Kobo Touch (Rakuten-Version): The First Impression

Today, the Kobo-Rakuten released a Japanese version of Kobo Touch all over Japan.  I was pre-ordered it in Rakuten shopping site, so the product reaches to my hand this afternoon, when the time of starting Japanese Kobo site at 15:00 JST (UTC+9).

The Kobo Touch Japanese edition is different in global model for several specs.

1. The reader firmware is full support of EPUB3, so Japanese vertical typesetting is fully available.  This is the most important point of Japanese book lover.  We Japanese book lover have long familiar with vertically type-set texts for reading.
2. The UI is conformed to Japanese.  Such as setting menus, prompting texts, etc.
3. High quality Japanese font created by professional font maker - Morisawa is included.  The pre-installed font design is only one, Mincho as serif, and Gothic as sans-serif.
4. The biggest disadvantage: the processor (MCU) is slightly poor.  The graphics performance is inferior to global model.  I cannot understand this modification because rendering Japanese font should be graphically heavy load.  But, this decision must be the latter reason.
5. The price is awesome!  The price is only 7,980JPY (about 99USD).  I know people living in the US can buy price-off Kobo Touch at BestBuy and Walmart.  But, Rakuten released Japanese Kobo Touch in the same challenging price in every seller, such as shopping malls and bookstores.

I knew Kobo Touch's marvelous usability and availability by touching experience of global model and iOS App before, then I was expected reproducing this marvelous experience also in the Japanese edition.

My expecting is mostly came true.  I'm satisfying this product.  But, as predicted before, the response of the device is sometimes too slow as I misunderstand the device became a brick.  This might be a trade-off between the challenging price and the graphics performance of the MCU inside of this device.

At the last words, I would like to say some claims to Rakuten.

• The Kobo site (www.kobo.com) is redirected to Rakuten's Japanese bookstore site (rakuten.kobobooks.com) by using geographical IP address database.  I had been a member of original Canadian site and would like to continue using there.  Then, I had to overcome by using an open VPN site in the US instead of connecting directly from Japan.  This is very stressful and inconvenient.
• Kobo App for desktop is also connect to Rakuten site and there's no way for login to the original site.  The App should be enter my Rakuten ID for authorizing the App.  As a result of this change, I became to get my purchased books at the original site from the Web browser via VPN connection.
• The customer call service is smoothly catch the line, but the staff does not enough know-how or what's going on inside the company.  Because Rakuten is rapidly growing company, every service is always ad-hoc.  The opening of the fresh bookstore looks a rush job.  At the time of opening 15:00 JST, the site was not finished.  The site was open, but the book line-ups and categories are seen dynamically changing time to time.

 Anyway, I would recommend this device to Japanese book lovers those who are interesting to digital books because the original *freedom to the user* concept is still remain and optional Japanese support looks quite good.