I’ve got a large collection of e-books, but I’ve always just read them on my phone. Finally broke down and bought a proper e-reader with the nice e-ink display. Why didn’t I do this forever ago?
It’s got a backlight, but using it under a lamp with reflected light is just so much easier on my eyes and feels more like a paper book. I also haven’t read a book written on dead trees in a good minute, so sitting under a lamp just brings back a missing piece of the experience I didn’t even know was gone.
I also just can’t get over how “fake” the display looks. Fake is usually not used to describe something positively, but in this case, it’s a huge praise. The text and book cover images just look like they’re printed on a sheet of paper and slipped inside to make the device look functional…like a movie prop. Turning the backlight on diminishes this effect somewhat, though (which is another reason I prefer to leave it off).
I also love that I can just set it down and not worry about coming back to a dead battery, lol. The reader app on my phone is set to prevent it from going to sleep or turning off the screen, so sometimes I’ll set it down to go take care of something else, forget, and come back to a nearly dead battery.
To everyone who has recommended these gizmos to me, I finally get it. I know I said reading books on my phone was good enough, but I was wrong.
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I have a Kobo and it’s great but I go though cycles of wanting to read physical books too.
I used to be all about physical books, but when the used bookstore near me closed up, it was right around the time ebooks took off so I just made the switch.
I have completely abandoned physical books. The only exception is Terry Pratchett, I cannot find discworld ebooks with working footnotes :(
I use a $20 Amazon tablet and it’s just dandy. Worst tablet I’ve ever owned but it reads books no problem.
Check out annas-archive.org to get digital backups of books you already own that may be otherwise protected by drm. Definitely don’t use it to pirate books. Piracy is bad.
Edit:
Also you can use calibre to manage your book library outside of various large book providers.
I do already manage my library with Calibre and use the webapp version of it to sync books to my phone (sadly, this reader doesn’t support OPDS). But yeah, I’ve got some books that are locked up in Play books and/or Kindle I need to unshackle. lol
My ethics on piracy are it depends on who’s profiting. If the original writer is dead and the estate is profiting like Tolkien, fuck em. If the book is good but the author sucks like Orson Scott Card, fuck em. A living writer who you want to keep writing books, go out and buy that shit or at least get it from Libby.
Also humble bundle is a great source for building a large legal library. Though sometimes they tie bundles to kobo which sucks. They didn’t used to do that.
I can definitely get on board with this strategy, although I usually try to buy hard copies of the authors who are still kicking and writing.
E-ink is fantastic for reading and i wish the technology was more widely used .
It’s either an E-reader or a Lamborghini. Which would you prefer? 🤔
Given that the cost of maintenance on a Lamborghini would be very high, and i drive like 20 minutes a week in a city, I’d genuinely prefer the ereader. Although I’d probably get enough for selling a Lamborghini to buy a few ereaders.
Ah see? There are benefits to getting a Lambo!
“Just here in my garage…”
*camera pans over to Lamborghini
“with my new Lamborghini!”
*camera zooms back to face close-up
“But you know what I like more than my new Lamborghini?”
*rapid pan to bookshelves
“Knowledge!!!”
I’m sorry I had to get this out of my head like an earworm.
That’s called the Lambo effect. Once you buy one, you can’t help it but to also buy it a house and an E-reader.
I wholeheartedly agree. I use my e-reader (a Kobo Libre Colour) daily. I still buy physical books sometimes but it is nice being able to have such a small and light device with a few choices on board. I have had many e-readers and tablets over the years and the only one I have had that I do not recommend is Boox. I got the Palma and the screen broke within 24 hours and they said it was my fault? I sold it at a yard sale. I have had kindles and Kobos with no issue for decades at this point. They are well built and worth having around. I prefer Kobo at this point for similar reasons to yourself. I don’t use custom firmware but I do use Nickel Menu to get to the games that Kobo decided to hide away on the latest OS. Also great for things like inverting colors or rotating on the fly. Hope you get a lot of life and enjoyment out of yours as well!
How is the colour, is it worth the upgrade from a libra H20?
I really love it! I have read manga and craft books on it and the color is nice. I upgraded from an Aura H2O 2 and it was well worth it for me. Don’t expect full color but even with it being “washed out” I still feel like the color adds a lot.
Thanks. So far, it’s been pretty life changing in a good way, lol. Definitely regretting not buying one sooner. Reading on my phone was nice since it was always with me, but having a dedicated device made for the task is just so much better.
I love mine, too. It’s nothing fancy, and is pretty old at this point. Maybe I should consider an upgrade.
Of course I can’t mention it to anyone in person without them telling me how much they prefer reading “real books”. It’s no joke happened 100% of the time. I don’t know why people feel required to reply that way.
it’s the smell and while I agree with the sentiment I’m team e-reader all the way.
Haha, I am one of those people. Never thought about like that. Though I go with “physical” not “real”.
