>I’m still not into the prospect of purchasing books on the e-reader – it’s something I’ll probably avoid
Agree with most of what the author (including a preference for physical books) says but this. I must have spent close to USD 2k on various e-books (I use Amazon because of legacy reasons .. availability of e-readers in India around 2013 etc ) and the joy these purchases have given me can't compare with what I might have gotten with Overdrive etc. YMMV but I like to be able to go back and refer a passage I read 5 years ago.
Also, I've come to realize that physical books are heavy and take up more space than they're worth, for me. I have probably about 50 books that I value most (mostly novels), but the rest I own as e-books or audio books. I used to have more. It's one thing if you have a permanent home with space for a large library, but when I've had to move my books, and try to fit them into small living quarters, I decided to pare them back a little and keep only what I value most. I haven't regretted it.
i am a pirate and i extensively use a borrowed overdrive. i still buy kindle from olx because i can get them on the cheap, much more than amazon itself.
Personally I very rarely re-read books so the concept of owning them just doesn't really matter to me. If my ebook collection suddenly disappeared I wouldn't particularly care, I already got the value out of them I was going to get.
As for physical books, I'm trying to get rid of 200 or so I bought pre ebooks and damn it's a pain.
I love lending books to friends without the expectation or need to get them back, and ebooks often make this impossible. I also love perusing used book stores, another sad casualty of digital formats.
i tried once to find paperbacks of my favourite books i have heard over the years, like louise penny or henning mankell series in thrift book stores mainly in Delhi (sunday market) but havent been there in a couple of years because of the pandemic but i would like cheap paperbacks on the shelves but not all the books i have heard over the years.
It depends on where you buy the book. Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. If you buy through amazon, you are tied to that store unfortunately, but the situation is similar to games. It is very rare now to buy a game that is not part of some account.
i borrow from overdrive. i wrote that. i pirate stuff not on overdrive because buying from amazon ties me to their devices and they give me a "license" to read on their devices only.
i want mp3 of ebooks. i pay for an ebook and get a epub file. is that too hard?
cheap? amazon india at least has ebooks priced equal to or more than paperbacks which makes no rational sense other than that amazon is price gouging.
for a physical paper back, i was told that the author is lucky to get 5% of the sales price. Would it be hard to price an ebook lets say 10%, 20% of the paperback with 100% of the proceeds going to author. or does that price canibalize the paperback industry so they price match it to keep the demand of paperbacks alive. ?
Printing a book is cheap. Very cheap. Most of the cost is prepress, proper typesetting, proofreading. There is no reason why ebooks should be noticeably cheaper than paper books, because the costs are not where people expect them to be.
I mean, while the prices of paper books and ebooks don't differ much after release, the discounts on ebooks, are often much higher than on paper books. I've seen great books for a dollar more than once.
1. You won't see those discounts in certain categories (e.g. full length Stephen King novels). Whereas with physical books, you can expect to find cheap used ones no matter the author (unless it's a rare book or something).
2. You have to time purchases to the discount availability. With used physical books - as long as the book is popular enough - you can get that discount at any time.
My favorite part about ebooks, and specifically Kindle/Amazon is that you can flip through your highlights. I will highlight parts of a book I really enjoyed and sometimes write personal notes about them as I read.
I enjoy going back and spending 15-30 minutes going through my highlights and notes on books I previously read and re-reading sections around highlights. It brings back a surprising amount of memories and emotions from the book that get lost over time. Now Amazon lets you read these with read.amazon.com and offers some export features. The export features are still not perfect, but are better than they were.
I also like the sheer number of books I can keep on my Kindle and they don't take up physical space in my home. I don't want hundreds of books stacked up that i read once. So instead I find that I read on Kindle first. Then if I REALLY enjoy the book, I will purchase a physical copy for my bookshelf. So my bookshelf becomes a physical embodiment of my curated favorites. I also have an obsession with old books, so I enjoy hunting down cool copies at used bookstores to get the right one for my bookshelf.
Here is the tool I use to get highlights and notes off my Kindle and onto Notion, which allows multi-device syncing and web-access to my notes and private storage.
If you’re looking for a good source of ebooks at sensible prices and without DRM, check out Baen’s web store. Their prices went up quite a bit a few years ago because of some marketing deal, but they’re still pretty good, they’re still DRM free, and they often have a “webscription” of the month with a collection of books at a fantastic price.
