I use the Renaisser 520c stylus with my Elipsa: it has built-in usb-c charging and an excellent felt tip. It works very well. Pls. consider trying it to see what you think.
Yeah… The writing experience was pretty bad. I ended up returning mine and I am the happy owner of a Supernote! It was great to see one of the major e reader companies getting into notes but its greatest contribution may have been to push Amazon in that direction (hopefully with better results and more updates).
I'm hoping the next generation will fix these issues because I really want to merge the capabilities of Kobo + Supernote. Maybe the answer is to buy two devices. Maybe the answer is a Boox Tab Ultra. But I really want Kobo + Supernote on one device. Well ... Elipsa was their first go at adding writing features. Hopefully, they just make it better. They have improved it with the 2E but not enough.
@@t0dd000 I know the good folks at Ratta (maker of the SN) have a limited app store in the works. Wouldn't be surprised if the Kobo app was one of the apps they release.
@@ernestintownandjackintheco1024 That will make me happy ... Happier. Happiest if they add Libby and Pocket. A front light would be spectacular, but only if they can preserve the feel of the platform. Dunno. Tech is hard. :)
Purchased but ended up returning it. Sad to hear Kobo has done little to make the experience and better. I had a hardware issue (one of the “feet” wasn’t level with the others, resulting in pushing a corner of the device and everything moving) as well as the latency issues shown in the video. The lack of a warm light and the pack-only mentality hurts this device greatly. If you truly stood by your device, you would be in an active state to try to get it in as many hands as possible.
Such a shame, I got mine open box and in a overstocked store so the price wasn't to bad. But I'm very disappointed by kobo support the hardware isn't the problem the CPU is at least as fast as the remarkable in st jobs and can be faster on mt jobs due to double the ammount of cores. I still hope the software team will lift this product up but it might be already abandoned.
I was following along with your 1 year review. I dont have the delays you had drawing thick lines or the issue with highlighting. So that is strange. I am using the latest 4.33.19608 software. I dont use the advanced notebook so I can not comment on that. But for my purposes it has served me very well.
That update came out on the day this video was published, but at the time of recording the video it wasn't available and current version was 4.31.19086. I got it now as well, so I'll check it out :)
Wow, I was considering this E-ink device because I love my Kobo Ereader. But the drawing and writing functionality is really disappointing. So thanks so much for the review, I will not be replacing my Ereader with this device,
Thank you for your 1 year update review, Voja. A little disappointing as I was hoping to use the Kobo as my E-ink NEBO device by copying over the ".nebo" files created by Kobo in "Dropbox/Apps/Rakuten Kobo" into my "Dropbox/Apps/MyScript Nebo" used by my Android device for further processing using the full Nebo features. Do you think that would work anyway?
The .nebo files generated by the Elipsa worked fairly well in my ios Nebo app. However, the Elipsa does not save the .nebo files to Dropbox afaict - only to the pc.
@@AG-vr6vd thank you so very much for going out of your way and testing this. Actually hooking up the Kobo via usb to my device would work out fine. You are right, reading Kobo's documentation as well as a post in mobileread confirms that the ".nebo" file type is not supported in "Dropbox/Apps/Rakuten Kobo". I'll see whether I can get a deal or a refurbished Kobo Sage or Elipsa. I actually would prefer getting an Android based Boox Note Air2 Plus and installing the Nebo Android app but from what I've read it is nearly unusable - if neither works out I'll just get a 10.9" Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 with an anti-reflective screen protector.
@@ichmoimeyo I wouldn't bother with the Duet if you want to use it as a tablet with Android apps - Chromebooks still run Android apps in a container, so even if you're using it on stellar hardware, the performance stinks. I have a chromebook with 16GB ram and an i7 and it still can't run Android apps half as well as an old Nexus device from a decade ago. Add to the fact that the Duet gets even slower when used without the keyboard, as Chromebooks are still not good tablets.. The fact that Google has reversed its stance on tablets and are releasing their own Android powered product next year only confirms it.
