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Kobo Firmware Update v4.8.10956 Adds Fast Page Flip, New Default Font

Kobo released a new firmware for its ereaders a couple weeks ago that added a faster page turn speed as well as other improvements..

Hold the corner of the screen and you can advance through an ebook at about two pages per second. This is going to be pretty useful for comic books, but I’m told it only works with titles in Kobo’s Kepub format.

According to a beta tester on MobileRead, other improvements and changes include setting Kobo’s Tsukushi Mincho font as default.

  • Tracking option moved to the "Energy savings and privacy" page of the settings.
  • Wishlist rebuilt internally. There are no obvious visible changes.
  • Font selected for "Publisher Default" in epubs has changed. It was "Georgia", but now appears to be "Kobo Tsukushi Mincho". This is good in that this font has a fuller set of characters. But, it doesn’t display either italics or bold in epubs. Which is not good.
  • Some work was done on selecting text. It still isn’t perfect, but appears to be smoother and more accurate.
  • Stats are working.
  • Changing the page display option at the bottom of the screen has changed from a long press to a tap.
  • The WiFi online test has changed to a Kobo URL rather than the URL used by Microsoft.

Kobo first released the Tsukushi Mincho font late last year. I haven’t had a chance to see it yet, but users report that superior to Bookerly (from Amazon) and Literata (from Google) – aside from a few quirks.

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Comments


Frank May 10, 2018 um 1:55 pm

Since the font doesn’t support italics or bold in ePub format, this Kobo font is not good for reading. Maybe it works for reading Asian ebooks.


Arnold Halperin May 10, 2018 um 2:41 pm

While not all the recent KOBO system updates have been positive, some have helped. At least it’s good to see they’re working to improve the sometimes buggy operating system.


R May 11, 2018 um 7:35 am

Do not enjoy that page display tap change. I used the top/bottom for next/previous page and this interferes all the time now. They must have expanded the region for that tap to work, because I have to tap higher to turn the page now. Or maybe nothing happened before & I didn’t notice… But this feature has definitely taken away from my reading experience.

wehoho May 11, 2018 um 12:38 pm

I agree, I do the same, and is why I prefer the Kobo to the Kindle. I could tap anywhere on the bottom to go to the next page, now it has to be on either side. It seems superfluous as in settings you determine what you want displayed. If I want to change what’s displayed I go to the settings page.


greenwitch May 11, 2018 um 10:35 am

The quick page turn feature is nice. I remember it used to exist on the Sony 650.


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