Kobo Elipsa 2E & 4.36.21095 Firmware Review

[@ptMaV]

Thanks a lot for the effort you put into this review! Really appreciate the emphasis on the note taking experience. This is extremely helpful to people that are on the fence on this device precisely on that aspect.

[@texnology84]

Thanks so much, Diogo-glad to hear it!

[@ChristianBullock]

Fantastic review. Thank you so much. I'm a reMarkable 2 note taker and Kobo ebook reader user. I own a Sage and an Elipsa first gen. I picked up an Elipsa 2E but ended up returning it. I echo a lot of what you said here! The approach of hardly any updates for the first gen product and then - viola! - here are folders, more templates for the basic Notebook, and Kobo sync for the gen two product... doesn't sit well for me nor does it give me confidence that this will receive gradual improvements, like my rM2 does. I wanted to see if I could use a single device for large screen reading and note-taking but things just don't work as well for note-taking with some weird quirks here and there, Dropbox exporting not working great, and the pen still feeling a little off (I think it's the wobble of the eraser bit and the tip being like an Apple Pencil that I couldn't really get over) that made me simply not TRUST this device vs. the rM2. I agree. It's a hard pill to swallow for gen one users like myself. I do like seeing the improvements, which is funny that they haven't officially been pushed to gen one yet (you can sideload manually to get it though).

[@texnology84]

Thanks, Christian! Glad to know I'm not alone with some of these issues and attempts to work around some of these scenarios. I was hoping my ranting wasn't too far off base from at least some folks. :p I've run into some more lag today on my 80 page notebook on a pretty blank page, and yesterday got a message about the nib needing replaced...after 1 week of usage, albeit heavy usage but at this rate I'd be spending $150 on nibs a year?? RM2 does look really nice for heavier note taking which is probably more along the lines of what I should be using. I have been eyeing Supernote as well, and after this I may finally have to reel in my Kobo expectations and revise my approach-maybe go with a Libra 2 for reading only, and then have a writing-focused device which can also be more PDF and document focused. Exhausting spinning around but it is hard to settle with some of the trade offs.

[@scorpisces182]

I see this video was from 1 year ago. Do you (or anyone reading this) know if the Kobo Elipsa 2E supports Google Drive now?

[@ericki.8444]

How come my lasso tool is missing

[@SS5HH]

Are you sticking with the Sage then? I'm still deciding on if I should keep mine. The Libra 2 and Kobo Elipsa 2E have screen sizes that are too small or too big. I was hoping that Amazon would have released an updated Kindle Oasis to compete with the Kobo Sage. For I think the Sage is unique due it's form factor and note taking features.

[@texnology84]

Totally agree, Sage is such a sweet spot in a lot of ways. I actually returned my Sage after getting frustrated thinking on battery issues and lack of Notebooks updates. I wish they had been rolling these new features out incrementally instead of waterfall approach 1.5 years later. It leaves users in the dark and unsure if things ever will improve much during the lifespan of their purchase. I may come back around in October if they have a Sage 2E but battery *has* to improve since I use notebooks heavily. With Kobo Cloud, I do think they’ll enable a sync between devices so I could see a future where I might be open to using both for various scenarios

[@josemartins-game]

Still buggy.

[@JeffVan604]

What are your thoughts about the laggy stylus as compared to the competition?

[@texnology84]

The lag was a little bit slower than what I am used to with my Boox Nova 3, but all in all didn't feel too bad to me. Boox is definitely quicker over all and for sure has more features like page management and copy/paste. Kobo has some stylus bugs to resolve too, like a weird one I saw a few times where you can't write properly. It creates a burst of lines from a single point to any new point until you basically leave the notebook and come back. It also some text disappearance problems I've heard people run into. I think I saw it happen a couple of times from what I recall. I think for serious/heavy writing, Boox and Supernote are the better go-to options. Kobo, I'd say, it great as a reader with *some* writing. Just not mature in features or powerful enough to me at this point.

[@learningcheme]

Hi thanks for your video. Is it possible to increase the contrast of black text in pdf ie make the black more black as it is not possible to increase the font size?

[@texnology84]

Hi @learningcheme, Unfortunately not. The PDF experience is very lacking in features like that. I know Boox ereaders have this type of capability, but Kobo is limited still to only allowing: zooming, rotation, simple stylus annotation (writing is only available with a single pen option that is a bit too thick in my opinion), highlighting with the stylus (but not by using finger to hold and select a portion of text to select and highlight like you can in an eBook or Adobe Acrobat Reader, for example). And because you cannot select any text in a PDF, you cannot use dictionary for a word like you can in an eBook. So, yeah, a fairly basic experience. I do have a video about their PDF experience where I ramble through some of these problems if you wanted to see any more about it, but I've listed them out here mostly. :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYGWZ4uNgLWhpqc

[@learningcheme]

@@texnology84 Thank you so much for your detailed feedback. There's an offer on this device and my use case is reading PDFs only. I don't think I will buy it now.

[@chinoquant]

Thanks for the great video! So, if you mark up a book, like a physical book, can you jump to all those markups? Or only highlights? Thanks!

[@texnology84]

@chinoquant (I tried to find it in one of my videos but surprisingly didn't seem to capture that part!) I'd say the answer is partially. They have an Annotations modal (on the bottom right) for both highlights and markups, and you are able to filter the type of annotation if you only care about markups. It will show a preview of the markup and you can tap to go to that page. But there isn't a way to from 1 markup to the next once you leave the modal, so you would have to go back to the modal each time, but the filtering should remain set to markup so you don't have to toggle it back on each time. Hope that makes sense!

[@chinoquant]

@@texnology84 Thanks for the reply! I appreciate the info! :D

[@DR-R]

Hi is there a method to create a named folder on pc and shift this folder on kobo without create another one directly on kobo?

[@texnology84]

Sorry, I don't think I understand. Are you talking about Dropbox folders or Notebook folders? If Notebooks, it is mainly on device. If Dropbox, you can manage that completely from Dropbox.com or using the desktop app and Kobo will view what you've organized there. If you mean ebooks just stored on the device, I don't think there is a way other than Collections with is done using Kobo devices mainly.

[@DR-R]

@@texnology84 yes sorry, i mean i use usb to transfer ebooks from pc to kobo, but for reorganize ebooks on kobo i have to create folders on it because it is not possible to have same folders of pc.

[@texnology84]

Ah, I gotcha-I have never messed with it much myself but apparently Calibre might be able to help on Collections. I came across this recent thread but there may be more info around this forum which could give you some more insight, I just haven't ever really tried it myself to know: www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=353095&highlight=collection Not sure if it is side loaded only or what, but looks like the best bet.

[@DR-R]

@@texnology84 thank you 🙏