Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsI can no longer recommend this product
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2019
[Update, December 27, 2020] I can no longer recommend this product. Major reason: the company's "ecosystem" is not good.
Synch is bad and getting worse. I've been trying to download one small ebook for about an hour. I did see slow sync'ing earlier today with another book, but not this kind of outright failure. As an added bonus, today two previously downloaded books' cover images have disappeared—the books are there, but without cover art. That's a "first."
Kobo support always advises: reset the account. I've done it three or four times since I bought the device. Resetting gives temporary relief for sync problems, but the problems appear again later. Resetting has unpleasant side effects: 1) Sometimes, books that were already on the device have to be downloaded again, and 2) ALL "side-loaded" books are erased during the reset and have to be side-loaded all over again—plus, the reset removes side-loaded books' annotations/highlights. Altogether very unpleasant. I never had that kind of problem when I used a Kindle or when I used the B&N app on an Android tablet. With those devices downloads were quick and sync/download failures were rare. Wish I could say the same for the Kobo.
[Further edited:] My error earlier. Correcting it: There is a Kobo app for Windows after all. It does not have any of the sync problems I'm describing here—it syncs books quickly. However, it is poorly designed software and for whatever reason does not permit copying highlighted text to the clipboard. Thus you can't share quotations from books as you can with other e-reader apps or PC programs.
The USB port on the device has become a bit flaky, making connection to the PC troublesome. [Edit: it appears to matter quite a bit which USB cable you use. If one doesn't work, try another. Irritating, but probably not the device's fault.]
Certain side-loaded books can't be read, with the Kobo advising that it must be registered with Adobe Digital Editions. So I registered the device—and the unreadable books are still unreadable (same error message). No idea why.
Altogether it has been the worst e-reader experience I've had so far and I figure I kind of wasted my $250. I won't be buying Kobo products in the future.
[Edit, July 15, 2019: One thing video reviewers "ding" the product for is trouble with accuracy in selecting text for highlighting. I agree. This is NOT easy on the Kobo and is something that, considering the cost, Kobo should try to fix. If it's a hardware issue, well — dear Kobo: Try to do a better job of this in future e-reader products. I won't consider it a deal-breaker, but it is irritating. Another design flaw related to highlighting: highlights cannot be exported, that I know of. Perhaps there's some way to find the text in question in some subdirectory on the machine. But that shouldn't be necessary. It should be possible at the very least to tap a highlighted passage and elect to share it to one's own e-mail address!]
I purchased the Forma from an Amazon seller that doesn't appear to have it available now. The current prices shown for "These sellers" are noticeably higher than what I paid for it. The sellers should consider dropping those prices.
This is according to Kobo tech support in an online chat I had with them: Kobo apparently won't honor its warranty unless the device is purchased from one of the few authorized dealers (meaning either Walmart or Kobo itself). I say "apparently" because fortunately I haven't had any need to find out if that's true.
Using some previous reviewers' comments as jumping-off points:
Size
It is certainly much smaller overall than the 8" Samsung tablet I once used for reading e-books, but then I wouldn't expect it to be the same size or larger. It's extremely thin and lightweight — both "pluses." It feels nice and solid, the thickness notwithstanding.
Rotation
The mechanism for sensing rotation is responsive on the unit I bought. One reviewer noted that landscape versus portrait orientation couldn't be locked in. A subsequent firmware update seems to have fixed this.
On-off button
Agreed with another reviewer about that button. It's hard to push. I suppose it's to prevent switching the thing on or off accidentally, but still. I get around it with an inexpensive case having magnets that activate the device's "sleep" function when the case's flap is closed. Open the case and the Kobo comes out of sleep mode. The less I have to deal with the button, the better. (The Amazon ASIN number for the case as of the time I bought it: B07LGYNQLP)
Page flickering
Page redraw can be controlled by the user via the reading menu. You select how many page-turns are required before a full refresh. Or you can choose for a refresh when you start a new chapter. I do expect some very slight flickering following any page-turn. It's e-ink, after all.
Illumination and battery life
With the backlight off, the screen is just too dim for these aging eyes in the places where I normally read. I'm using the backlight all the time. This of course affects battery life. I can see already that the Forma won't get _anything_ like the several weeks they predict — not with the backlight on.
Display
The display looks good enough when I keep the backlight between 65% and 75%. At higher levels there's a bit of blotchiness. I do see the bright(er) line running down the side of the screen noted by nearly all reviewers. It's also irritating. But after using the thing for a while I decided it isn't a deal-breaker. I keep the page margins wide enough that the bright line doesn't intrude into the text area.
Reader controls
The reading controls have been useful, in particular the setting to adjust the font weights. It isn't something I've had with other e-reader software and I appreciate it. But note: it can't be done with every possible font.
Font-size and line-height changes can be made in fairly small increments, which is a good thing.
Reviewers have noted it's possible to side-load your own fonts. That's a welcome feature. Haven't tried it yet.
Bugs?
I've run across a couple. Sometimes deleted highlighting isn't removed from the page until you've closed a book and re-opened it. The same is true for deleted bookmarks. If you run across this, consider reporting it to Kobo on their web site. The more people report it, the sooner it gets fixed. One time the device rebooted itself (not a "cold" start, though) for unknown reasons. Hope it doesn't plan to do that very often.
Speaking of bookmarks, there's a feature that might not be obvious at first: Open the reading menu, then click the additional "..." menu and select Annotations. If you have a bookmark in the list and if you long-press it, you have the option to add a note to it. That's useful. Drawback: removing the note also removes the bookmark.
Setup
Setup was "wizard-driven" and painless. Wi-fi setup was also quick and painless. (The device's keyboard is pretty responsive.)
Overall...
I'm pretty happy with the Forma so far. If ever they make a decent 10" device I'll consider it also. "Decent" means: I hope by then they'll have figured out how to illuminate the screen more evenly, especially considering the price they'll likely charge for it.