Merci pour cette vidéo je ne sais pas si je vais changer ma kobo h2o , je n ai pas besoin d écrire car j ai un iPad Pro pur ça et ça marche super bien ; s il ne s agit que de lecture , je ne sais pas si ce modèle change beaucoup à part sa taille
The look of it is very nice and the versatility is awesome. I think maybe the size might be a bit to big so I been thinking iPad mini or a foldable device for reading. However for long term reading I can see the benefit of not staring at a screen for long periods of time
My script - Nebo is also on ipad. You can increase the size of font but there is still no formatting for bold. I have been using it on ipad. It words better there for some reason.
I'm very disappointed with mine. The writing experience has too many issues. I keep waiting a magical update, but so far nothing good has happened. I can not recommend this product to anyone that is looking for a note taking device, as in that regard is really, really bad.
I regret my Elipsa purchase. It is a good ereader, but there are plenty of great, cheaper ereaders out there. The writing experience is subpar. I got a Note Air2 and never looked back.
Oh yes!!! I didn't get the Elipsa because it lacked 'ComfortLight PRO' (colour adjustable frontlight on Kobo e-readers). I love using my Note Air2, but wish Kobo would fix the buggy print-replica (or fixed layout) e-book rendering engine on their Android tablet app, as it scales fonts incorrectly.
They have, but not in that capacity. Only in the capacity to check if I'm running the latest updates and to verify my results. Not really asking any pertinent UX questions nor addressing any of the issues mentioned. Btw, there was an update released, basically on the day this video came out that improved the strokes lag with the large brush, but nothing more than that.
@@MyDeepGuide Thanks for the update. I really like their eReader and ebook platform, vs. Amazon. I'll also send them your suggestion to dump bundle and offer it as eReader at lower price. CAD 450 on sale now, but still too rich.
I have a theory to why Kobo has such a bad delay when making big lines like that. Kobo might be using AI to increase the speed of rendering the strokes when writing. When people write normally they make small amplitude lines and change directions quick, so I suppose the algorithm is not expecting to draw such big lines before chaning directions so it slows it down
You see, it is more of an issue of rendering capabilities, which is still pretty impressive or such computational device to keep up that speed following your input. Rendering thinner lines would be of course easier, drawing lesser mass of content, while bolder lines are more difficult to follow up with live input and draw at the same time. Same ratio for the drawing area scale. But still really impressive for an e-reader device, especially having an e-ink display. It is all about CPU speed. When you open up a "live cpu monitor" program on your pc, and do the same thing with your mouse cursor, you will see how much cpu power it actually consumes to draw that cursor going crazy around the screen. So this e-reader, with a similar mechanics, draws movements on e-ink display, saves the rendering, reads the pressure feedback, and responds in real time.
While some of what you said is vaguely accurate, it doesn't apply here, because what you're talking about applies to non E-Ink devices. E-ink refreshing and handling of written input works on an entirely different level than on a regular display. Mainly, when an e-Ink device "draws" it enters a specific display mode where nothing is refreshed and only the new input is drawn on top. This allows the device to be exceptionally fast. Casing point, reMarkable 2 has literally half the horsepower of the Kobo Elipsa but is eons faster, when writing latency is concerned. This has to do only with the software implementation of drawing and the inexperience of the Kobo team with the eink drawing functionality. For example, Quirklogic Paper has pretty much the same, if not lower specs than Elipsa, also uses an active pen, not an EMR pen, and still manages (now) to be extremely fast, almost as fast as Remarkable 2. But it wasn't always like that. When it launched it was even slower than the Elipsa, but their software engineers cared and worked hard and then moved the Paper from the bottom of the DESTA chart almost to the very top. So no, nothing about what Elipsa is doing is impressive. It's below average of what an eNote device can and what the competitors do with the exact same amount of computational resources, and that is a reflection of the Kobo software engineers efforts put into this platform, or lack there of.
@@MyDeepGuide Oh, just saw your reply. That was just my emulative theory without much e-ink device knowledge and filtered through my PC expertise, and in fact learned well from your explanation. I was considering to buy an Elipsa, but will consider options carefully now. Also love your videos, take care!
It's kind of weird to buy a device that is meant for well, erm, a better READING experience and expect it to be perfect with drawing and doodling. I mean, I am looking for a device to read and scribble stuff on the margins, then I see this review that just explores features that people are mostly looking for in other devices meant for these activities... I don't know, this is a weird attitude IMO.
