Kobo Books Reviews

by 29028

Not terrible, but not great either.
- takes a good number of taps and navigating to make notes or to find then
- options to change fonts, line spacing and margins is limited (unlike on my h2o, where there are a lot of options)
- background color choice is very limited, and text color cannot be changed
- bugy: i get notified that i have opened my book on another device when i know i have not. another time my book got marked as read half way through without me intending to do it.

and a couple of suggestions:
- how about a setting that would allow the reader to keep page numbers regardless of font size. say a particular book is 200 pages in print. i would like the option to have those pages marked on my e reader as well. this 100% system of marking progress is really clumsy.
- i would also like the option to read while holding my device in a way that my finger rests on the screen without highlights or notes or other helpful things popping up. there could be a way to activate and deactivate it easily - say by long pressing in one corner of the screen, and while activated, the device would only react to a gesture to turn the page, which would be elaborate enough so it would not be activated by accident...
- changing font size would be nicer using buttons to incrementally increase/decrease. the current slider is clumsy and not as effective.

doubt this will be read or considered by a human, but on an off chance..

good luck!

by BrendansFriend

There are three major E-book readers and services in English - Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. Kobo is my choice of the three and I've used it for a number years now and have LOTS of experience with it. The biggest problem Kobo is there are many, many, many duplicate entries in its book database, where the exact same edition of the same book is listed two or even more times, frequently with different prices. What if you happen to buy a more expensive instance of a particular book? Well, unless you catch it and demand the difference in price be returned to you, Kobo will happily pocket your extra money. For years and years they have let this go on and on and take no discernible action against this fraudulent practice even though they could and should easily fix the problem quickly. Its like Kobo is just so negligent they won't bother to fix their issues until forced to by a lawsuit. It's a class action lawsuit just waiting to happen.

by Jade F

If you have a lot of annotations the boom will take forever to load. On top of that all my annotations are some how filed under the “contents” section of my book and not the actual chapters. It doesn’t track where I am in my book in the contents tab. I’m about four chapters in and the red check continues to show that I am on the first page.
I also don’t like how true page numbers aren’t available. It only tells you what page your on within the chapter. Not what page your on within the whole book. Page numbers are very important how am I suppose properly quote the book if I don’t know the page number?
KoboBooks doesn’t have a dictionary built in It seems like a pretty useful feature to have especially for an ebook app. In my opinion you’re probably better off using Apple Books. Small glitches are fine but when you have several of them it gets annoying and Apple Books offers more features anyway.

by McPhee-Bell

I like to listen to books while I fall asleep and I always set a 30 minute sleep timer. One time it turned off and I thought “that couldn’t possibly be 30 minutes already” and when I looked, it was still counting down. It had only been 15 minutes. I tried to press play to start the audiobook again and it would play for a split second then pause again. Over and over I tried it but would only ever play a split second until I fully exited and closed KoboBooks and restarted.

If that isn’t happening then sometimes it ignores the sleep timer all together. 2 nights in a row it didn’t stop after the 30 minute sleep timer. I woke up hours later and my audiobook was still going. The first time it happened I thought maybe I did forget to set the time but the second night I KNOW it was set. It has happened at least 2 other times since that back-to-back night. I can always scroll back to where I last remember but it’s kind of a pain to be woken up because my audiobook can’t obey a sleep timer.

by Ultramookie

All the books I bought from Sony when they ran an ebook store got moved over to Kobo, so I downloaded KoboBooks to read a book. KoboBooks just is not that great. There are great ideas here, but the execution is terrible.

The good thing I like about it is the reading stats which are compelling. The layout of KoboBooks outside of reading is also pretty good and useful. But, all of this is lost because of usability issues.

KoboBooks cannot keep sync at all. I will read on my iPhone and come back to my iPad to find that the Kobo app on my iPad is still stuck where I left off on the iPad. Sometimes, KoboBooks syncs and brings me to where I actually am, but it doesn’t happen much.

Though KoboBooks shows me the percentage of how far I am in a book before I enter the book, there’s no indicator in the book itself. All that I see are pages in the section/chapter that I am in. There’s no way to see how far I am in the book itself while I am reading.

The layout options when reading are woefully lacking.