I fell into a phase of reading free e-books (I love amateur authors and fan-fiction generally) on my phone and that lasted about a year but the constant charging and eye strain was a pain.
So I finally got an e-reader (the cheapest simplest Kobo) and I've had it nine months now. Oh what a difference the screen makes! Completely transformed how much I read and for how long I read.
The software on the Kobo sucks, and even with a builtin web-browser there is no good way to get free e-books onto the device without a cable to a laptop with Calibre. But once you have your books on the reader, it's super easy and nice.
I still love browsing old second hand book shops (they are dying) but I'm thinking there really isn't much future for commercial fiction generally. The chances of authors 'making it' is so slender and when its accepted it isn't a job, it can be unleashed as a hobby and they'll reach bigger audiences and get more interaction with readers by giving their work away. And that's what you see when there are over 800k Harry Potter books on fanfiction.org, and perhaps 50k are fantastic and fun to find. The 50k I like might not be the same 50k you'd choose, but its there.
Any leads on where to find similar other sources of amateur fiction appreciated.
Came into this thread looking for anything to make my Kobo more tolerable. Gladly going to give this a go. I had an original Kindle and it felt just seamless at the time. I broke the screen and had to migrate to a Kobo Touch. It does the job but it's not nearly as responsive and the battery life is abhorrent.
The best thing to do with a kobo (if you have a modicum of technical interest) is to install koreader and use it instead of the default.
koreader is pretty great specifically for reading epubs. It lets you specify almost anything about how they are rendered even letting you easily create your own css modifications, and lets you fairly easily get books on and off whether by opds or even ssh or whatnot.
If you are a bit anal and like your margins just so and paragraph indent just so and line spacing just so and you want it to left justify and do word breaks just so then koreader is pretty hard to beat.
The Kobo reader is fantastic for writing amateur fiction, or at least for self-editing it, because amateurs can only pay one or two editors instead of the small army that "professional" books require.
You could head to the free section of Smashwords.com to get some free ebooks, but I know there are quite a few platforms. Also tons of people are always asking for beta readers in goodreads (check the forum section), there you have a chance to get close and personal with the authors while doing a great service to the community.
> I fell into a phase of reading free e-books (I love amateur authors and fan-fiction generally) on my phone and that lasted about a year but the constant charging and eye strain was a pain.
Have you read Worm? [1] There are tools available to convert the whole thing to an eReader format, and it was the best work of fiction I've read in a long time.
eReaders are awesome. I used to read so many physical books but the physical space that they were taking + needing to carry the books around was a barrier.
I tried reading books on my phone but it just destroyed my eyes. I got a super old Kindle Paperwhite and it has been super enjoyable. There are times I just throw it in my pocket now I will end up reading on the go.
It took me a while to discover Calibre but once I did the management of ebooks became really so easy. I am 41 books in this year on my goal of 52.
Yeah, personally I find e-readers significantly more useful than physical books for casual reading anyway. I might prefer a physical book for reference work but otherwise I find using an e-reader much easier overall. Calibre is great, I would second your recommendation.
I'm not sure how many authors are aware when writing books, but it changes how you read it. With physical books I often peek a few pages ahead to the end of the chapter or just by the weight of the book know when I'm near the end. Sure, there are progress bars, but they're way more subtle. Knowing when something will wrap up I tend to have an expectation of what might happen. Without those cues I have a different experience.
Similarly, my wife can burn through thick books without realizing it for the same reason. Previously, you may even be intimidated by how much is left, but now it's one screen at a time.
i listen to audiobooks. come to think of it, i have been doing that for the last decade and i recently found out that i do not sleep well if i do not have some book speak to me while i fall asleep.
i like to listen to detective fiction, louise penny, henning mankell, my favorites, then books like jusse adler olsen and lars kepler, johnathan kellerman series also.
what i do is, i put on the audiobook on play with a 10 minute timer. voice app on android has a shake to play again. so if i like the book, i can finish the 10 minutes and i shake to start playing again. right untill i fall asleep. that way the next morning i have to go back within the last 10 minutes to the point i can no longer remember what was said. that is where i continue
Not OP but Librivox has a bunch of Lovecraft, Howard, HG Wells, Mark Twain, etc that I use. I often listen to books that I've listened to before, or that I don't really care about.
