I have been a die hard Kindle fan since they were introduced. I have had several different versions and given many for gifts. After the disaster that was the recent update I went looking elsewhere. The Sage is amazing. It has page turn buttons which I love and the ComfortLight Pro with blue light control is so much better than the Warm Light on my Oasis. It has a bigger screen and the text is much crisper and easy to read. It is all around a much better e-reader than any of the Kindles I have had. The only con I have found is buying the Sage cover with the package- I found it cumbersome to use and it doesn’t have access to the power button. I purchased a third party cover that is much better for a lower price. My only other regret is that I didn’t look in to the Kobo readers a long time ago- I am enjoying my new Sage and am so pleased to be reading on it now.

If you like page turn buttons this is your reader. If you like a larger screen for less frequent page turning this is your reader. If you like excellent font choices and adjustability this is your reader. If you like excellent battery life this is not your reader.I’ve been a Kindle guy for 14 years, since the beginning. I like to read, not turn pages. I’ve got the Scribe and love the page size. I want buttons. So I got the Sage. It’s the largest mainstream reader I could find with buttons. It is a true pleasure to read on. Great screen. Better font choices and adjustability than Kindle. But it pours through battery life. If my Scribe, which has the best battery life I’ve ever seen BY FAR, is a 10 then the Sage is maybe a 2. You could read all day, literally, but you’d need to recharge overnight or run out the next day. So if you don’t mind charging possibly nightly this is absolutely the reader for you.

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I had such high hopes for this device. I did a lot of research before choosing this eReader notebook. I like its small size, but that’s about it. The process to get your books from your library app is convoluted. But the worst part is the notebook was wildly glitchy from the moment I started using it. The video and photo attached are of my first 10 minutes using the device. Immediately returning. As you can see, for no explainable reason a quarter to half of the screen randomly blacks out when you’re typing in the notebook. This is unacceptable.

I got the Kobo Sage for a great deal at fifty percent off MSRP, but the device is still overpriced. The Kobo Sage promises to be the best of both worlds: a Kobo eReader with integrated OverDrive and a notetaking e-Ink device. Unfortunately, it only does each of those half as good as other eReaders in the Kobo line up. Why?Cons:1. The battery life is abysmal. With or without the front light on, *reading a book* for 20 minutes will see you lose nearly 10% of battery life. That’s unheard of for any e-Ink device If you take notes while reading, you can lose 20%. Keep the charger on standby!2. The buttons are placed too far a part, so I cannot use them to change the page with one hand, even though the device material should give a good grip.3. The touchscreen is occasionally not responsive when turning pages.4. After downloading the most recent firmware, 4.33.19611, the device has less crashes and less “Cannot export notebook” errors, but one wonders why they released such a buggy device to begin with. And why the firmware still doesn’t entirely solve the battery drain issues.5. Although you can put the system language into Japanese, French, Turkish etc., my version won’t allow the text of Notebooks to auto-recognize those language’s texts. Is it because the device comes preloaded with a Wal-Mart Rakuten Kobo splash screen? I’ll never know. Very disappointed.6. Dictionaries are very limited.7. If you are a tinkerer, you may not mind the workarounds to get the Kobo Sage to operate in your preferred language, dictionary, menu-style. I don’t want to be a tinkerer, so this is a con. I *can* tinker–but I don’t enjoy a Saturday afternoon tinkering with Python, terminal commands and eBook management software to get the device to perform at its best.8. Math Equations are very limited, so it’s more a gimmick than anything. You wouldn’t be able to use this for class.9. Although Kobo sells EPUB and allows you to download the EPUB file when you purchase it to read on your computer with Adobe Digital Editions/DRM (yay!!), the Kobo itself renders EPUB files that you sideload in such a way as to prohibit zooming in on images (nooo!!). Awful! You must use third-party software to convert EPUBs from other vendors into KEPUB so you can zoom in on any images, or have them displayed in full, proper size. I have so many non-fiction history eBooks with maps, family trees and so on, and I have had to convert them to KEPUB just to get the proper eReading experience on this beautiful 8 inch display. PDF rendering is also bizarre, such that you cannot zoom in more than 265% in Portrait or 173% in landscape. Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and Nook GlowLight 4 do not have those limitations. PDFs also may cause the device to stutter or freeze.10. Cannot export highlights or annotations without tinkering in the system files. And, even once you’ve done that, the exported file doesn’t even tell you the page number or location where your annotation is from, unlike the Kindle.11. Annotations handwritten on a book cannot be exported as a PDF. I would be fine with only exporting my annotations to PDF or PNG, but no, the handwritten annotations must forever live on the device.Pros:1. Awesome 8 inch screen is great for reading graphic novels. We zipped through Legend of Korra in 2 days.2. Beta feature allows “My Words” which saves words you want to remember/practice, similar to Kindle’s “Vocabulary Builder.”3. Handwritten annotations on language learning books is great. Quick, natural note-taking very closely mimics paper. Note: I am using a stylus from brand Rennaiser: the Raphael 530.4. Very easy to borrow books from your local public library using Overdrive and your public library card. Note: unlike Libby or Overdrive apps, you cannot load multiple library accounts onto the Kobo Sage–you’ll need to create an Overdrive account to which you add all your library cards instead. Minor inconvenience, but an inconsistency in app vs. reader functionality.5. Home screen shows mostly your own eBook library with only 3 books showing from the Recommendations. Very welcomed for those of us who don’t want to see unwanted ads or recommendations!!6. Simple sliding gesture makes it easy to turn on and off the front light.7. Font adjustments.Conclusion:Get the Kobo Libra 2 if you just want a bigger eReader screen. If you want to take notes, this device feels too much like it’s still in Beta, so go for ReMarkable 2 or Onyx Boox. If you desperately want to stay inside the Kobo ecosystem, pick this one up on a sale only. The Kobo Elipsa software is the same as the Kobo Sage, and doesn’t promise anything better in functionality.