I want to like Kobo because I think there should be an alternative to Kindle, but Kobo has a ways to go before this can even come close to being a decent alternative. All of this is strange because the Libby app from Overdrive (which is own by Rakuten, who owns Kobo) is a fantastic reading app that has none of the issues that the Kobo app does.

by Alfjsgak

I usually use my actual Kindle, sometimes my Kindle app, but downloaded this to read a Kobo exclusive. It just does not hold up to the features I like on my Kindle, such as changing the “page count” view to show either the page number you’re on, percentage of book you’re through, or time left in either chapter or book (which I use the most and this doesn’t seem to have that option at all). Also when I switch out of KoboBooks and go back later it often freezes and the page is blank and I have to completely close out KoboBooks and reopen it. If you navigate to another part of the book, you can’t always easily get back to where you left off reading (hope you remember what page you were on!). I wanted to give this a good shot but it just doesn’t compare to Kindle.

by Warmewe

I admit my favorite reading app is the Apple Book app, followed by the Kindle app, which I would rate as a 4 out of 5. My rating is based on comparing my experiences with Kobo against the other two apps. I also read primarily nonfiction. In black background mode the text is very faint. Highlighting text takes too many steps and doesn’t cross pages. I also have to be extremely precise with my finger to highlight and too often, the last word is cut off in the highlighting. Opening footnotes also finicky. Adding notes is a terrible experience, too. The GUI doesn’t show the text where I am adding a note and the note space at the same time. It is a frustrating app to use and detracts from my reading enjoyment. I’m not even sure my local bookstore received any benefit from my purchase through KoboBooks .

by GeriG429

I am used to scrolling up and down when I read. I read for a couple of hours every evening and I am now, exclusively, a e-reader. The look of the pages and the setting options are all great. They give you an option to mark your book as finished, which I really like. The ONLY thing I don’t like is the page turning process. You tap right or left to turn the page forward or back. The problem is you tap to move forward and you are back at the beginning of the chapter you just read. There’s no fast forward, you have to Tap to turn each page. Even when I pay very close attention, it’s still happening and I can’t figure out why. I’m a fast reader, I can read at almost 500 words a min... if I can get to the correct page. Even though I really like everything else about this application, I won’t be using it again. It very distracting and just way too much work to just read a book. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong, I’d appreciate feedback. If I can get this resolved, I’ll gladly use this e-reader!

by Kalikalinko

I am not an avid ebook reader, but with the current times, I have found myself increasingly turning to it. I am starting to use this more for studying various texts, and so, i like to take notes & high light passages often. The very frustrating component is that almost every other time i highlight a passage, KoboBooks freezes and, also tries to pop-up the dictionary definition for the word my finger tapped on (to start the highlighting process). So i either have to wait a few minutes, or, more often than not, restart KoboBooks . Argh! I really want to love KoboBooks (as an alternative to the “other” app(s)) but this may keep me from continuing my use :( Thus 3 instead of more stars.
I do enjoy the audiobook set up very much. It’d appreciate if you could let me know if I’m missing on some specific instruction or “fix” issue somehow for use-friendliness. Thank you.

by The Rightttt Stuff

I am an avid reader, and love audio books. KoboBooks is simple to use, the online list of books is inexhaustible, and to top it all off, they have great, great deals on premium audio books. Ive listened to hundreds of hours at this point, but I have encountered a problem. Randomly, my books have begun to stop playing, and I get this message “something went wrong, please try again”. Which... for an app where I have products that I BOUGHT is very discouraging. So I went to their help line at the site, and did the recommended actions- Clear local history, log out, log back in. Which works, but A) It’s annoying to re-download my books and B) the problem comes back after about 5 hours of listening.
Now, again I say that this is an AMAZING app for listening and reading books. Really cant beat the price on their audio books bundle option. But what brought me to write the review was the hopes that the developers see my issue and can fix it! Im changing to 5 stars if an update comes out in the future addressing my issues. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have great adventures in many books to come!

by TheTif

I’ve been using Kobo for a while now in an effort to not give money to some bigger ebook companies. It’s definitely the best reading app alternative that I’ve found. You can change the text colors and size, you can bookmark, and you can adjust the brightness of the screen without changing the brightness for your whole phone. Also if you are reading a preview and buy the whole book, it saves your place and all of you bookmarks and highlights, which is something even the biggest guy doesn’t do.

