Techy Tuesday: Kobo Glo Unboxing

I didn't really tell you all about the day my Kobo Touch died. Probably because I didn't know for 3 days after.

I had set it up to charge on the Friday morning.  We were leaving for Banff that night and I wanted to be sure my book was fully charged and ready to go.   Shortly after I plugged it in, I noticed my girlies playing with it (can you see where this is going?) but didn't think anything of it.  I just shooed them away , made sure it was still plugged in and headed to work.

That night I packed it in my bag...and somehow managed to not read for an entire weekend away with out the kids (I know - I'm horrified too).

Monday, when I opened the book at work to read during lunch - it was telling me to plug it in.   Normally a charge should last almost 3 weeks for me so I was a bit concerned and didn't really connect it to the girlies playing with it at that point.

Then, that night, I plugged it in...and the charge light didn't come on.  Ok - not true.  It came on - but only if I jiggled the cable and then set it down with the cable held at an odd angle.

And the next morning, it was showing as only half charged.  I officially had a problem.  Hubby tried to perform surgery on it, but the girls had managed to break the charging port and when the case was removed, the port fell right into hubby's hand.

I officially had until the minimal charge ran down to replace my Kobo.  This was an emergency!

I love Kobo so there was no question that I would stick to the same brand.  Kindle is still to restrictive for my liking and after owning a first incarnation of a Sony, I'm not sure I could move to one of the much cheaper feeling ones they have now.  I contemplated just getting a Kobo Touch again, but the lure of the built in light of the Kobo Glo drew me in.   Costco had a great deal where you could get a Black Kobo Glo and a Black Sleepcover for $127 (normally, just the reader is $129) and I came close to going that route...but I love my Moleskine cover and likely wouldn't use the Sleepcover thereby making it clutter.  I just needed a new reader so I spent the full price at Chapters and picked up the white one with the blue back.

Here's the unboxing for you, in case you've been curious about what comes in the box:

Hello there new friend.

The blue is so pretty and vibrant.  I LOVE IT!

The manual greeted me, all ready to read.

Under a little flap was the charging and sync cable.  I can still charge this one with my old Blackberry charger YAY!

That was it for what was in the box.

The main change between my old touch and this new Glo is the additional button on the top of the device - this is to turn on the built in light.

Setup was smooth as always.

Downloading updates

Within a few minutes - I was good to go and ready to read.  

I think it's important to mention the transition to this device from another Kobo.  I have never been able to make my bookmarks sync on Kobo, but that has never mattered before.   I always read from just the one device and so my bookmarks already go with me wherever I am.   In this case, though, I was halfway through a book I really wanted to finish.  So, I made sure to sync my bookmarks before I did the setup.

Once my books had synced - I noticed 2 things:

1. My bookmarks HAD NOT synced (or if they had - they were definitely not registering)
2. I was happy to see my books had not automatically downloaded.  It has always bugged me that I would delete a book from my library only to have it re-download the next time I synced.  This way I could still see all of my books, but only re-download if I wanted to read them again.

Overall, though - the transition was seamless.  I synced and then I started to read.

And so far, I am really happy with the Glo! It is slightly shorter and thicker than the touch, but it still fits the case well enough for me.   The light is a nice touch - I like how adjustable it is .  I don't use it very much, though, but it is nice to know I have it with me at all times.  No more hunting for batteries for my old booklight.

I am finding that it is not as responsive as my old touch, but that might just be a case of my needing to learn the way of THIS Kobo a bit better.  Snuggle up and become his friend.  But I do know that me and this little guy are going to get to know each other REALLY well over the next few months.   And I can hardly wait.