# My Kindle and Kobo store comparison



## Mike D. aka jmiked

After seeing statements that the Amazon store has a larger and better selection of ebooks than other ebook stores, I decided to put this to the test. It's not an exhaustive test, it's based on the ebooks that _I_ am interested in purchasing. This criteria includes SF, Mystery, biography, science-fact, and music-oriented books. It's weighted towards 'older' books, i.e., pre-1970/1980 (going back to the 1880s). I spent two hours doing searches on authors and books on the Kobo store from a selection of books I have obtained from the Kindle store. I checked literally hundreds of books.

I found there wasn't a significant difference in what titles were available. Those that weren't fell mainly into three different categories: 1) The entire Baen Books collection* (which has a deal with Amazon), 2) a number of music-oriented works, including biographies of musicians, lesson books, and books on specific brands of guitars, and 3) books that are self-published or published by very small organizations.

There were some _mostly_ minor differences in prices, with Amazon almost invariably being the lower of the two.

There are valid reasons for choosing to go with the Amazon eco-structure, but I don't believe that wider selection of books is one of them _by the terms of my experiment._ I certainly don't feel any pressing need to switch from Amazon at the moment.

Your mileage may vary.

Mike

* Baen books can be purchased as ePubs directly from Baen.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked

My edit was to add:

"There are valid reasons for choosing to go with the Amazon eco-structure, but I don't believe that wider selection of books is one of them by the terms of my experiment. I certainly don't feel any pressing need to switch from Amazon at the moment."

An attempt to sidetrack anybody from thinking that I was merely slamming Amazon and switching to Kobo (or some other store). I'm not. I'm sticking with Amazon.

Mike


----------



## cinisajoy

Ok so now we know they are comparable on titles.   How were they on terms of finding the books?   And then buying the books?   And lastly transferring them to your device?

Editing because a question mark and a period do not mean the same thing.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked

I can't say whether they are comparable on all titles, just the ones I checked in the genres I checked. Someone else's results may vary. I did no investigation on the total number of titles available on each store.

From my limited experience in buying from the Kobo store, I'd say there was no difference in buying the books or loading them on your device. Possibly they take a little longer to arrive on the device than from Amazon. I've had some samples that didn't show up for a while. My recollection (which may be wrong) is that the Kobo searches tended to return fewer spurious matches than Amazon. I'm not very fond of Amazon's search engine.

I haven't dealt with Kobo customer service at all, so no comment there. I honestly don't remember how the book management feature works, so it must not have been awful.

On balance, I do like the Kobo Glo eInk reader more than the Kindles I've owned. The reading experience is much more customizable. But that's just me.  

I don't think anybody has any reason to change from the Amazon ecostructure, which is adequate. I'm certainly not changing from it. But Amazon certainly doesn't 'have a lock on the ebook market' as has been said.


Mike


----------



## booklover888

jmiked said:


> On balance, I do like the Kobo Glo eInk reader more than the Kindles I've owned. The reading experience is much more customizable. But that's just me.
> 
> I don't think anybody has any reason to change from the Amazon ecostructure, which is adequate. I'm certainly not changing from it. But Amazon certainly doesn't 'have a lock on the ebook market' as has been said.


I agree. I do like my Kindle Touch, but I like my Kobo Glo & Mini better, because of the way they work with Calibre, and the way they customize books. However, I never download directly from Kobo. I usually don't from Amazon, either, though since my Touch has 3G, I did direct download a few things to test it out. (NOBODY CAN BEAT AMAZON'S CONVENIENCE!) (I think pretty much anyone would agree that Amazon's customer service can't be beat, either). I do buy books from Kobo, but mostly when I have a coupon. Other than that, I'll buy from Amazon. I buy books from my computer, not from my devices. I generally prefer the store experience of Amazon.

If Amazon would produce an eink Kindle that could do the things Kobo can do, I would be in Heaven!


----------



## MamaProfCrash

Kobo has coupons that can save people a ton of money. They normally cannot be applied to the big Publishing houses but there are a decent number of books that are sold that do not fall into that catagory.


----------



## ancaiovita

jmiked said:


> I can't say whether they are comparable on all titles, just the ones I checked in the genres I checked. Someone else's results may vary. I did no investigation on the total number of titles available on each store.
> 
> From my limited experience in buying from the Kobo store, I'd say there was no difference in buying the books or loading them on your device. Possibly they take a little longer to arrive on the device than from Amazon. I've had some samples that didn't show up for a while. My recollection (which may be wrong) is that the Kobo searches tended to return fewer spurious matches than Amazon. I'm not very fond of Amazon's search engine.
> 
> I haven't dealt with Kobo customer service at all, so no comment there. I honestly don't remember how the book management feature works, so it must not have been awful.
> 
> On balance, I do like the Kobo Glo eInk reader more than the Kindles I've owned. The reading experience is much more customizable. But that's just me.
> 
> I don't think anybody has any reason to change from the Amazon ecostructure, which is adequate. I'm certainly not changing from it. But Amazon certainly doesn't 'have a lock on the ebook market' as has been said.
> 
> Mike


Your comparison is very useful! I was thinking of switching to a Kobo device in about one year for the sake of variety (I owned Kindles till now and I am happy with them). Did you encounter any issues when downloading epubs from the Kobo store? I checked a Kobo device from a friend of mine and the screen looks resting to the eyes (just like the Kindle does), but she had some issues as she bought some books (one of them mine) and when she tried to download books directly, her previous download information got lost. So there was no way she could download the bought books again. That sounds creepy to me, hence my question to you.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked

I didn't have any problems downloading books from the Kobo store. I put all my books into Calibre for archiving, so I haven't run into a problem with re-downloads. I can just transfer them to the Kobo again from my laptop. I don't buy that many books from Kobo anyway.

I still think the reading experience on the Kobo is 'better' than on the Kindle (I use a Voyage), because the display is much more customizable than Kindle. Amazon subscribes to the "least number of actual features so the poor customer isn't confused" school of design.

Kobo appears to be in some trouble after the purchase by another company. I haven't any idea how that is going to shake out. I've been thinking about getting a Kobo Glo HD to replace my Kobo Glo.

Mike


----------



## ancaiovita

jmiked said:


> I didn't have any problems downloading books from the Kobo store. I put all my books into Calibre for archiving, so I haven't run into a problem with re-downloads. I can just transfer them to the Kobo again from my laptop. I don't buy that many books from Kobo anyway.
> 
> I still think the reading experience on the Kobo is 'better' than on the Kindle (I use a Voyage), because the display is much more customizable than Kindle. Amazon subscribes to the "least number of actual features so the poor customer isn't confused" school of design.
> 
> Kobo appears to be in some trouble after the purchase by another company. I haven't any idea how that is going to shake out. I've been thinking about getting a Kobo Glo HD to replace my Kobo Glo.
> 
> Mike


How is the Kobo display customizable? What do you have there than is lacking on your Kindle?
I had no idea Kobo was purchased.


----------