I would give KoboBooks 5 stars if the improved the highlighting. When you are trying to highlight something it’s always ends the highlight like two or three letters before you stopped dragging. I wish it would just default to the end of the word. Also highlighting from one page to the next is just impossible. I also hear that it’s hard to get your highlights out if you wanted to import them to another app for doing research.

by Jamesgaston

I'm a long time Kobo reader and am seeing two weaknesses in the iOS app.

First, there is no way to see where you are in a book page wise. Yes, there's a percentage, yes there's a page within a chapter, but there is no display of page within a book.

Second, more problematic, is the book mark / last page read feature is buggy. With the book i'm reading now, Swann's Way, the kobo app invariably starts up at a place in the book that is incorrect, and when i navigate to my bookmark it thinks that's a temporary location and the little go-back arrow in the lower left corner appears. Really this is a very basic feature --- last page read -- and it should be working perfectly.

by Kait_M_

I absolutely love KoboBooks. I’ve been using it for almost 10 years now. I read a lot, before bed especially, and it can be frustrating to have to keep turning the page myself. I would love to be able to prop my phone up while washing dishes and have an in app timer to turn the page after so many seconds. Of course everyone reads at different speeds so there would need to be multiple settings for the the timer. Maybe even a read aloud function too. I know there are probably reasons why there is not one such as audio book rights. However it could possibly be mitigated by only allowing a certain percentage of a book to be read aloud. It would be so convenient to be reading and then click a button the will read the text aloud for 5-10 minutes while you shower or swap laundry. Then you wouldn’t have to put the book down.

by GraneeJ

Audiobooks in particular can be problematic. I belong to the audio club but find myself frequently frustrated with KoboBooks which hasn’t a way to flag & doesn’t do a decent job of tracking where I am. The controls are sensitive & suddenly shift back or forward when I move because something has brushed the screen. I listen to audio so I can do things while reading so this is very irritating. The text capabilities are better with flags & search capabilities but I have trouble making the annotation capability work & usually give up in frustration. Bottom line, I love Kobo; belong to VIP & audio clubs; but app itself could be improved.

by Atbui25

I have been a long time Kindle user. I feel Kindle is not made for readers. The Kindle restricts you from changing the formats. Kobo focuses more on the readers’ unique reading style. No two Kobo is the same. This is in KoboBooks and Ereaders. If you reorder the letters Kobo, you would have book. That tells you a lot about the company that name itself using the letters in book. They are tailoring to readers. They don’t have other products, just creating unique reading experiences for each reader. Try its ereader as well. You won’t be disappointed.

by HavaWorkman

So I have to admit that I was a little scared off by the low rating (three-star rating is pretty harsh) but figured hell, it’s free - why not give it a shot.

Well, it works awesome! Logged in quickly and easily, all of my Kobo books were there - good to go! The instructions on how to flip pages in it was a little overboard bc every other reader out there works exactly the same way, so...duh? But I’m also a Millennial who grew up with this stuff, so I’m not going to be thrown off by simple technology, whereas maybe someone else would be. *shrug*

Anyway, loved it - glad I downloaded it and gave it a shot! Kobo is an awesome store that treats its authors right, so I’m happy to support them however I can.

by Anndv

I am happy with the Kobo app and have had no problems. I also have other popular reading apps and Kobo compares very favourably. The Kobo app actually had extremely convenient features far earlier than the most popular American app, so it’s definitely a quality product.
I had an early Kobo device and I liked it but I found I preferred to use a large screen iPad for reading (ageing eyes). Being able to still access my Kobo books and to continue to purchase new Kobo books through KoboBooks was a key factor in my choice. I recommend KoboBooks to anyone who wants a reading app rather than a reading device.

by S-K-Papa

I had an issue for signing in and I read other reviews saying something similar. I decided to contact the support via chat window. Unlike many of the customer support of other apps or online stores, a guy named Arturo knew what he was talking about. I described my issue and he immediately pointed out what I’d have to do. It had something to do with the unclarity of sign-in options on the screen. KoboBooks designer definitely needs to make it more visible. You need to sign in by specifying what you originally signed up with. There is a small text below sign in boxes saying “more sign in options”. If you click on that there was a long list of different options. After going through that, there was no problem. Thanks again, Arturo!

