Comment by the-grump
4 hours ago
For the unaware, there is an existing solution that integrates with Kobo's native software (Nickel).
It has been maintained for years, and it supports every Kobo AFAIK.
It's called NickelMenu, and it's great. I'm in the Kobo ecosystem because of NickelMenu and Plato.
One note if you're thinking about getting a kobo due its relative openness: consider getting a two-core device. I did not do my homework and got a Clara BW because I don't want the color display. Later I found out that color is the only one with the two-core CPU.
Hey, author here. NickelMenu is terrific and Cobalt uses it to show the menu item in the default Kobo menu. It's just that Cobalt and NickelMenu are not the same in terms of project goals.
I created this as I could not find anything existing that gives the capabilities I wanted. I read several things downloaded over web apart from books on my Mac and phone, which I would prefer to do on an eInk display. Search papers on arxiv and read them offline later, Substack, even spending a lot of time on chess puzzles, monitor my Claude/Codex remotely, generate explainer audiobooks and listen to them on my bluetooth speaker etc.
The longer battery and the display makes some use cases really shine and I wanted to create apps for my own Kobo and potentially helpful for others as well.
I admire and support your effort, but the title makes it sound like you couldn't run apps in the past.
Nickelmenu deserves a mention in the opening paragraph and a differentiation of what this new piece of software brings to the table.
Thank you for the kind words. I will add a page to the project explaining the differentiation.
NickelMenu is a mature project and perfect at what it does, we just have different goals. NickelMenu is designed to extend Kobo's stock interface. Cobalt is designed to be an app platform like Android has for example. I wanted app creators to just write their app logic and not build things like a UI toolkit for their apps, app lifecycle and rendering support (framebuffer drawing, partial eInk refreshes, touch input handling etc.), bluetooth handling, sensor and more. Anything launched through NickelMenu like KOReader or Plato have to implement these on their own.
AFAIK NickelMenu command actions spawn arbitrary shell cmds that inherit root from Nickel, we avoid it by running apps as separate unprivileged processes with declared capabilities like network, storage, audio, fronlight etc.
I also wanted to provide ability to quickly build apps with the SDK and our simulator to test apps on before putting it on the real device, an app store to get new apps over the WiFi after the initial USB install.
This was more oriented on making my life easier, say I have an app idea that I want on my Kobo tomorrow and how quickly can I bring it live on the device. The 'you can run apps' I wrote was meant to signify anyone can now create apps using the SDK without bothering about the device specific bits and publish them and install it via Cobalt's app store. I hope this clarifies things.
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I haven’t had a chance to compare side by side, but people say that if you primarily read books/prose, the BW version is better because the screen is more crisp compared to the color version, which is still a bit blurry when you read books. That’s why I ordered BW. Did anyone compare these two side by side in real life for simple text?
It is maddeningly impossible to get an ereader with all three of these features: b&w screen for maximum crispness; physical buttons for reliable page turns; modern processor for speed.
Boox Go 7 - B&W version.
It runs Android. It's a Chinese company and comes with a bunch of pre-installed apps, but I just blocked its abilities to phone home and use Koreader. It's been great for me
Boox Go 7 BW?
https://goodereader.com/blog/product/onyx-boox-go-7-bw "The Onyx Boox Go 7 is a dedicated e-book reader with a black and white e-paper display. This device has the same specifications and software as the Go 7 Color Gen 2, except that this model doesn’t have a Kaleido 3; instead, it uses the latest generation Carta 1300 e-paper panel, which increases responsiveness. The key selling points of this model are the physical page-turn buttons and Google Android 13, as well as full access to the Play Store. For those of you who want an e-reader that doesn’t lock you into a specific ecosystem, this deserves a look."
(slower by 2 minutes...)
I'm happy with my Kobo Clara Colour. As far as the specs go, both are 300 PPI when displaying black and white. I took a picture of my screen from as close as my phone would allow - the lens was basically touching the e-reader [1]. My eyes can't really focus at this distance anyway, so I can't complain. I don't use the colour screen much, but seeing the book covers in colour is fun for me.