I turn it down low enough that I can barely hear it anyway; just enough to provide a mild distraction. Now I can fall asleep in less than ten minutes like clockwork.
cool. the mild distraction is what i am after and as i said in the other comment, i usually fall asleep within 3-4 minutes. then there are books that i aggressively listen to and can take up to a few hours for me to sleep but i like it even then
Personally would love to use an e-reader to read lengthy blog posts, but last time I tried it was very tedious. I converted the post to PDF using firefox's reader mode and uploaded these to the device. Are there any e-readers with something like firefox's reader mode integrated?
I use a Boox device (see my top-level comment in this same thread for a breakdown of my experience), it runs Android with some light customization on top. So you can just install FireFox right on the device. Or you can use EinkBro, an e-ink optimized fork (of FF, I think?) that has paging built right in to better work with e-ink.
I use Kobo with Pocket integration for exactly this! Just install the extension, click the button, refresh on your e-reader and get reading :) It doesn't work for every page but it has been really useful for me.
A long time ago, I used a service where you subscribed to any number of blogs via their RSS feeds and the service created a daily or weekly e-book for you with all of the new posts, complete with a table of contents. If you had a Kindle, you could have it automatically sent to your device via the device's email address. It was wonderful, but eventually shut down - probably due to fewer and fewer blogs offering RSS feeds.
If you are looking at the big names (Kindle, Kobo, Nook), I doubt it. The devices become far more open elsewhere. I have a Boyue Likebook eReader which has unfettered access to the internet via built in web browser and Chrome.
Kobo's stock reader has integration with Pocket: you add an article to Pocket on your desktop/phone, and your reader pulls queued articles when it's on WiFi. You can read them offline, and they're basically like reader-mode.
KOReader, which you can install on several ereader devices, has similar integration with Wallabag. I find it extremely convenient to read lengthy blog posts and news articles this way.
Not sure if it still exists, but when I had a kindle, I had a virtual printers you'd print documents to, and it would automatically appear on the kindle. Very good experience.
No one gave the answer that's worked for a decade: Calibre has a "Fetch News" option. You can customize it to any RSS feed. Calibre can then just download posts daily/weekly and make ebooks out of them.
I have ended up with Onyx Boox about a year ago and it is awesome. Being an Android tablet opens up space for a bit of customization. For example, I am running syncthing on it keep book collection in order without any 3rd party...
I definitely understand where the author is coming from, with his stance on not liking ereaders until now. I got my first Kindle back in 2009 or so, and it took me a couple of years to truly convince myself to use it instead of paper books the majority of the time. It really took going to college a couple of years later to push me all the way into ereading, where I discovered that lugging books around for all of my classes was a huge pain and I didn't want to deal with moving pleasure reading books in and out of dorms every few months. Well, that and public domain/pirated books -- it's a very cheap way to entertain yourself when you don't have much money.
I got a Boox e-reader with a 7.8" hiDPI screen earlier this year (my old Kindle was 6"), and let me tell you, it's been transformative. My biggest nitpick with the old kindle was the screen: it was a little smaller than the average paperback book page, which meant that I was constantly turning pages to read anything of significant length. With a 7.8" screen, ebook pages are almost precisely the same size as pages in a traditional hardcover book. So if you're used to that kind of reading experience, it's an easy transition. Oh, and the screen is also big enough and high-res enough to display tables and images at full size, without awkward multi-line clipping. So you can actually experience books as they were meant, instead of dealing with issues in anything that isn't just a stream of text.
I've also really enjoyed using Android (albeit in a modified form) so I can use torrent clients, FireFox, an email client, an Airdrop knockoff, and an RSS feed reader to get content onto my device. You'd think it would be distracting to have all of that at your fingertips, but the limitations of e-ink really rein in the desire to mindlessly browse HN and reddit.
And the WACOM layer that's integrated into the display is truly awesome to use for notetaking, drawing, and even keeping score when I play card games. I've basically moved all of my notetaking over to my ereader. And I don't even have to charge the pen.
One big issue, though? There are a million cases out there for Kobo and Kindle devices, but nobody makes them for Boox devices besides... Boox. But if you're willing to DIY a bit, it turns out that the Nova 3 is almost the same dimensions as the iPad Mini 4/5... so just buy a case for that, and if it's a snug-fitting case, make a couple of cuts in the case to let it stretch over the ereader, cut out a hole for the power button, and you're golden.
Disclaimer, though: Onyx/Boox, the Chinese company that makes my Nova 3 device, is in flagrant violation of GPL with their Android modifications for their ereaders. So you should be aware of that before you decide to buy one -- if you're cognizant of that kind of thing, I assume you don't want to give them money. I figured that it's at least better than giving money to Jeff Bezos and locking myself into another walled garden (that can't even read epub files!). YMMV.