by Erik Ilia

It works well, has a lot of sort options (including downloaded only for offline). Adjustable displays, and a home page to remind you of what you’ve been reading. Only issue I have is there is no way to sort by ratings that you give to books, genres of books, and it doesn’t recognize the names of authors from books you download from another site (like the authors website or a free giveaway). I love taking advantage of giveaways and buying books (as well as reading them) so I end up with a lot of books and it can be hard to remember and find the ones I liked best. When I am looking for something random or a specific genre my kobo app is too hard to sort through. I also wish you could filter your books by more than one option at a time.

by Zhies

I like how the Kobo app works, especially the way folders can be used to sort books. Now KoboBooks on the iMac allows better search options. It is also easy to go back and forth to keep Plaintext notes on my iPad. I also like how it is set up to easily give a review of the book when I finish.

Improvements?
It would be nice to have an archive folder for books I have read and probably won't revisit. It would be such that the all folder still shows all, but if I want to edit my books-read folder, it would let me go to the all listing minus the archive ones. As it is now, as my library gets bigger, it gets clumsier to use.

by Nopicnic

My son has a learning/reading disability and really needs audio narration to accompany his reading (he reads along while the book is being read aloud). I can no longer read aloud to him due to medical issues/surgeries, leaving me with a severe speech impediment and pain after prolonged speaking. Audiobooks have been an incredible help for him. Came across Rakuten/Kobo and purchased one audiobook which was fine, but our second purchase - the book details listed “unabridged”. Turned out that the “audiobook” was just a radio show performance and was not the full book - it was just the dialogue and skipped over the majority of the book. Worse part - found out that the radio performance of the book is available online on public archives?!? The book details and description KoboBooks/company used was incredibly misleading - feel cheated.

by Fairy Breakfast

Kobo is a bit cheaper than some other audiobook subscription survives. I began reading Anne of Avonlea as an audio book and the audio is good enough, kobo has an easy to use design and I like that they show you how far you are in the book by a percentage below the title/cover icon. However, I also realized that when I got Anne of Avonlea when I clicked through to the audio display, the cover of the book is blurry for some reason, not so much that I couldn’t see the art or title but enough for it to ruin the aesthetic of the cover. I don’t know if this is a problem w KoboBooks itself or not but it makes it look kind of cheap tbh. That’s why I’m giving this three stars, not amazing but also not too bad. I can’t complain too much as it is cheaper than audible

by BikerGarfield

KoboBooks is easy to navigate and instinctive to use. My only problem is that EVERY book I’ve downloaded so far has contained a large number of typos- far more than should be expected. I’ve checked some of the books on other platforms and these don’t appear on them so must be down to the way that the material is scanned in? Other than that though, the choice, availability and price of material is comparable to its rivals, while not being limited to particular devices or platforms which is a great bonus as I can read when and where I like, picking up where ever I was on whichever device I use

by Basenjishiro

I had an issue for signing in and I read other reviews saying something similar. I decided to contact the support via chat window. Unlike many of the customer support of other apps or online stores, a guy named Arturo knew what he was talking about. I described my issue and he immediately pointed out what I’d have to do. It had something to do with the unclarity of sign-in options on the screen. KoboBooks designer definitely needs to make it more visible. You need to sign in by specifying what you originally signed up with. There is a small text below sign in boxes saying “more sign in options”. If you click on that there was a long list of different options. After going through that, there was no problem. Thanks again, Arturo!

by Tired Of Work Now

This book just saved me from a big mistake! I was scheduled for angioplasty and a stent. If that failed I would need a coronary artery bypass. After reading only part of the book I changed my diet to a high nutrient low carb diet. I lost 3 pounds. My glucose went from 247 to 123.9 . And l’m taking about 8 units of lantice less/day. This is in the first three weeks of the diet. I’m walking 2-5 miles/day and I’m feeling GREAT. No pain, shortness of breath, or Angina. I guess the only person that is going to die is my cardiologist from embarrassment. I’m 70 years old and my cardiologist is younger. I personally plan to urinate on his gravestone on the tenth anniversary of his death!! I truly hope he lives a very long time!!!! THANK YOU for saving my life!!!! The book was worth thousands of times more than I paid for it.
Sincerely Jerry O.