I understand the appeal of physical books. And in some ways, they are a better experience. It’s just mildly annoying how predictable it is. I pretty much avoid talking about my e-reader at this point. I’d rather talk about titles and authors with my friends who read anyway.
Yeah, I don’t care about much about how you read, it’s so rare for me to meet people who love reading. So after the initial “I prefer physical books” thing, we just move on to what we read and like.
What I really miss is the browsing. There’s no similar experience to just wandering a section of a big library/bookstore and seeing what looks interesting.
I definitely prefer custom fonts and the ability to use a size that fits more than 3 paragraphs on a page though. And having whatever book I want on hand immediately.
I’m one who definitely prefers reading books. But, you’d have to pry my e-book reader from my cold dead hands. It’s so much more convenient to read everywhere without having to haul around the weight of paper, it fits neatly in a backpack and I always have a full library of stuff to read. It multiplied my reading 10 fold.
I would definitely love to start a book collection once I have a home of my own. But right now I can still read to my heart’s content without having to worry about storage space or costs when moving places. It’s almost perfection. Planning to upgrade to a kobo soon.
I’ve bought ebooks almost exclusively for the better part of the last decade, so I’m with you. I like being able to bring an entire wing of a library with me that takes up no physical space and practically no digital space (in the grand scheme of a 256 GB SD card, anyway).
To each their own, and yeah, dunno why some people feel the need to gatekeep.
E-book readers are great. I prefer to read physical books, but for some of the older books that are difficult to find locally, I just get the ebook.
Still have a 15 old Sony Pocket reader, without wifi or any bells and whistles. Still work like a charm though, and battery life is still pretty good. Though, I didn’t use it much for about 6-7 years in the middle, and then light use for 3-4 years, but still, something like that to last 15 years, and still keep working is so nice!
I grew up poor, so always had to fill my library from the local used bookstores. I’m much better off today, but that always stuck with me. Plus, I like the feeling of giving an abandoned book a new home lol.
The used bookstores around here all started closing up years ago, but ebooks became popular around the same time, so I just made the switch. I kind of miss being able to use them as decor, but on the bright side, I can carry my entire library with me.
I wonder if there’s a spray, like you can buy a bottle of “new car smell” but for books? 😆 Would love to get a case for my ereader and spray the case with that.
Yeah, kind of same here. Wouldn’t categorize us as poor, but yeah, couldn’t afford tons of new books. Older books in my collection are all used books, though now I go for new books.
Funnily, I have never understood the smell part of it, even though whenever I mention liking physical books, it comes up. I just like the physical feel of the book. Getting the subconscious feel of how much I have read and how much is left by just looking at the pages. Just the overall feel of it.
I think mine might be that old, Sony PRS-505. It’s still in great shape with decent battery life (though the cover is massively flaking).
Yours might even be older than me. I have Sony PRS-350. It was released in 2010 (and when I bought it) PRS-505 was apparently released in 2008, don’t know when you bought it though.
And yeah, the official leather cover (bought separately) has broken down, during the time when I wasn’t using it. Device itself works like a charm though.
They are just amazing aren’t they? I got one with a colour E ink screen to read comics and it’s just incredible
I will pay through the nose and be thrilled about it when Boox is able to get a 13" color reader out.
I love the pocketable 7" color go with page buttons, but I really want one the size of my max.
I don’t need a color e-reader, as I only use it for reading books. I just want Kobo to make their 10.3" tablet 300 ppi so I can buy it. For the life of me, I’ll never understand why they made their Elipsa E2 227 ppi. It’s a big screen and it needs the highest ppi possible. :/
I primarily use it for books, but not all fiction. Color highlighting, diagrams and graphics, and syntax highlighting of code all add a lot. Visualization of data is also enhanced a lot by color. And while I’m not a huge comic book reader, some of them look really good in nice lighting on the go color.
I think PPI is a big part of the reason there aren’t good 13" color options yet. Color is half resolution and 100 isn’t worth it.
I almost went for the color one, but got a “starter” one that’s just black and white. I think it’s a little smaller than the color model, too, which gives it a nice, paperback size to hold.
I’ve had a Kindle Paperwhite for many years, and love it. I run a Calibre server at home (using https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web), which makes e-book management nice and easy.
I just wish Amazon didn’t so thoroughly control the e-book reader and book market. I know there are other options, but there have been few in the past.
I’ve had my kindle paperwhite for over 12 years now. For some time I’ve been secretly wanting it to die so that I can replace it with a Kobo to be able to borrow books from the local libraries. But lately I became proud of how long it’s been serving me, and just ordered a battery replacement.
I’ve had a Kindle paperwhite for multiple years now (7?) and I use Libby to check out books from my local libraries.
I got a Kobo based on prior recommendation and also run Calibre-Web, but I don’t have (or haven’t yet found) a way to connect the two. On my phone, I could browse Calibre via OPDS but haven’t found a way to do that with the Kobo (yet?). It has a primitive web browser, but I couldn’t get Calibre to load on it to try downloading books that way.