As someone who's reading a lot of technical material, I'm on the fence about e-readers.
On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation).
Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-reader? Any suggestions?
The Remarkable is the device that convinced me of the value of e-readers, but it's not so much the screen size as it is the ability to just scribble notes in the margins, and underline, circle etc. easily. You can install Koreader on the Remarkable, but then it's just another ereader without a frontlight, rather than something more tangible like a book.
I convert everything to PDF before moving it to the device though, for a lot of reasons, some aesthetic and some related to lack of functionality in the built-in epub converter. It's a shame there is no software that does a perfect job at converting epub to PDF though. I use one of three different workflows depending on the source material.
One tip for those using the device: the built-in margin trimming feature for PDFs also lets you add margins on whatever side of the document you want, which is a bit counterintuitive but really useful if you like scribbling in the margins.
It's excellent, with one important caveat: provided the text size is not too small. The way small font sizes (<=8pt on an 8.5x11 PDF page) get rendered/antialiased on the device reduces their contrast a little -- they end up a little more grey than pure black, which isn't ideal.
I’ve tried to read tech books on kindle, but 6 inches is too small. I’ve had better luck reading them on an ipad. The screen is just big enough, but navigating between the book and my notes proved cumbersome. Mostly I read tech books on my laptop and desktop because it’s easy to flip between book and notes. In the grand scheme of things it is the best trade-off for me.
Even if the e-reader supports pdf, I think it's a much worse experince than even reading on a big computer screen(which doesn't work for me either). Physical copy of techincal books are way superior than e-book version. It's way easier to study in a physical book from my personal experience.
This is the one thing that's been a deal-breaker for me with ereaders. I still love physical books and the interactivity with a laptop or desktop, but always saw ereaders as filling a gap neither really address, where you want to read material on a eink-style screen without worrying about the sun or batteries, but don't want to lug around a large number of texts.
However, for me reading material goes back and forth between relatively simple text and things that require pdfs, and I always had trouble with pdfs. They've never displayed correctly and have been ridiculously slow on top of it.
My dream ereader would have an eink display (preferably color but it's not a necessity for me to be happy with it) that is optimized around displaying technical pdfs, like math-heavy scientific articles with lots of images. If it could do that and display simple text well, I'd probably use it a lot, probably next to my laptop sometimes even.
I think e-readers are awesome for linear, text-based material. I don't think they're great for reference or things that need specific formatting or have a lot of visual data; like textbooks, something with code snippets, cookbooks, or newspapers. But tablets or desktop computers work fairly well. Since those aren't single-use machines and don't have great vertical integration they can be cumbersome (and a bit of an eye strain for long sessions).
The smallish size and slow screen loading make it really hard to skim (and requires decent search and UX). Because of the small screen info can get reflowed, making code snippets or charts very awkward--if it even renders.
Basically, I'm just reiterating what you're saying. I haven't found a solution to what you're describing. In an effort to minimize physical books, I try to utilize the library as much as possible and buy digital versions to reference on the computer months or years later. I've seen solutions like putting pdfs into Dropbox. Sadly, a lot of the reading software that allows highlighting or writing in margins don't sync between a tablet and desktop (at least last time I investigated). Academics seem to have the most motivation for finding a solution to something like this, but that may be tailored to their own needs.
>Academics seem to have the most motivation for finding a solution to something like this, but that may be tailored to their own needs.
The solution is screen real estate. Everyone I know in academia has at least one monitor in an office somewhere on campus. The standard monitor you get from the IT department pretty much anywhere is a 27" 1080p dell. Big enough to fit two PDF pages side by side with no scaling. I have also seen people with two monitors turn one vertical. A lot of people just opt to use the free printing from the department and print something out if they really need to read something on the go.
The Kindle Oasis is probably large enough at 7" to make it work. If you're reading PDFs, you probably want something that's 10" or so -- I believe Kobo's Ellipsa fits the bill. Or you could end up in-between with a Forma or a Libra, which I believe are both 7.8".
As someone who used a 6" e-reader for years and switched a few months ago to a 7.8" e-reader... it makes a massive difference. Technical material is actually readable on the larger screen, the CPU is faster so I can actually search larger texts in reasonable time, and PDFs display pretty well (though still a bit small).
