Kobo eReader Touch review

I hit a dilemma when preparing for my trip to Russia. I was only bringing a carry-on bag, which limited the amount of reading material I could bring. Being a voracious reader I wanted to bring quite a bit, but since my laptop was out of commission and the new one had not arrived yet I had to figure out an alternative. Looking around I finally decided that I was being a Luddite and it was time to try out an ebook reader. I love holding a book, I love shopping for books, I love just staring at my full bookshelves at home! Yet it was time for a change. After doing some research I settled on Kobo eReader Touch and brought it with me on my trip. After several days of continuous use, here's my brief review.

The Kobo eReader is a robust ebook reader in a mid-price range, with a large number of features, and the following specifications:

Available Colors	Lilac, Blue, Silver and Black
Wireless Connectivity	802.11b/g/n
Processor	Freescale 508 Processor
Device Size	114mm X 165mm (4.5 in. X 6.5 in.)
Device Depth	10mm (0.4 in.)
Weight	185g (6.5 oz.)
Diagonal Display Size	6" Pearl high contrast E Ink display
Screen Grey-Scale	16 Level
Storage	2GB*
Memory Expansion	Up to 30,000 eBooks with a 32 GB SD Memory Card
Connectivity	USB, Wi Fi
Battery Life	1 month**
Supported File Formats	Books: EPUB, PDF and MOBI Documents: PDF Images: JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and TIFF Text: TXT, HTML and RTF Comic Books: CBZ and CBR
Pre-Loaded eBooks	15 Hand-Selected Free Previews
Fonts	7 Font Styles, 17 Available Sizes
Software	New & Improved Free Kobo Desktop Software

I was only able to obtain a blue model. Regardless of the colour, the front is always white, so really the colour doesn't matter if you use a sleeve (I do). The actual memory space available for books is 1gb, but it supports 32gb MicroSD so running out of space isn't really an issue. Now for the pros and cons:

Pros:
- Kobo eReader Touch is very light, the screen is just big enough, and the interface is simple. Reading it on a bus or subway is a breeze, and flipping pages is much easier than on older eReaders thanks to touch technology.
- The Touch feature is nice and it allows for a greater freedom when manipulating text. The touch keyboard is responsive and easy to use
- Kobo eReader Touch supports not just the standard ePub e-book format, but also MOBI (Kindle format), PDFs, TXT, HTML, and CBZ and CBR (comic book formats) in addition to all the standard picture formats. I found that although the screen is black-and-white only (obviously), the comic book formats and PDF files nonetheless have a high picture quality and very readable.
- The Kobo eReader has wi-fi that can be used not just to browse ebook stores, but also to surf the internet. That's right, the eReader has a fully functional browser that's strongly reminiscent of Google Chrome. It's a beta version, but I found it useful enough despite some drawbacks (more on them later)
- The Kobo eReader also supports 7 fonts and 17 different sizes and additional fonts and sizes can also be downloaded. That's very handy for reading webpages, PDFs, etc. The default font, however, is quite readable.
- Adding books to the eReader is a breeze - just drag and drop, OR if you connect the eReader to your home network you can access your computer's directory and add books to the reader using its own interface.

Cons
- The browser is nice to have, but currently very very slow. The touch technology is not as highly responsive as (say) Google Nexus S or iPhone, but it practically stutters in the browser.
- The Kobo eReader is supposed to be able to read MOBI (Kindle format) books, however, when I loaded around 200 books in MOBI format most of them did not display correctly, most of the text being replaced by gibberish. That was annoying and disheartening. I thought at first that maybe it's because I pirated the books and tried free MOBI books offered by Kindle store and Gutenberg project, but encountered similar problem. I've as yet not found a solution, and Kobo website has not offered one either. That's very annoying, so for now I'm limited to books in TXT, ePub, and PDF formats.
- The battery life is adequate for several days of continuous reading, but as soon as wi-fi is turned on the battery life drops precipitously. Furthermore, the eReader only comes with a USB wire thus requiring a computer for recharging. You can buy a Kobo power outlet adaptor, or use a generic micro-USB-to-USB power outlet adaptor (which is what I ended up using).

Final thoughts
The Kobo eReader is a robust and enjoyable eReader that provided me with excellent reading experience, and the browser was actually a life-saver at one point. It's light, easy to use, easy to scroll pages, displays a lot of different formats, and the battery life is adequate. Its puzzling inability to display books in MOBI format is a big fly in the ointments, but for its price the Kobo eReader just might be the best ereader in its range.

An ideal RPG

I've been running role-playing games (RPGs for short) as a Game Master (GM from now on) for nearly 15 years now. I think I've ran maybe 10 different systems (including the different iterations of Dungeons and Dragons), played in several more, and read maybe 20+ different systems. In additions I've tried my hand at writing my own systems, and got paid for contributing to a game system (Fantasy Flight Games' wildly successful line of Warhammer 40k RPGs). So I have some weight to opinions on RPG design. In all this time, however, I've never reached my platonic ideal of a perfect RPG to game master (GM). That said, however, I have some darn good inklings as to what my ideal RPG to GM would look like.