I would agree with you if their accent on the Elipsa was that it's an eReader that allows you to take some notes on the texts and margins, but the very first sentence describing the Elipsa on their website is: "Put conventional paper aside and think bigger with an intuitive note-taking experience and an expansive 10.3” touchscreen.", And they continue to talk about the notetaking capabilities and experience, before they even mention anything regarding eReader side of things. That is not a description of a simple eReader with some notetaking capabilities, that is a very strong accent and priority set on the notetaking aspect of the device and a review should also reflect that. So ultimately, it's the choice Kobo made, not me.
@@MyDeepGuide you should have talked about the even light of the screen. I have sage and elipsa now and sage sucks if I compare them. In sage Bright light close to the botton and green shodows in the opposite. Elipsa is excellent.
I’m glad you’re showing how profoundly disappointing the Kobo Elipsa is after nearly a year. I’ll never trust the company again. They have shown they don’t have what it takes to make a successful product.
This issue was fixed in the following update. So isn't it better to hold the developers responsible for obvious software shortcomings in order to have an improved platform and subsequently value for money over time, than just making up excuses why we should accept unacceptable shortcomings in a modern device?
@@MyDeepGuide Apologies if I came across as caustic or belittling. But I still stand by what I said. These e-ink tablets are all designed primarily to be e-readers (easy on the eye) with some having the ability to annotate, markup etc. I would never expect to use one for sketching or drawing. For those use cases I would use the Ipad with apple pencil. I use an apple ipad. MY kobo e-ereader is specifically used to read ebooks to prevent eyestrain. I have a older Aura with extremely limited annotation options and am looking to upgrade to the elipsa. But from reviews I see that rhe boox note and Supernote seem better in some areas. However for my use case the elipsa would probably be more than enough.
That is your own personal perspective and use case scenario, but it doesn't translate to all the users. A lot of users out there, especially students and people in the academia are looking for an eNote device, primarily. Kobo Elipsa was and is advertised in such a way, with the accent placed on it's writing capabilities, reader is secondary. So as such, Elipsa is an eNote device, not an eReader device, and people looking for an eNote device value writing performance and capabilities over reding performance and capabilities, and then it is quite important to address the shortcomings, so that people are aware of them, before they spend a lot of money on a device.
I found it slow unreliable and Kobo service is useless not interested in helping or hearing issues I've gone back to a kindle, a pen and paper note book KOBO failed sorry to say plus an expensive paperweight
Thats enough for a nope for me. If these damn things cost 70$ yeah ok, but they are 300+. Rather save up more for a better laptop. This is just smt for when you feel like spending money on some crap you dont actually need and fight your depression a little with these new silly gadget.
Or maybe some people don't want to use a computer and for their needs this is enough? Your own needs and priorities are your own, don't expect that those should align with needs and priorities of others.
@@MyDeepGuide Im not talking about those people as you shouldve figured out. If you rather buy this instead of a laptop you clearly have plenty of money. Im not mentioning prices just because, thats for people who look for value for money. And this product aint it. So maybe one should think more and make sure they understood the information however badly frazed before teaching others.
I use the Renaisser 520c stylus with my Elipsa: it has built-in usb-c charging and an excellent felt tip. It works very well. Pls. consider trying it to see what you think.
Yeah… The writing experience was pretty bad. I ended up returning mine and I am the happy owner of a Supernote! It was great to see one of the major e reader companies getting into notes but its greatest contribution may have been to push Amazon in that direction (hopefully with better results and more updates).
I'm hoping the next generation will fix these issues because I really want to merge the capabilities of Kobo + Supernote. Maybe the answer is to buy two devices. Maybe the answer is a Boox Tab Ultra. But I really want Kobo + Supernote on one device. Well ... Elipsa was their first go at adding writing features. Hopefully, they just make it better. They have improved it with the 2E but not enough.
@@t0dd000 I know the good folks at Ratta (maker of the SN) have a limited app store in the works. Wouldn't be surprised if the Kobo app was one of the apps they release.