My advice: go with 7.8" if you want to read fiction and carry it around a lot, but also want to read some technical material. If you just plan on writing notes and reading technical stuff, 10.3" is the way to go.
Definitely true on color! I think the long battery life of an e-ink device at 10.3 or 13.3 inches would give the iPad a run for its money in terms of usefulness, but totally agreed -- if you need color, e-ink is probably not the best choice.
I read a lot of maths and have ended up for the most part using a 10 inch Fire tablet. I then tend to prefer them in their original typeset PDF format that way and am able navigate them with the sort of speed you need. It'll depend on the particular technical content but I tend to need to jump back and forth and zoom in and out and it never seems pleasant on e-ink.
I've been seriously tempted by splashing out on a BOOX 10.3 (https://shop.boox.com/collections/eink-tablet) - but don't think I can really justify it to myself and from what I gather the refresh rate is still not going to be anything like a tablet.
Get the 7.8" screen. It was the savior for technical books, especially in PDF, even though the Kobo I used had a terrible PDF reader. I tried a 6" version, and it was just not the same.
I have a Kobo e-ink reader. The small 6-inch screen has a 300 PPI (Pixels Per Inch) resolution and does not fatigue the eyes for extended reading sessions. The e-ink screen easily beats a LCD high-resolution or retina display for reading books.
However, e-ink readers are only suitable for paperback-sized fiction or non-fiction titles. Everything else simply isn't suitable for the small 6-inch e-ink screen. PDFs at A4 (or US Letter size) are not suitable, as is any title with a lots of graphics or a complex page layout. Most academic or research papers are still in PDF and are rarely converted to ePub format suitable for reading on a e-Reader.
Note: When I say paperback-sized, I'm referring books in the approx. 6-inch (15cm) size ballpark. Anything above A5 size is likely unsuitable for small e-Reader screens unless the book is text-only (or predominately text).
Finally, if you are think of buying an Amazon Kindle 6-inch e-Reader, be aware that a lot of print books with graphics, charts, tables etc. have been poorly-converted to e-books and are unsuitable for small e-ink screens. Despite this, Amazon continues to misleadingly promote these titles as suitable for Kindle e-Readers when they are not.
The screen size is important, as you say. I use a 9" reader and it is large enough, but it is a 7-year-old device. I got the impression that those larger screen sizes later disappeared from the market.
As for the back and forth scrolling, again correct that it is much slower than with a physical book.
You can pack a lot of technical books in your device but, in my opinion, the best ones it is a good idea to have them printed as well.
I use my Kindle Paperwhite everynight, because I just love the reading experience on it.
But I have to agree that technical materials are still best consumed physically. Novels and even non-fiction stories are great on the kindle. But if you need to frequently stop and take notes, analyze diagrams or figures, reference illustrations or sidebars, which are all common in technical books, then the physical book is the way to go.
An acceptable alternative is a PDF copy on the iPad paired with an app like GoodNotes or ReadWise. These allow highlighting, notes, and other tools to improve the experience. I still prefer digital books, but this is an acceptable alternative. I recently bought a book set from CiscoPress (Cisco technical manual) and got the eBook + Physical combo. Well after I spent $100+ then Cisco sends me an email that the book is backordered for several months. So I only have the digital versions for a month or more until the physical one arrives. So these apps make for a reasonable alternative, but I am waiting to really dive into the content in detail until I get the real thing because it is just the best way to consume technical information, even though I am a heavy Kindle user for normal books.
If you connect it to the network even once, it can phone home and do all manner of Android spyware update bullshit. Popping out the card a few times per year is no biggie, I have a card reader permanently connected to my iMac anyway.
Seems like for this and maybe a few other products, it might be useful to set up a local wifi network that doesn't connect to the internet so you could at least use tools like ssh or even operate an iot home network without worrying about phoning home.
I got the same. But I gave it local network access so it could syncthing my files for me. I should have locked it out of LAN access but the cat is out of this bag.
I read technical books on the e-reader. It's annoying as the diagrams are not as good, but so much nicer for that sort of thing. I still buy a lot of general reading books from bookshops though. Partially because I like paper books, but also because I like bookshops and find they improve the areas where they are found.
I prefer reading on my e-reader for a number of reasons you’ve probably come across elsewhere. But the most underrated thing for me is that I can read large books. I feel they’re too unwieldly to carry around and also heavy enough that I feel too much friction actually starting to read. I had The Gene on my shelf for 3 years before I realised this was why I hadn’t even read 10 pages of it. I bought the ebook and finished it within 4 days.