SUMMARY: The USB-C connection is nice to have, the new power button shape and location is better than the Forma’s (Kobo’s old flagship ereader), the screen is slightly different from the Forma’s, but only slightly better, and if you do a lot of sideloading, that might be slightly faster. But, that’s counterbalanced by the Sage being perceptibly thicker and heavier, having only 2/3 to 3/4 of the battery life, and roughly the same charging time. If Kobo had increased the battery size to give even the same battery life as the old Forma, I’d have been happy. But, because of the poor battery life, I’m rating the Kobo Sage at a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.DETAILS: I’ve now bought two Sages. The first one was a bit more than a year ago, but I returned it because of the battery life. My 1-1/2 year old Kobo Forma just died (battery issues) and I had to replace it. The Sage was the best replacement I could find.BATTERY LIFE (old unit): I had hoped that Kobo would have somehow fixed the battery life problem from launch. In my situation, the new unit lasts about an hour longer than the old unit. But, that could be because I’ve now turned off all the radios. Here’s an hour-by-hour breakdown of the battery for the old unit:Hour 1: 100% to 92% = 8% battery useHour 2: 92% to 79% = 13% battery useHour 3: 78% to 63% = 15% battery useHour 4: 62% to 46% = 16% battery useHour 5: 46% to 26% = 20% battery useHour 6: 25% to 18% = 7% battery useHour 7: 18% to 13% = 5% battery useHour 8: 13% to 1% = 12% battery use (and then 12 more minutes for that last percent of the battery to go and the Sage power itself down).BATTERY LIFE (new unit):Hour 1: from 100% to 91% = 9%Hour 2: from 89% to 81% = 8%Hour 3: from 81% to 73% = 8%Hour 4: from 73% to 63% = 10%Hour 5: from 62% to 51% = 11%Hour 6 (and 3 minutes): from 50% to 40% = 10%Hour 7: from 38% to 31% = 7%Hour 8: from 31% to 22% = 9%Hour 9: from 21% to 8% = 13%Final 8 minutes: from 8% to shutdown = 8%So, with much newer firmware and with Wifi and automatic syncing off and in Sideload Mode, battery life has improved over the original Sage in normal configuration by about 1 hour (from 8 hours of available reading time to 9 hours of available reading time). When new, my old Forma got about 12 hours of reading time.BATTERY CHARGING: As to charging with the new USB-C port, apparently Kobo has only changed the form factor of the port and not any of the actual charging hardware. My old Forma, with its mini USB port, charged from 0 to 94% in the first hour, 94% to 99% in the second hour, and then fully charged to 100% sometime thereafter. The old Sage, with its USB-C port, went from 0 to 99% in the first hour and then to the full 100% charge 50 minutes later. This new Sage arrived with a totally drained battery, so I was able to check the charging time immediately:- Hour 1: 0 to 78% (it said it would complete charging in 11 minutes more).- 11 minutes later: 90% and didn’t give estimate any more- Hour 1 and 50 minutes: 97%- Hour 2: 99%- 2 hours and 7 minutes: 100%So, charging this unit took an extra 17 minutes over the one from last year. Also, the estimated charging time it gives is WAY off. For the numbers above, I charged with

“Sisyphy USB C GaN Charger, [UL Listed] 65W & 45W 3 Port PD 3.0 QC3.0 PPS USB Type C, Wall Adapter”

and

“USB-C to USB-C Cable, 6.6ft USB 3.2 100W/5A Fast Charging Type C Charger Cord Nylon USB C Cable”

.I also did a full charge with my old (OLD) Kindle charger and the ridiculously short (3 ft) USB-C to USB-A cable that comes with the Sage. It took the same amount of time (a bit over 2 hours).SCREEN: Regarding the screen, the resolution and speed of the Sage seem the same as on the Forma. The blacks in thumbnails seem to be slightly darker than on the Forma. Paging through a book on the Sage side-by-side with the same book on the Forma seems almost exactly the same (no perceptible difference in speed or behavior). Again, with the two devices side-by-side, the Sage screen seems less white (more yellow at my manual “color” setting (just a tad short of halfway)) than my Forma screen. However, once I use the Sage on its own (i.e., without the Forma sitting there as a comparison), I don’t notice any difference. I did have to increase the brightness from 30% on my Forma to 40% on the Sage. These observations are with standard, side-loaded text-based kepub books. So, if you use other kinds of books (PDFs or comics), maybe you’ll see something different.FORM FACTOR: The most obvious difference (and it’s definitely perceptible) is that the Sage is thicker and heavier than the Forma. I knew this when I ordered it, but thought it wouldn’t be noticeable. But, when you pick the Sage up, you definitely feel that extra thickness and weight.The only other physical differences I see are 1) the Sage has a new power button (a round, “innie” button on the back as opposed to a rectangular, “outie” button on the side), 2) the Sage gets rid of the angle of the “handle” and replaces it with a thickening, and 3) the Sage slightly increases the spacing between the forward/back buttons (they’re entirely separate from each other on the Sage and might be a tad shorter as well). I much prefer the Sage’s power button and don’t notice the differences in the “handle” or in the forward/back buttons at all.CONCLUSION: As stated at the top, if Kobo had merely increased the battery size to just MATCH the battery life of the Forma, the Sage would be fine. But having just 9 hours of battery life on an ereader with all radios turned off is just not acceptable. I’m rating it at a Not Very Good 2 stars out of 5.