Minimum of rules for maximum of results

I want a system that doesn't provide me with minute rules for every possible action a character can make (never mind that it's an impossible task). I want a system that tells me how I can quickly come up with my own rules to adjudicate character actions. I don't want a system that needs tinkering, or a lot of rule memorization, in order to work. I want quick tools that are applicable in the maximum of situations. What RPGs so far might fall under this heading? The closest I've seen so far is Mouse Guard (based on Burning Wheel system), Wushu (terrific for one-session play, but a little too rules-lite), and (albeit with some tinkering) the New World of Darkness RPG from White Wolf.

Plug and Play

My ideal system does not require much (or ideally not any) tinkering to be used with a variety of settings and groups. I don't want ponderous rules for spelling out the nuances of all the individual species, classes, gear, etc. I want a system that focuses on character actions and decision regardless of what setting they might be in. The adventures of Odysseus are - despite the obvious differences - similar in structure and motivations to those of Jack Carter of Martian Chronicles, or many comic book heroes, or whatnot. That's what interests me more: the actions of the characters, their motivations, their adventures and personality. That's what I want the system to focus on, not tables upon tables of every conceivable minutae.

So easy your grandmother could use it

I'm not a dumb person, and I have a reasonably good memory, but I want the minimum of memorizaton required. If the rules could be fit on a DM screen in their entirety I would be ecstatic. If I could hand the rules to my players and they'd be familiar with them after 20 minutes of reading tops I would be ecstatic. I don't want a challenging tactical simulator (I'd play video games or tabletop wargames for that), or a super-realistic game. My criteria in this category is that the system should at no point slow down the game or take away the fun.

It keeps going and going and going...

There are many so-called narrativist and rules-lite systems that already do most of what I've set out above. Most of the ones I've looked at, however, suffer from a particular flaw - they do not support character progression with meaningful rules. The players are at heart stat-munchkins (even if they say otherwise). They want to see numbers change on their character sheet. They want to feel that their characters change in more ways than just their role in the story. And they want that progression to be meaningful and visible (again, even if they say otherwise). Most rule-lite RPGs I've read work great for short adventures or one-shots, but few offer this kind of progression that satisfies the players.

I've got the world on a string

The characters won't be doing much if there isn't a world to do it in. World building is a fun part of any GM's job and most of creativity and imagination goes into world building. All too often, however, I get frustrated trying to adapt a particular system to the world I have in mind. I look at the feats or skills or advantages or edges or aspects or whatnot that I would have to come up with for my world in order to make it work as intended. And therefore I return to my first point - instead of rules I want tools to help me make up monsters, people, effects, vehicles, gear, etc., on the fly without having to look through a book (and normally I'm lucky if it's just one book, usually it might involve multiple supplements) and thus grinding the game to a halt. That just ruins the fun and wastes time for everyone. Also, if I have to spend more time preparing for the game than actually running it, then I do not want to run it. That's why I don't run Dungeons and Dragons (of any edition) anymore.

Am I asking for too much? Eh, I'm sure I could get some good answers about people's favourite systems that purport to fulfill all my criteria, but to be honest - and arrogant - I doubt that they would. Eventually I'll build my own and inflict it on my players!

Enough coddling

Inspired by a Globe and Mail article on shorter summer holidays for students and instead spreading the holidays more evenly throughout the year (here's the link), here's what I think are necessary changes to fix education system in Ontario:

- Let students graduate with a certificate at 16 to start work earlier, or continue to 18 and graduate with a diploma which allows them to go on to University or College, and let their last year count as University/College credits (in the same fashion as CGEP in Quebec). This is the system in Great Britain and it seems to produce some good results. It lessens the burden on the system (less students in higher grades), prepares the students better for post-secondary education or for workplace, and lets those students who are interested in starting to work early to do so without penalizing them for dropping out of high school.

- Shorten summer holidays (again, the way it's done in Britain), or get rid of them and spread the holidays throughout the year. We need to compensate for loss of OAC, help knowledge retention, and allow students and parents to enjoy more time together throughout the year rather than stress the parents with having to find babysitters, summer camp, or summer school during the summer. Systems with shorter holidays, or year-long programs (whether public systems abroad, or some of the private schools right here in Canada) show much better academic results and graduation rate.

- We need to bring back meaningful assessments and evaluations, and to implement stricter guidelines on academic performance. Under the current system it's next to impossible to give a failing grade, and meaningful deadlines for assignments (and indeed course completions!) are non-existent. Students are also being pushed through the system without regard as to their actual progress, resulting in situations where a Grade 12 student who has been in a Canadian system all his life reads and writes at a Grade 2 level (personally witnessed).

- I think we need to at once make the curriculum more flexible in some areas and more rigid in other areas. First of all, the vocational courses need to be accessible to students earlier (so that they can graduate with a certificate at 16 and start working). Secondly electives need to be available in earlier grades. Thirdly certain core subjects (English and Math primarily) need to be not only mandatory throughout all grades, but also be year-long. Otherwise the results are just embarrassing. Finally we need to give technology and computer courses earlier. We often take it for granted that the young generation are tech-savvy, but in reality they are woefully ignorant. They know how to text, use Facebook, post YouTube videos and chat, and that's it. When it comes to actual practical knowledge of computers and software even 40-50 years olds can run circles around 16-year olds. I've seen it myself. The amazement of "You can do that in word processor?!" is funny only the first couple of times. Afterward it's sad.

Given the trajectory that our education system seems to be on right now, I think within 10 years we're going to hit a crisis in the work force, practical and pure research, and education in general. It's going to take some drastic changes to avoid it.