someone else and their email address and details were on the Kobo, dated almost a year ago, so presumably the device had been returned to the shop by its owner.

Back to WH Smith again (a round trip of nearly 80 miles!) to ask for a new Kobo please, not another second hand one.  This time it was the manager we saw, who told us that - whoops! - they didn't have any new Kobos in stock.   Deeply apologetic.  Money back time. The staff couldn't have been nicer, and - since we were bent on buying a Kobo somewhere, somehow  - we were given a cover at a very reduced price to offset our fuel costs for the 2 return visits.


What made it so disquieting for us what that daughter M had bought a Kobo in London last year for her job and exactly the same thing had happened to her - someone else's details were already logged in and she had to take the device back to the shop.

We now have a Kobo, bought in Staples - it came in a sealed box and was absolutely pristine.  New, definitely!  And we love it.  The touch colour Vox has a vibrant screen to show off illustrations and all the apps, bells and whistles you get on a top of the range smart phone or tablet computer. It's a little short on battery life (7 hours), rather like a laptop,  but the books look amazing.  You can vary the fonts for publishing (you can't on Kindle) and have a much more elegant book.  Newspapers and magazines look exactly the same on screen as they do in your hand - and, in full colour, cookery books are luscious. In fact, reading on Kobo is a fantastic experience.   Wish we could recommend WH Smith in the same way.