Because I don't use the pen I don't think I'm getting the most out of it. I do love how big the screen is, and it's great for reading manga (my primary reason for getting this).
Quality: 5
Value for money: 4
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Product details
Brand: Rakuten Kobo eReader Store
Designed to inspire you with every read, Kobo Sage delivers every feature Kobo offers in one sleek package, plus Bluetooth® wireless technology so you can listen to Kobo Audiobooks*. The luxurious 8" HD flush E Ink Carta 1200 touchscreen delivers superior performance and depth of contrast, with zero glare. Take your Kobo Sage experience even further with elegant, custom designed accessories. Kobo Sage SleepCover** and new PowerCover** were purpose-built to provide protection and a premium experience. And with Kobo Stylus** compatibility, you can dive further into your favourite read by capturing your ideas on-the-go and saving them to other devices with Dropbox Support. Enjoy the peace of mind that comes with having every feature at your fingertips, and knowing you'll have our best, most immersive reading experience.
GTIN: 681495008476
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Coming from the Libra H2O: I primarily read manga on this device. The larger flush display, snappy CPU and extra memory make it well worth it. Ergonomics do suffer somewhat as the page-turn buttons are positioned close to the edge and there is virtually no bend in shape like the Libra had (for thumb grip).
Quality: 4
Value for money: 4
Balanced size & weight for an eareader with ease of use, to focus on reading.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 4
Imagine yourself sitting in a college class—let us say, History of the Far East—near the end of the semester. Finals are forthcoming, and the class has spanned a breadth of culture and history largely unfamiliar to you. Fortunately, you have diligently taken the digital equivalent of reams of notes on your Kobo Sage. Even now you are racing to keep pace with the professor as he lectures about the Tokugawa Shogunate; the word ‘the’ is a particular nuisance, as it includes a ‘th’ which, for some unfathomable reason, the Kobo routinely deletes as soon as you have written it. You take a moment to silently lament the frequency with which ‘the’ appears in English, but then soldier on. At least, you try to soldier on; because a minute later your Kobo Sage freezes entirely. Was the battery low? No—this is your first class of the day and you fully charged the Sage overnight; you’ve been writing for only an hour, which means the battery has probably lost about 40% of its charge but is still well shy of total depletion. Too many ‘th’s? They delete themselves, but don’t seize the whole notebook. What could it be? After a minute or two in the electronic equivalent of a coma, the Kobo Sage reboots itself. You navigate from the home screen into the notebook section, and open your ‘History’ notebook. Only you find it blank. Empty. No notes. The entire record of your semester in this class has been obliterated, with no way to retrieve it. You wonder what you’ll need to do now to pass finals, while simultaneously using the Kobo stylus to mark the otherwise empty History notebook with your own grade for the device itself: F. This is the experience you may expect from the Kobo Sage. Substitute notes from board room meetings; personal recipes; private, poetic musings; or whatever else you like. Don’t trust notes to the Sage. I have only been using it about a week, so I have fortunately not lost a semester’s worth of notes to it, but it has already eaten one of my notebooks representing about an hour of work. I will never trust anything more important than a grocery-list to it again. It is adequate as an e-reader, but even in that mode, the battery life is laughable. A full-color, backlit tablet like an iPad gets about the same lifetime from a battery charge—this is not the experience we expect from an e-Ink device. My older Kobo Aura HD, which I’ve used for years, still lasts longer on a single charge; newer technology is supposed to be more energy efficient, not less. I really want to like this device. When it works, it works brilliantly, but even then, it doesn’t work for long. The supposed note-taking capability is useless, and my brief experience with both Pocket and OverDrive integration prove them to work for about half the articles and ebooks you try them with, respectively; the other half need not apply. I may have been hasty in grading the Kobo Sage an F; upon cooler reconsideration, it may merit a D-. In any case, there are too many strong competitors on the market to make this highly-flawed device an enticing option.