This opened up a side benefit. I find that my enjoyment of things is enhanced when I can share it with someone. Since I have the ebook, I can gift the physical book to a friend who I think will like the book. That’s what happens to most of the physical books I receive as gifts - I buy the ebook, read it, then gift the physical book so I can share the joy with someone else.
Once I bought a used copy of a 1200+ page book and took the binding off so I could carry a couple of chapters at a time back and forth to work to read on breaks. Luckily it was a 10+ year old history book that was available shipped for under $10. But I can't really do that for a library book, so I agree ebooks are the way to go.
I read this book but i had to take huge amounts of notes/scribbles on the pages to keep track of various acronyms. I go back and lookup stuff that i forgot about. I thin an ereader is less amenable to going back forth and refer things. I feel like ereaders are designed more for linear reading .
X-Ray is great, if your title supports it. I did find it to be a bit of a spoiler, since it shows you all the occurrences of a character in the book - including in the future (?) - at least this is how I recall it.
There seems to be a weird reluctance in the American publishing market to split larger books into volumes. "War and Peace" editions I see on Amazon are typically single-volume; Russian editions are either two or four volumes.
Unfortunately, translated books are (in most cases) published in the same way as the original, so the tradition of multi-volume editions is dying out, being replaced by these awful bricks you can't properly hold or keep open, all set in tiny type with narrow margins.
I think part of that is the fractured expectations that publishers have set upon readers, especially of these longer classics. You have all these editions, translations, etc., sometimes of dramatically different page number lengths, with no standard or clear way to differentiate between different printings without diving into some literature forum where the users have read both copies and can summarize these differences for you. It can be hard to know you are actually getting the whole thing without buying a huge tome explicitly.
> I had a rather frustrating time setting up the damn device – it’s annoying to have to connect to wifi, make a Kobo account, make an Overdrive account, and search for books with a terrible response time to text input, and it’s especially annoying when you enter the wrong wifi password multiple times and end up restarting the device because you’re so convinced you have the right password before finally realizing your mistake.
The best advice I can give for the Kobo is to use all of the functions not directly related to reading as little as possible. By that I mean, don't try to search the Kobo store on the Kobo: search on the website or on the smartphone app, and just send the books to the Kobo automatically when you buy them. Don't try to search the library on the Kobo: search with the smartphone Libby app and let the Kobo sync them over when you check one out. Don't try to read Wikipedia articles directly in the Kobo's experimental browser: add the wiki articles you want to read to Pocket and sync them over.
The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. I minimize the time I spend "browsing" on it via the methods described above, and I have a much more enjoyable experience.
I feel the same about my Kindle Paperwhite— I just buy stuff on the Amazon website or sling mobis/epubs at it from Calibre. Zero patience for the on-device interface other than using it for reading.
Apparently these days you can release a half-baked product and get away with it by saying "the obvious lack of features is so that you can have a focused, distraction-free experience!" or something similar.
Do you complain about knives because they're not good at scooping? When something does one thing well, I don't care if it does auxiliary things poorly, or at all.
My counter would be that it was traditionally never the paperback book's job to help you navigate the bookstore.
But yes, I'll grant that the Kobo's experimental browser (which I think is the component that powers all the pieces I mentioned above that are slow/cumbersome) is noticeably less responsive than the Kindle's. They could probably do some additional tweaking under-the-hood to make it more responsive.
Beyond a certain point, however, the only way to make it faster would be to increase the hardware specs and put a beefier OS into it. But at that point, you wouldn't really have a dedicated eReader anymore--you'd have something closer to a conventional tablet with just an e-Ink screen. And there are definitely markets for those (see any number of e-Ink tablets running Android), but then the price starts skyrocketing.
> My counter would be that it was traditionally never the paperback book's job to help you navigate the bookstore.
This is like claiming that a phone never had the job of an internet browsing device. Sure, the hardware and maybe the form factor has some handicaps, but it is perfectly reasonable hardware, if only the software was up to the task.
But the problem is people claiming the poor software is so that "you can have a more distraction-free experience". That's just ridiculous, and the net conclusion is that again I have to bring a entire backpack full of gadgets rather than just one because of _minimal_ software differences.
If I am forced to bring new hardware in my luggage, I want it to be because of meaningful differences in the hardware itself (e.g. e-Ink easier to read outdoors), rather than ridiculous differences in the software (e.g., I also need to bring another computer because the ridiculous software won't let me visit a website to download a new ePub, even on eInk speeds), most specially if these differences are explained with very dubious excuses such as "distraction-free" experience.
