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.
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 The thing I have a problem with is repair availability, and the fact they often run software that’s years out of date.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 I don’t know if I want to spend over $400 on something that’s already out of date and not likely to get updates for the purposes of security etc.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)