Ended up just downloading my books from Calibre-web to my laptop and shuffled them over USB. 🤷♂️
Had considered a Kindle but read that they were a hassle to load your own books onto, so went with something less beholden to the manufacturer.
If/when I upgrade, probably looking at something like the Scribe (or the Kobo equivalent) to also use for note taking.
I don’t know about your specific model of kobo, but my Clara hd has a rudimentary web browser built-in, in a “Beta Features” menu.
It does, but it wouldn’t load Calibre web. At they very least, it choked when it redirected to Authelia for login.
Yes, you have to setup calibre to use LDAP (which I use with authentik). You lose the single sign on but its the only way to get non oAuth enabled clients to work (like ereaders).
For my old Kindle Paperwhite, I have calibre-web setup to email books (to the super-secret kindle email address). It’s very amazon-y, which I don’t like. I keep waiting for my reader to die so I can replace it, but it just won’t die
https://brandonjkessler.com/technology/2021/04/26/setup-kobo-sync-in-calibre-web.html
Calibre has fully integration with kobo
It basically replaces the built in store with calibre
This reddit thread also has good info: https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/qhdmt2/how_does_the_kobo_calibreweb_syncing_work/
I set that up and put in the necessary bypass in Authelia for that route, but it seems to have borked my library in Calibre web and only like 10 of my books show up there now. The library seems fine in calibre desktops though.
Haven’t had time to dive in further though. I just used Calibre desktop to sync them over USB for the time being.
I got myself an eReader from Kobo mostly for the Pocket integration.
It’s nice just scanning for potentially interesting articles and submit them to my Pocket account while I’m on the computer, and settle down to read the articles cleared from distraction and junk on a paper-like display before going to bed, or while riding the bus to work since it’s all synced up for offline use.
That’s what ended up buying, a Kobo. I’ve never really messed with Pocket (usually turning it off is one of the first things I do when setting up a fresh FF install lol). However, this may be a good use for it since it would be easier to do that than print to PDF, copy that over, and then read.
E-Ink is actually magic.
E-ink is just a glorified Magna Doodle.
It’s CNC magnadoodle, and it works fukkin great!
Closest thing to magic I’ll ever see, for sure.
I hated readers at first because I bought a Sony one that constantly crashed and lost my place. Replaced it eventually with a Kobo and I’ve been a big fan since.
Really is nice to have basically a library in hand and you only have to even think about charge every few book or so.
Yep, Kobo had been recommended to me, so that’s what I got. Went with the Clara since it’s a “starter” model just in case it turned out I’d never use it.
I love e-readers and the tech has gotten pretty impressive. The thing I have a problem with is repair availability, and the fact they often run software that’s years out of date. I’m looking at one from Boox but even that one is running android from 3 years ago.
Yeah, though repair availability is hit or miss on most devices these days, sadly.
I got the Kobo, which is Linux-based, and the OS runs off an internal SD card. There’s alternate firmware available I’m looking at, and should be easy to play with (can just swap the original SD card back in to restore it to factory)
I’m looking at the Boox Tab Mini C, because I’d also like to use it for handwritten notes. But it’s running Android 11 (and Android 15 should be launching in less than a month). I don’t know if I want to spend over $400 on something that’s already out of date and not likely to get updates for the purposes of security etc.
I have a Kindle paperwhite 6th gen and software or repairability have never been an issue
How does Amazon handle repairs? I’ve had two of the Barnes and Noble Nook e-readers, and when they broke/stopped responding to the power button their answer was to buy a new one.
I doubt any company would offer repairs on such old hardware (I’m also the kind of crazy that fixes my own stuff so wouldn’t know if they did) but the kindle is the most popular reader so parts are easy to source.
Depends on how you read. I have 3tb of manga locally hosted and with android readers I can just stream the books directly to the device. With kindle or some others I’d have to copy the books to my computer and then to the kindle, which is a total chore because I read a lot
Kindle does win because of repairability though, if only because you can actually source panels for most of them due to their popularity. A handful of boox readers can have their panels sourced but most can’t, including the most expensive color ones. This is more the fault of e ink though, who literally would rather have a monopoly on the panels rather than increase supply and lower costs (or relax their patent nonsense and maybe get some more innovation in the space)
I have a Kobo Libre 2 and love it. I used to read physical books at night with a neck light to not bother my wife, but a back-lit e-reader is so much better and easier. I definitely read more just from convenience. Better to travel with too. I’m also dyslexic and the dyslexic font helps me read longer with less mental fatigue
I’m also dyslexic and the dyslexic font helps me read longer with less mental fatigue
Same. I definitely appreciate that it includes the OpenDyslexic font option. Have had decent luck just using the built-in serif font which helps a lot, but the dyslexic font is there when I need it.
E-readers have been one of the best investments I made. Started with the Kobo Libra H2O, moved on the Boox Air. For my personal needs it was a perfect upgrade, a reader and note taker all in one device