@@ernestintownandjackintheco1024 That will make me happy ... Happier. Happiest if they add Libby and Pocket. A front light would be spectacular, but only if they can preserve the feel of the platform. Dunno. Tech is hard. :)
@@t0dd000 They have specifically sworn off front lights, I'm afraid. But that's ok by me, I wouldn't use it all that much.
Purchased but ended up returning it. Sad to hear Kobo has done little to make the experience and better. I had a hardware issue (one of the “feet” wasn’t level with the others, resulting in pushing a corner of the device and everything moving) as well as the latency issues shown in the video. The lack of a warm light and the pack-only mentality hurts this device greatly. If you truly stood by your device, you would be in an active state to try to get it in as many hands as possible.
Such a shame, I got mine open box and in a overstocked store so the price wasn't to bad. But I'm very disappointed by kobo support the hardware isn't the problem the CPU is at least as fast as the remarkable in st jobs and can be faster on mt jobs due to double the ammount of cores. I still hope the software team will lift this product up but it might be already abandoned.
I was following along with your 1 year review. I dont have the delays you had drawing thick lines or the issue with highlighting. So that is strange. I am using the latest 4.33.19608 software. I dont use the advanced notebook so I can not comment on that. But for my purposes it has served me very well.
That update came out on the day this video was published, but at the time of recording the video it wasn't available and current version was 4.31.19086. I got it now as well, so I'll check it out :)
This update was more of a general update for the store and the batterie percentage 4.33 is the last time they updated the notebooks.
I kinda wonder if the advance notebook is slower to be updated cause they rely on nebo for it.
Wow, I was considering this E-ink device because I love my Kobo Ereader. But the drawing and writing functionality is really disappointing. So thanks so much for the review, I will not be replacing my Ereader with this device,
Thank you for your 1 year update review, Voja. A little disappointing as I was hoping to use the Kobo as my E-ink NEBO device by copying over the ".nebo" files created by Kobo in "Dropbox/Apps/Rakuten Kobo" into my "Dropbox/Apps/MyScript Nebo" used by my Android device for further processing using the full Nebo features. Do you think that would work anyway?
I honestly don't know, as I don't use Nebo.
@@MyDeepGuide thanks for your reply - my misunderstanding, I thought you used it on your Tab 11 pro
ua-cam.com/video/TggWrK5dWAU/v-deo.html
The .nebo files generated by the Elipsa worked fairly well in my ios Nebo app. However, the Elipsa does not save the .nebo files to Dropbox afaict - only to the pc.
@@AG-vr6vd thank you so very much for going out of your way and testing this. Actually hooking up the Kobo via usb to my device would work out fine. You are right, reading Kobo's documentation as well as a post in mobileread confirms that the ".nebo" file type is not supported in "Dropbox/Apps/Rakuten Kobo". I'll see whether I can get a deal or a refurbished Kobo Sage or Elipsa. I actually would prefer getting an Android based Boox Note Air2 Plus and installing the Nebo Android app but from what I've read it is nearly unusable - if neither works out I'll just get a 10.9" Lenovo Chromebook Duet 3 with an anti-reflective screen protector.
@@ichmoimeyo I wouldn't bother with the Duet if you want to use it as a tablet with Android apps - Chromebooks still run Android apps in a container, so even if you're using it on stellar hardware, the performance stinks. I have a chromebook with 16GB ram and an i7 and it still can't run Android apps half as well as an old Nexus device from a decade ago.
Add to the fact that the Duet gets even slower when used without the keyboard, as Chromebooks are still not good tablets.. The fact that Google has reversed its stance on tablets and are releasing their own Android powered product next year only confirms it.
Merci pour cette vidéo je ne sais pas si je vais changer ma kobo h2o , je n ai pas besoin d écrire car j ai un iPad Pro pur ça et ça marche super bien ; s il ne s agit que de lecture , je ne sais pas si ce modèle change beaucoup à part sa taille
The look of it is very nice and the versatility is awesome. I think maybe the size might be a bit to big so I been thinking iPad mini or a foldable device for reading. However for long term reading I can see the benefit of not staring at a screen for long periods of time
My script - Nebo is also on ipad. You can increase the size of font but there is still no formatting for bold. I have been using it on ipad. It words better there for some reason.