Quality: 2
Value for money: 1
I have gone through several different eReaders with both LCD and e-ink screens, and the Kobo Sage stands out as the best! The 8” screen is an inch or more bigger than most other eReaders, so it works well with a wider range of content. Sometimes the publisher default font seems too wide due to the bigger screen, but this can be easily fixed by narrowing the margins. It is nice to have the larger screen for note taking and viewing PDFs. The screen is very clear and easy on my eyes. The only time I noticed a glare on the flush screen was when a lamp was directly behind me. I did not have the same glare issue with my Kobo Libra H2O, which has a recessed screen. I do like the flush screen of the Sage better though because it is easier to keep clean and seems to provide better backlighting. The Sage is the first eReader I’ve used where I could not see the individual lights that provide backlighting. The backlight is very even and consistent across the whole screen. It is nice to have stylus support so I can scribble notes in the margins and highlight text. I use the notebooks app to make lists of books I have read and those I plan on reading. Notebook functions and stylus shortcuts seem consistent with other note-taking apps. Taking notes does not feel as paper-and-pencil as it does with eNotes because of the Sage’s glass screen and the stylus’s rigid tip. I tried using a stylus with a softer tip and this improved the writing feel a little, but I went back to using the Kobo stylus because it has the highlight and erase buttons on the side. When taking notes, it is easy to accidentally swipe the scroll bar on the right side with my palm. It scrolls down to the middle of the page. The first few time this happened I thought it was glitched and my notes were gone, but then I scrolled up and saw that my notes were still there. I haven’t had this issue since I realized the cause, but it would be nice if it could be fixed so the scroll bar didn’t recognize my palm while I was writing. Other than that, the only negative I have found with the Kobo Sage is actually in the accessories. The only cover I have found that includes a place for the stylus is the powercover. I got the basic cover from Kobo and the stylus actually sticks to the front of it via magnets (not sure if that was by design), but it would be nice if there was a cover like the powercover that didn’t have the weight of an extra battery pack.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
This product is being shipped as defective with notes disappearing and the device freezing and crashing all the time.
Quality: 1
Value for money: 1
Overpriced. Poor screen quality and OS. Totally not recommended. Worst than my Kobo Aura One and Kobo Forma. Screen is yellow, uneven spots. Service is poor and slow. Bad refund policy and cumbersome.
Quality: 1
Value for money: 1
Best e-reader I've ever had. Note taking is a plus for text books.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
The Kobo Sage is simply the very best eReader on the planet. The display is second to none. It is fast, perfect and made terrifically. It's incredible.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
The device is a great size. I wish more readers were 8 inches. That’s what she said. For the price the device feels cheap. Plasticky, slightly uneven lighting, and occasionally clicks physical buttons. Interface is ok. Reads epubs well. Just a bit too pricey. If your are gonna compete with the Oasis I think you need to be better.
Quality: 3
Value for money: 3
I think this is an interesting device if you are aware of the limitations. First off it is a great reader - it follow the lead of the Forma - which is also a great reader, and makes the experience a bit better : less screen lighting inconsitences, the lighting is smooth and unifrom, a charter screen - its subtle but the contrast and sharpness is better than the forma and over time I really like it. The writing part is intriguing, and I find it useful addon. The battery drain is crazy for this function, and it feels still beta in a alot of ways. I have found that note taking works fine in basic mode, the advance mode note taking seems cool, but feels to cumbersome to quickly jot some things down. Editing of PDFs is fine, but use some more options in settings (pen size for example). Edit books is also fine to fun except for the inability to export written notes - I'm hoping this comes along in a future update. All in all a solid e-reader with some interesting note functionality that I hope will continue to grow.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 4
I like that it's easy to side load books from Overdrive. I think it's very hard to hold when reading in bed. Battery doesn't last long if you read for hours.
