Review Insights · Google Play
Kobo | eBooks & Audiobooks
Kobo Books · 300,823 ratings · ★ 4.5
4.5
★★★★★
300,823 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 34 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"books"
11 negative reviews mention this · 32% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The app keeps getting worse and worse. It almost never loads on the first try, and freezes my entire phone. It also glitches out and skips pages and chapters or opens in the wrong place, among many other technical issues. I wish I had never…" - Alexis Kuhanga
2
"book"
10 negative reviews mention this · 29% of all complaints
★★★★★ "now when I open a book I just get a white screen." - Just a Phone
3
"kobo"
7 negative reviews mention this · 21% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The app keeps getting worse and worse. It almost never loads on the first try, and freezes my entire phone. It also glitches out and skips pages and chapters or opens in the wrong place, among many other technical issues. I wish I had never…" - Alexis Kuhanga
4
"screen"
6 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "now when I open a book I just get a white screen." - Just a Phone
5
"phone"
5 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "The app keeps getting worse and worse. It almost never loads on the first try, and freezes my entire phone. It also glitches out and skips pages and chapters or opens in the wrong place, among many other technical issues. I wish I had never…" - Alexis Kuhanga
6
"read"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "nowhere near as good as ReadEra... limited app. Not able to read PDF, has no ability to search notes, no ability to read aloud, poor contextual menu for searching etc, lack of organisation for library, etc etc etc" - Mark Palmos
7
"library"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "nowhere near as good as ReadEra... limited app. Not able to read PDF, has no ability to search notes, no ability to read aloud, poor contextual menu for searching etc, lack of organisation for library, etc etc etc" - Mark Palmos
8
"loses"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "loses your page and can't sync with ereader" - John David Stanway
9
"android"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "app bugs on android devices. constantly closes" - Stephanie Robertson
10
"crashes"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Terrible! It crashes all the time and it is really difficult to switch account on your phone. You have to own a Kobo eReader to use their services, the app is practically useless" - G D81
11
"doesn"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Kobo doesn't open properly or give me access to a purchased book. I star is l too much" - Roy Blake
📋 All 34 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
now when I open a book I just get a white screen.
The app keeps getting worse and worse. It almost never loads on the first try, and freezes my entire phone. It also glitches out and skips pages and chapters or opens in the wrong place, among many other technical issues. I wish I had never started buying books with Kobo.
I have a very large library of Kobo eBooks. Loading the My Books page in this Android app takes several minutes. This is not a problem in Kobo devices. It should be an easy fix.
Terrible! It crashes all the time and it is really difficult to switch account on your phone. You have to own a Kobo eReader to use their services, the app is practically useless
Used to work well but now constantly crashes, freezes, loses position in book, needs closing and reopening. Have updated it and it's still the same, makes all the books I've bought in the past unreadable and a waste of money.
Kobo doesn't open properly or give me access to a purchased book. I star is l too much
I can no longer use my credits for audiobooks, the only option is to purchase at full price. The "help" link only leads to an error message on both the app and the website. Please let us fine-tune the playback speed. The playback speed adjustment is currently extreme. Speeding up to 1.05 to 1.10 or down to 0.95 or 0.9 would be great. I'd never isten to anything at +3.0 speed... The search results aren't easy to navigate. Membership read/listen library is awesome! I hope that doesn't change.
25 bucks a pop for audio books is a joke.
Worst customer service ever. I recommend you go to Kindle and not them.
freezes often
takes over screen brightness with no clear way to adjust. basically burns your retinas at night.
the app only works about 25% of the time. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling and it still hangs or crashes or won't even open most of the time.
repairing the account suggestion does not work! Crashes still quite regularly despite following the suggestions. the app is a bit temperamental. when you go back in the app after going to another app does some odd flashing. when you go back to the app with an open book after a few hours it goes black and you need to go back and reopen the book. other little glitches. good selection of.books available to buy. actually it often crashed and gets stuck
I love my kobo e reader, but this app is pretty bad, ngl. When I don't have strong connection to the Internet, it won't let me access my downloaded books, half the time it doesn't load anything at all. If I'm reading a book and I go back to my home screen or a different app for a bit, then go back, I'm met with a completely black, unresponsive screen. Most of the time when I'm in my library, there is a continuous loading icon at the top of the screen. Hope this app improves soon!
dropped from 5 star to 1 star. Reason: I can pick out interesting books and see the fly leaf, but the books will not open. On tapping the open tab I get a blank page. There is no error code. or a solution prompt. I have done everything except to erase the program and reload. I have even tried to refresh the program without erasing the program and reinstalling it.
10 minutes in and I hate it already. I looked for free ebooks, it brought up over 17k in the genre I wanted, but none of them are actually free to borrow. There's a price to purchase. The only thing that's free is the preview. Super disappointing, and the FAQ wasn't helpful at all. I was considering buying a Kobo eReader but wanted to check it out on the app first. I won't be buying it at all, forget it!! It's not very user friendly and hard to find information.
Baixei o aplicativo no meu celular (Android) porém não consigo entrar na conta. Tento fazer o login e simplesmente não vai. Tenho livros na conta e não consigo acessar.
another walled garden, useless for .epub titles unless you enjoy copying files back and forth.
can't read offline
Very buggy. Frequently loses my place in books. I've also had some ebooks suddenly stop loading until I reinstall the app.
This app doesn't work. I've reinstalled multiple times and can never login, I just get a general error message. And even if I login online you can only listen in the app, so it looks like I have to cancel my subscription 🤷🏻♀️
Books wont sync. Constantly have problems with this app.
New app is terrible, even after a reinstall. It frequently loses your place in your audio book, and often resets you back to the very start. It also fails to open properly half the time - you have to force stop it and try again.
Went to download KOBO to my laptop and it forces you to download to one's phone. In the past I just had only my laptop for use. All by books I bought in the past is not excess able.
nowhere near as good as ReadEra... limited app. Not able to read PDF, has no ability to search notes, no ability to read aloud, poor contextual menu for searching etc, lack of organisation for library, etc etc etc
loses your page and can't sync with ereader
app bugs on android devices. constantly closes
App is extremely buggy. I would read half way and it would hang on me. I would have to close it and open it multiple times before it starts working. Only reason for the 2 stars is that it contains a book i wanted that was harder find and price was ok.
Had been enjoying App for a while however recently recently I have run into a glitch where the screen just goes blank when I open a book, it takes over my screen and won't let me exit the app without locking and unlocking my screen multiple times
love having access to great books, but the app is glitchy. I would love to use it more than Kindle, but I haven't even been able to open the book I was reading all day. this isn't the first time this has happened.
Audiobook credits are not good for all titles.
app won't log in from new phone or sync
Fine, but also faulty. As a book reader and text-to-speech app it's okay and does the job but the text to speech stops if the phone screen turns off, which is a bit ridiculous.
You cannot control screen brightness when reading in app on Android device. Brightness is set to full and is blinding in dim light settings
Sentiment summary
87%
Positive (4-5★)
5%
Neutral (3★)
8%
Negative (1-2★)