I'm very disappointed with mine. The writing experience has too many issues. I keep waiting a magical update, but so far nothing good has happened. I can not recommend this product to anyone that is looking for a note taking device, as in that regard is really, really bad.
I agree editing is hard, v
It's like, thanks for the money and bad luck and don't bother contacting us
Seems you can't insert an image in the notebook?
I've had mine for a year and find it to be a good device, though it is a better reader than a notebook.
It's a good device, but it has the capacity to be a lot better via software improvements, which unfortunately have been, largely, ignored.
I regret my Elipsa purchase. It is a good ereader, but there are plenty of great, cheaper ereaders out there. The writing experience is subpar. I got a Note Air2 and never looked back.
can you recommend some better e-readers with the same screen size?
Oh yes!!! I didn't get the Elipsa because it lacked 'ComfortLight PRO' (colour adjustable frontlight on Kobo e-readers). I love using my Note Air2, but wish Kobo would fix the buggy print-replica (or fixed layout) e-book rendering engine on their Android tablet app, as it scales fonts incorrectly.
I regret it too.
@@Cheffamily The same size? Not really. If I'm not taking notes, I prefer a smaller ereader for portability and comfort anyway.
Any option/solution for nighttime reading since it doesn't have the blue light blocking option?
Unfortunately none that I am aware of.
Yes, put a warmer light in the lamp close to your bed or sofa and turn off the light of elipsa
Has Kobo ever reached out to you proactively for suggestions/feedback? If not, then it bodes ill for the future.
They have, but not in that capacity. Only in the capacity to check if I'm running the latest updates and to verify my results. Not really asking any pertinent UX questions nor addressing any of the issues mentioned. Btw, there was an update released, basically on the day this video came out that improved the strokes lag with the large brush, but nothing more than that.
@@MyDeepGuide Thanks for the update. I really like their eReader and ebook platform, vs. Amazon. I'll also send them your suggestion to dump bundle and offer it as eReader at lower price. CAD 450 on sale now, but still too rich.
I have a theory to why Kobo has such a bad delay when making big lines like that. Kobo might be using AI to increase the speed of rendering the strokes when writing. When people write normally they make small amplitude lines and change directions quick, so I suppose the algorithm is not expecting to draw such big lines before chaning directions so it slows it down
Interesting theory, but nope, they are most definitely not doing that.
I still want it lol
Unfortunately, this is the only reasonably priced big (10"+) ereader.
You see, it is more of an issue of rendering capabilities, which is still pretty impressive or such computational device to keep up that speed following your input. Rendering thinner lines would be of course easier, drawing lesser mass of content, while bolder lines are more difficult to follow up with live input and draw at the same time. Same ratio for the drawing area scale. But still really impressive for an e-reader device, especially having an e-ink display.
It is all about CPU speed. When you open up a "live cpu monitor" program on your pc, and do the same thing with your mouse cursor, you will see how much cpu power it actually consumes to draw that cursor going crazy around the screen.
So this e-reader, with a similar mechanics, draws movements on e-ink display, saves the rendering, reads the pressure feedback, and responds in real time.
While some of what you said is vaguely accurate, it doesn't apply here, because what you're talking about applies to non E-Ink devices. E-ink refreshing and handling of written input works on an entirely different level than on a regular display. Mainly, when an e-Ink device "draws" it enters a specific display mode where nothing is refreshed and only the new input is drawn on top. This allows the device to be exceptionally fast. Casing point, reMarkable 2 has literally half the horsepower of the Kobo Elipsa but is eons faster, when writing latency is concerned. This has to do only with the software implementation of drawing and the inexperience of the Kobo team with the eink drawing functionality. For example, Quirklogic Paper has pretty much the same, if not lower specs than Elipsa, also uses an active pen, not an EMR pen, and still manages (now) to be extremely fast, almost as fast as Remarkable 2. But it wasn't always like that. When it launched it was even slower than the Elipsa, but their software engineers cared and worked hard and then moved the Paper from the bottom of the DESTA chart almost to the very top.
