Kobo has just unveiled a new sideload system for all of their modern e-readers. This will allow you to load in your own books on the Kobo, without having to register or sign-in to a Kobo account. This also will allow users to not have to connect to a WIFI network or any of the sync services. You can basically use the Kobo has an e-reader only. This will certainly resonate well with people who are concerned with privacy and simply want to read their own books, instead of buying them from Kobo.
The Kobo 4.31.19086 update is now being pushed out to the vast majority of Kobo devices, excluding the Mini. There is also a host of other features, such as enhanced language support and dictionaries for Catalan, Simplified Chinese and Pinqin. Book Covers will now display on the home screen for users who bought a Kobo at FNAC. You can hide book covers or make them full screen in Settings > Energy saving and privacy.
The Kobo Sage has gained some note taking and PDF viewing features. My Notebooks will move from the More menu to the bottom navigation when the Kobo Stylus is detected and Kobo fixed a bug where the zoom preview window for PDFs was not displaying correctly. Kobo also did some much needed battery optimization, and this is really welcome, since it has been lambasted by users of having terrible battery life.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