[1] https://imgur.com/a/cszqi0F
Yes, I replaced a B&W Sage with the Libra Colour, and used them for a bit side-by-side. Contrast (not sharpness) of B&W text is slightly worse with the color one, but not by so much that you'd notice it if you weren't comparing them next to each other. The resolution of actual color is worse, but obviously you can't get color at all on the B&W one, so hard to argue that this is a downgrade.
Unless you're a real contrast freak, I think most people would be slightly happier with the color than the B&W; but it's definitely not worth paying extra for.
Yes. I had color Kobo, forgot it in the airport lounge, and bought BW one as a replacement. It is much better.
I use a bw Boox device, a colleague has the colour version of the same device. The colour version does not show text more blurry, rather, the contrast is significantly lower. I personally prefer the bw device.
I compared. On the color version, the text seems to have a slightly fine mesh or rippled texture. There's no huge difference, but I prefer the black-and-white version
but also note that a color e-reader will have significantly worse contrast than a black and white model, which negates the usefulness of the device to people like me.
Is there any way to recover a "bricked" Clara color? I bricked mine while trying to install nickel and koreader. Haven't been able to recover it since.
What does the two-core CPU get you? I'm very satisfied with my BW with KOReader, haven't noticed any shortcomings but I only read books on it.
I encounter freezes mostly when I enable Bluetooth/wifi. Haven't tried on a multi-core kobo but I imagine the UI thread can keep running there.
When reading, agree on it being more than sufficient.
My recommendation is partially because the price can be identical when they have a sale. That was the case when I got a BW--it was the same price as the color.
I should also mention I run quite a few things on my kobo: boringtun to connect to my home network, a fetcher to sync my books and feeds, Plato and its article fetcher whenever I update my Wallabag articles. I'm beyond pleased with my reader experience. The extra processing power would just be icing on the cake.
Ah yeah, mine takes a while to connect to wifi too. I assumed that was just how it was, luckily I do it rarely.
I got the BW over the Color only because I had read the color screen wasn't as sharp, though I've never compared them side by side.
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I do like my BW kobo, but it's on the slow side, even just when switching pages on the stock app ; and that's annoying. Sometimes because it's stuck it doesn't register the page change, and then it will highlight text instead. That's breaking the reading flow and I really hate that.
Also NickelHook, which adds the native hooks into the Nickel application. I used it for intercepting http calls previously
Is it bad that I was disappointed after reading this, hoping for a library that handles callbacks, called NickelBack?
I also have the Clara BW and haven't done any modding on it but it's been on my todo list. Would you be willing to briefly describe issues you've run into with it?
0 issues using nickelmenu out of the box.
I recommend enabling ssh (native kobo feature) so it's easier to modify the config without needing to plug in, though obviously this is optional.
If you connect over SSH, I would recommend not touching system files. The new kobos don't have a removable SD card so if you corrupt the system files and it can't boot, you need to either do some PCB surgery or get a new mainboard.
Are there any writing apps? Any way to connect a Bluetooth keyboard? (Or USB)
KOReader probably lets you edit text files but I only use my kobo to read. Have not tried connecting any external devices.
It does. I don't know about bluetooth but it doesn't work with a usb-c keyboard. At least on the Clara BW the experience is bad, as there is a subtantial delay after each keypress and any keys pressed during it are dropped.
Apparently the "Sage" (which is what I have currently) has a quad-core, but Kobo discontinued it. Sigh, too bad - this was my favourite to-date (needs a power-cover though...).
I have Kobo Sage but it's not a great device.
Very bad battery life. Maybe 8hrs of reading with wifi off, BT off and only low screen backlight. I need to charge it daily or every other day at best.
Physical buttons are comically bad and often don't register presses.
Built-in book reading app is slow, lacks some critical features and hangs in many epub books. I replaced it with KOreader which finally made the device usable.
It's a great screen size though (9" would be even better).
Off topic, but I don't understand Rakuten's current product strategy. They discontinued their two best devices: the 8" Sage and the 7" Libra 2. What's left are two unfortunately sized B&W readers (the tiny 6" Clara and giant 10" Elipsa) and a couple of color readers that no one should buy unless they absolutely NEED color (I've tried them, and the screens look terrible compared to the B&W versions).
I believe that this is your opinion, but my own opinion (having also tried them, and used multiple generations of B&W ones before this) is that the screens look just fine, and that the slight downgrade of contrast isn't a big deal at all.