> But the problem is people claiming the poor software is so that "you can have a more distraction-free experience". That's just ridiculous, and the net conclusion is that again I have to bring a entire backpack full of gadgets rather than just one because of _minimal_ software differences.
Fair, I think "distraction-free experience" is a cop-out.
But I guess my point would be that there is a trade-off when you try to take a specialized gadget and make it more multi-purpose. The iPods and MP3 players of old did not have wireless-accessible storefronts, for example: you plugged them into a computer and pulled down your library, podcasts, etc. It was definitely more of a hassle from that perspective compared to using your smartphone as an mp3 player, but the advantage was arguably superior audio quality, and objectively superior battery life, since the mp3 player's OS had only one purpose compared to a smartphone's.
I'd argue the same on an eReader versus a conventional tablet. Yes, if you really wanted to browse the store / browse Libby & Overdrive library /browse Wikipedia while reading, you definitely could do all the reading on a standard iPad or Android tablet and use the Kobo App instead, and it would work. I have a 10" Samsung tablet and do this on occasion (mostly for comics, because the Galaxy Tab S5e has a gorgeous screen for a mid-range device). But I generally don't do it for any book that I'm going to read for more than an hour, because the reading experience on the tablet is subpar compared to that of the Kobo, to say nothing of the battery life (measured in hours on the tablet versus weeks on the Kobo).
And this is just me personally, but I don't think it's that big of a deal to pull out my smartphone and buy a book on the Kobo app, then click 'Sync' on my Kobo to connect to WiFi and bring it over. Or do the same with a Libby book checkout, or a Pocket article. It's not like I would've left my phone at home if the Kobo had been able to better do it on its own.
> But I guess my point would be that there is a trade-off when you try to take a specialized gadget and make it more multi-purpose. The iPods and MP3 players of old did not have wireless-accessible storefronts, for example: you plugged them into a computer and pulled down your library, podcasts, etc
But I don't see a trade-off these days. The iPods and MP3 did not have wireless radios. These devices HAVE wireless radios, and not only that, they're constantly using them. You're paying the cost in weight, size, battery life. It's just the company doesn't want to pay the corresponding cost in software.
> And this is just me personally, but I don't think it's that big of a deal to pull out my smartphone and buy a book on the Kobo app, then click 'Sync' on my Kobo to connect to WiFi and bring it over.
Then why do you read your eBooks on a eReader rather than the smartphone? Whatever answer you give here, same thing applies to why I wouldn't want to bring/use another device.
We are over ten years out from the ipad 1. it shouldn't be very costly to put in some hardware powerful enough that it at least makes it so typing text doesn't have input lag. That wouldn't even take much more beef than a $40 raspberry pi. This is like a TV manufacturer evil business genius tier move. Why spend $4 on a decent wholesale board when you can spend $0.04 instead on a terrible board and the consumers will buy it anyway?
Actually, reMarkable is _precisely_ what I had in mind. Distraction-free is just an excuse for obviously unfinished software; just go and see which con most reviews agree on.
The hardware is quite capable, but held back by the software.
Not every electronic device needs to run a general purpose operating system and arbitrary software! This is a big contributor to why modern electronics have high latency and frustrating UIs.
Most of them are already running general purpose operating systems, and you are already paying the cost in latency (and frustrating UI) without any benefit. This is not the 90s, everything just runs Linux, even "single purpose" devices.
I'm proposing designing more devices that don't use GPOS/linux. And do their job well, with no noticeable latency or responsiveness problems. Easy for many tasks, using Cortex-M for example.
Distraction-free is not just an excuse, it's absolutely a valuable feature for me and a nontrivial number of other people.
It's fine if you don't like that feature, but not every customer would like them to "finish the software" by putting a highly functional browser on every e-reader. There's room in the market for both types of devices.
Show me a general purpose computing device, like you are seem to be insisting every device should be, that has a month or more of battery life despite moderate to heavy usage, yet weighs as little and is as thin as the reMarkable. Products necessarily have trade-offs due to current technology limitations, so it's not just about "excuses".