So no, nothing about what Elipsa is doing is impressive. It's below average of what an eNote device can and what the competitors do with the exact same amount of computational resources, and that is a reflection of the Kobo software engineers efforts put into this platform, or lack there of.
@@MyDeepGuide Oh, just saw your reply. That was just my emulative theory without much e-ink device knowledge and filtered through my PC expertise, and in fact learned well from your explanation. I was considering to buy an Elipsa, but will consider options carefully now. Also love your videos, take care!
It's kind of weird to buy a device that is meant for well, erm, a better READING experience and expect it to be perfect with drawing and doodling. I mean, I am looking for a device to read and scribble stuff on the margins, then I see this review that just explores features that people are mostly looking for in other devices meant for these activities... I don't know, this is a weird attitude IMO.
I would agree with you if their accent on the Elipsa was that it's an eReader that allows you to take some notes on the texts and margins, but the very first sentence describing the Elipsa on their website is:
"Put conventional paper aside and think bigger with an intuitive note-taking experience and an expansive 10.3” touchscreen.", And they continue to talk about the notetaking capabilities and experience, before they even mention anything regarding eReader side of things.
That is not a description of a simple eReader with some notetaking capabilities, that is a very strong accent and priority set on the notetaking aspect of the device and a review should also reflect that. So ultimately, it's the choice Kobo made, not me.
@@MyDeepGuide you should have talked about the even light of the screen. I have sage and elipsa now and sage sucks if I compare them. In sage Bright light close to the botton and green shodows in the opposite. Elipsa is excellent.
A cat appearance! All right!
I’m glad you’re showing how profoundly disappointing the Kobo Elipsa is after nearly a year. I’ll never trust the company again. They have shown they don’t have what it takes to make a successful product.
Kobo has made successful products.
Its not a drawing tablet!!! Cmon. Annotations are totally different from drawings that you tried.
This issue was fixed in the following update. So isn't it better to hold the developers responsible for obvious software shortcomings in order to have an improved platform and subsequently value for money over time, than just making up excuses why we should accept unacceptable shortcomings in a modern device?
@@MyDeepGuide Apologies if I came across as caustic or belittling. But I still stand by what I said. These e-ink tablets are all designed primarily to be e-readers (easy on the eye) with some having the ability to annotate, markup etc. I would never expect to use one for sketching or drawing. For those use cases I would use the Ipad with apple pencil.
I use an apple ipad. MY kobo e-ereader is specifically used to read ebooks to prevent eyestrain. I have a older Aura with extremely limited annotation options and am looking to upgrade to the elipsa. But from reviews I see that rhe boox note and Supernote seem better in some areas. However for my use case the elipsa would probably be more than enough.
That is your own personal perspective and use case scenario, but it doesn't translate to all the users. A lot of users out there, especially students and people in the academia are looking for an eNote device, primarily. Kobo Elipsa was and is advertised in such a way, with the accent placed on it's writing capabilities, reader is secondary. So as such, Elipsa is an eNote device, not an eReader device, and people looking for an eNote device value writing performance and capabilities over reding performance and capabilities, and then it is quite important to address the shortcomings, so that people are aware of them, before they spend a lot of money on a device.
@@MyDeepGuide Fair enough. Your rebuttal contains valid points. Please accept my apology.
I found it slow unreliable and Kobo service is useless not interested in helping or hearing issues I've gone back to a kindle, a pen and paper note book
KOBO failed sorry to say plus an expensive paperweight
Thats enough for a nope for me. If these damn things cost 70$ yeah ok, but they are 300+. Rather save up more for a better laptop. This is just smt for when you feel like spending money on some crap you dont actually need and fight your depression a little with these new silly gadget.
Or maybe some people don't want to use a computer and for their needs this is enough? Your own needs and priorities are your own, don't expect that those should align with needs and priorities of others.
@@MyDeepGuide Im not talking about those people as you shouldve figured out. If you rather buy this instead of a laptop you clearly have plenty of money. Im not mentioning prices just because, thats for people who look for value for money. And this product aint it.
So maybe one should think more and make sure they understood the information however badly frazed before teaching others.
Right. Well, good luck with that then :)