Quality: 4
Value for money: 2
Top mais batterie a revoir si on la garde souvent en veille
Quality: 5
Value for money: 3
Excellent reader, surpassing all previous models in every aspect. Is expensive though.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 4
Finally bringing the power of the pen to the best reading experience available. There is no stopping Kobo.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
Great eReader. The quality of the text is amazing and easy to read. I especially like the pen. The screen size is ideal.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
I've been using Kobo ereaders for years, since the days of the Kobo Glow. And while this is definitely the best *screen* for reading they've ever had, in many ways it's the worst ereader they've ever made. Big, beautiful screen. Integration with Pocket and Dropbox make it so easy to side-load web articles and epubs purchased elsewhere (such as magazines from Weightless Books). Battery life is absolutely terrible, however. Even with everything turned off (bluetooth, auto-sync, etc) I only get a day or two of reading before needing to charge up. Probably a consequence of the new, faster processor (which *does* make a difference in page load times). And the physical buttons are hit-and-miss, about 1/3 of the time pressing them does absolutely nothing. Finally, page rotation has gotten worse since the days of the Kobo Clara HD. Rotating the reader now *sometimes* rotates the screen. Frequently when it does rotate, there's a delay of a minute or two before it kicks in.
Quality: 3
Value for money: 3
Excellent screen and software
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
The Kobo sage is probably the best overall ereader. I also have an Onyx Nova 3, a Kindle Oasis and a Kobo Forma. The second best ereader may be the Forma, and in some ways it is still better than the Sage. Here are some points you might consider with regards to the Sage: 1. The sage has better clarity and lighting than the Forma. I think it is the nicest ereader screen I have. 2. The battery life for note taking is poor, though the battery life for reading is okay. I would recommend going with the powercover to complement the sage. It sticks in the sleep cover easily with magnets so you can remove it easily. I think it will be the same with the powercover (mine has not come yet). Having that note taking option is surprisingly nice, so I am glad they integrated the feature even if it isn't perfect yet. 3. The physical page turn buttons are nice, but don't have quite the ideal amount of depth, so occasionally I end up pressing the bezel instead of the button directly. This seems to be something that gets better as you get used to it, though maybe an extra millimeter of button depth might have been nice. I very much like the fact that the button presses are quiet. I don't hear any sort of click, which is great. Clicking buttons are distracting. 4. The slanted bezel of the Forma is better for holding the device in one hand than the only partially slanted bezel of the Sage, but it still feels fine to hold unless it is in its case, in which case when holding the device one handed you miss the full slanted bezel (it gave you a better grip and let your fingers curl further for more support). 5. The Sage's ability to use audiobooks and (especially) its ability to allow note taking are great additions. It is nice to easily take notes when in a room where people want the lights off and you don't want to use a bright screen to distract people. 6. The waterproof feature is great. I don't use the device near water, but just knowing I can wash it with a really wet soft microfiber towel and distilled water without risking harm to the device makes it easy to clean my screen. 7. In comparison to other devices, the Nova 3 has significantly better battery life, especially for note taking (the power cover should help with this) and can use apps to access more stuff, but the ability to customize margins and line spacing and fonts when reading Kobo books with the slightly more pleasant screen, and especially the bezel with the physical page turn buttons and automatic rotation makes the reading experience more pleasant with the Sage. The Oasis is nice (good lighting and contrast, quite responsive), but the screen isn't quite big enough and there is no slanted bezel or note taking and syncing with drop box or overdrive is harder. The Forma is better than the sage to hold and slightly better for battery life as well, and probably harder to break with a toggle button that is a little easier to push. However, the improvement to screen contrast, the convenience of taking notes about what you are reading, the faster speed, the ease of removal of the device from the cover and the more uniform lighting, in my opinion, make the Sage edge out the Forma as the new best ereader. There are areas where each of the devices I mentioned is better than the others and is the best for a given task (sometimes I still grab the Forma because I am just going to be reading something for a long time with one hand and I don't want to figure out where to put the cover, for instance), but I would say the Sage is presently the best ereader overall. It is an excellent device.
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5
love the Sage. The screen is crisp and clean, buttons are placed perfectly for when you switch hands and flip it. I have had no problems loading books from local libraries, free sites, pdf's etc. great ereader!
Quality: 5
Value for money: 5