I got my uncle a Kobo Touch eReader for his 80th birthday, and someone else got him a Kindle keyboard. Along with the Kobo Touch, I gave start lessons, as it turned out, on both at the same time. I do not recommend doing both at the same time. Before the Purchase One thing I checked before giving the Kobo was that my uncle had wireless available to him, which was verified by my cousin, his son. I decided on the Kobo because it was the smallest eReader, and it was sold by a Canadian book chain, Chapters. A week later, Borders, seller of the Kobo in the US, announced its closure.

Later, my aunt informed me that they did not have wireless. I thought that they could buy books on their computer and transfer them by wire, and that maybe I would buy them a wireless router. Setup I was invited over for lunch, after which we got to work on the eReaders. My first mistake was to not check if the eReaders were charged, because they were not, and each eReader needed at least a half hour of charging before it could do anything. I used part of the charging time to load the Kindle and Kobo eReaders to their desktop. The Kindle setup required an email account, and it turned out that my uncle already had an account, but he did not know the password. We asked Amazon.com to reset the password, and we were able to reset with a new password (possibly it's the same as the old). To download the Desktop Kindle eReader, we were unable to find the download link on the kindle.com page, despite 18 matches on the page to a search for "download". As one would not expect an 80-year-old to do, I found the link by googling "download kindle software". The download and setup was not something I was willing to subject my uncle to, so after "and then, a miracle occurs" there was a Kindle icon on the desktop (one that he can double-click with about 25% reliability).

When it was time to try a transfer by wire, it turned out that there was a wireless router after all, and they even knew the password. We still had to call a relative for help because the name of the router was unknown. The router password had letters and numbers, and while the letters were easy (upper case letters would be been a problem and require a manual in hand), only my prior knowledge about how to type numbers made it possible to enter the numbers; the letters in the top row are interpreted as numbers when pressed while the Alt key is held.

Now it was time to do things on the Kindle. The Kindle Keyboard was very difficult for my uncle to use. He had never used a USB cable and did not know how to plug one in; he only managed to plug it in halfway. Even after the Kindle was plugged into on USB slot and the Kobo into another, it was not clear to him that there were other USB slots nearby. My uncle was not reliably able to fine or work the Kindle Keyboard on/off switch. Even when he used the correct slide-and-release motion to turn the device on, it did not respond fast enough to be on before you used the same motion to turn it off. I wondered why a right=on/left=off switch was not used.

One thing I disliked about the Kindle Keyboard was, unfortunately, the keyboard. The keys are too small for a man's fingers and I need to use my nails. I watched with dismay as my uncle tried see the tiny keys as I explained them. A big reason to get an eReader is to be able to increase the font size, but then the keys on the keyboard have teeny tiny letters. I think he pretended to see them and thought he'd figure it out later. Watching him try to use the keyboard was much worse. He is not a touch typist, so he was scanning the keyboard for letters (to type "bridge"), a keyboard he could not see. After I helped him find books on bridge (the card game), he had trouble using the so-called 5-way controller with an up, down, left, and right side, and a center selection button. I'd ask him to press the bottom of the 5-way to move down to a book he was interested in, and then press the center, but he pressed the center over and over. Personally, I hate this control because I often accidentally press keys around it, but it was even more unusable to my uncle. Trying to type a search word, he invariably ended up 2-3 screens away, with no idea about how he got there.

When he saw a book that he might like, my uncle said "buy it", but I instead directed him to download a sample, but then took over because... The default action on a book page is the "Buy" button. To move away from it, you use the 5-way controller to move down to the "Get Sample" link. In trying to move down, my uncle would have hit the center of the controller and accidentally bought the book. There is no confirmation, just a thanks for buying the book and instructions about what to do for an accidental purchase.

We got some previews to some books on bridge onto the Kindle Keyboard by searching on the desktop Reading the bridge books was another downer. The preview starts after the cover and preliminary pages, usually at the preface. This was confusing to my uncle, although you can see how it might be the preferred starting place for previews for an experienced user. It was time to use the side controls to page forward (and back), but my uncle repeatedly tried to use the 5-way controller, which is used to move the cursor on the page, but which he did not notice. My aunt asked what the four buttons did (small upper, larger lower, on two sides), and all I could recall was that there was an option what could make the upper or lower move forward, but not what was the default. With no animation, it was difficult to tell which button did what during a demonstration.

We got to a display of some hands, and only three of four hands were visible on the page, which is not useful for bridge instruction. Although it might have been possible to realign the page to show all four on one page, it would have been tricky. Another bridge book showed hands in images, which can be selected and zoomed, showing all four hands, but without the explanatory text, which misses the point of combining the two. Except for the possibility of using the eReader on a laptop, using an eReader for bridge books seemed unlikely to work.

We downloaded some free books and glanced at them, changing the font size. It was a disappointment that the font size changes were not system-wide, but only applied to eTexts. The text on the Home screen, menus, settings screen, and all shopping screens could not be resized. Menus were relatively large, but the online store had review text I'd guess was at most 8pt. The button to change the font size had a large and small capital A (the larger A was just under 2mm and the smaller was just over 1mm -- I could not be more exact with the reading glasses and magnifying glass I was using).

We moved on the the Kobo, which was admittedly unusual, even masochistic. Just connecting the Kobo was frustrating because the first thing it did was spend several minutes dowloading and installing a new version of its software. I thought that it was not the best first experience I could think of, even if the progress indicator showed me that something was happening.

Turning on the Kobo was perhaps even harder than the Kindle. The Kobo uses the same slide and release mechanisms the Kindle, with the slider on top, but flatter and more slippery. Personally, I could not tell by touch if the slider was working. Like the Kindle, startup was slow, so people might slide and release a second time before seeing any response. I imagine longingly a left-right switch that had a tactile "click" for all these eReaders.

I thought that response on the Kobo was noticeably slower than the Kindle for every operation, and that it could be a source of confusion and frustration with two eReaders, less so for a one-eReader user.

The main difference between the Kobo Touch and the Kindle Keyboard is the touch interface. Compared to the Nook Touch, I found it difficult to touch buttons, but that might have been that I had to learn how the the Kobo liked to be touched. The popup keyboard was much easier to use than the Kindle keyboard, similar to the Nook Touch, with 7+mm keys with 3mm letters compared to Kindle's 6mm keys with 2mm letters. We did not get far on the Kobo because we had run out of steam. I left, unsure if my uncle or aunt would be able to make the Kobo respond to their touch. On the plus side, the Kobo is noticeable smaller than the Kindle Keyboard and the Nook Touch, and I found it comfortable in my pants pocket.

I still get the impression that the race for market share in eReaders is so competitive, that versions are being released before they are ready.