I'm not the GP but you mentioned general purpose computing device. All of these devices are general purpose computing devices in terms of the offered hardware and even the underlying software, the only thing stopping you from doing general purpose compute is the fact you aren't allowed to have root access to what is probably some unix OS running on the device. Imagine being able write your own scripts to run on your remarkable tablet and build your own features tailored to your own use cases, just like any laptop today. The only limitation is corporate policy rather than hardware or even software, both of these are capable of general purpose compute already.
> Imagine being able write your own scripts to run on your remarkable tablet
You have actual root access to a reMarkable device by SSHing into it, so not sure your point here? Were you thinking it was a device locked down like an Apple product?
Thanks for continuing to shift goal posts and prove my point. I think you need to accept the product wasn’t designed for your needs. If you don’t like that, don’t buy it (or return it if you did).
Please elaborate how complaining about the software being incomplete is "shifting the goal posts", and while you are at it also elaborate on how "well, just suck it up" is a valid counterargument.
> Please elaborate how complaining about the software being incomplete
Did they sell you a device promising a vibrant app ecosystem? Did they tell you it was a general purpose web connected computer? No, they sell it as an electronic notepad with syncing capability. Just because you think that is an “incomplete” feature set doesn’t change the fact that what it’s sold to do it does, and does it moderately well. Are you the type of person who goes into a vegetarian restaurant and rails on them for having an “incomplete menu” because they don’t offer filet mignon cooked to your liking?
This is a very weak argument, since if I complain about the syncing being crap and wasting battery (which it does), then you'd just claim they sold me an "electronic notepad". If I complain about the electronic part having weak battery life, then you'd claim they're selling me a "notepad". We could basically go all day and progress nothing. It's not like you (or them) are the authority on what constitutes an "electronic notepad". This thing has more powerful hardware than most computers I've ever had in my life.
Go and look for any Remarkable review. They all complain about the software being incomplete (expensive, lacks features, no apps, good for nothing else, etc.). Most people expected more and they lose sales because of it. We pay more because the hardware is way overpowered for what the software allows. Saying it's because "no distractions" is a cheap excuse.
Well, that is easy: the Remarkable has one the shortest battery life amongst ALL the gadgets I own. Even Remarkable reviews promise short of 20h, and I'd be lucky if I get 10h. I have laptops that get better battery life. Most of the problem is that it just keeps the Wi-Fi radio on constantly and tries to phone home way too frequently; see Reddit discussions for workarounds.
The hardware already has Wi-Fi, it is powered on almost constantly, and the builtin software is constantly polling it in order to "sync". Let me know how much extra battery life would it kill for it to ship a browser.
My reMarkable 2, using it for it’s designed purpose of note taking, lasts for weeks (month+?) on a charge depending on how much I write each day, but it averages 3-5 or more pages consistently 5-6 days a week and the battery life is long enough I never think about charging.
You're just putting the same number in a different level of precision. 10 hours of battery is less than a laptop. Your laptop would also last you weeks if you only used it a couple minutes per day.
Kobo can get away with it because their product is hackable. It's fine to release a platform with slightly too limited functionality if other people can then build on it.
I've found a use for the browser - it allows me to easily load DRM-stripped books from various places without having to bother plugging the device in. You can set the homepage to a server on the LAN with your books and download what you want easily.
That's... about all the browser really handles. But Pocket or Wallabag get you a far better article reading experience anyway. Any long form article on the web now gets shoved in Pocket and read on my Kobo.
The problem is you can't use the Kobo until you create an online account and connect it to the internet. After that, though, you can do airplane mode forever.
If you're comfortable working with sqlite files it's an incredibly simple process to bypass any account registration or need to ever connect the device to the internet, this should work on all models new and old.
It sounds crazy but I actually see this inconvenience as something of a plus. Getting out my kobo means that I will commit to reading for a while, similar to when I pick up a physical book. The fact that all other functions (like Web browsing) are so inconvenient help reduce the distractions for me.
Mine was a disaster to type on. Slow, unreliable, and for some reason the closer to the right edge of the screen you got, the further left on each key you had to touch, until finally you would have to touch the key to the left of the one you want. But it was a great reader until a kid stepped on my bag a couple weeks ago. I ordered an Onyx Boox Nova Air, in hopes the software will be better. I also hope it's anywhere near as good and durable a reader.
While I try to do that as much as possible it does not work with my country's version of overdrive. I have to use my e-reader and its awful browser to search for books I want to read. As the website is not even optimized for mobile devices the whole process is rather painful. But this is not the fault of the e-reader.
Amazon has their hooks deep into Overdrive in exchange for supporting Kindle delivery for library books, so I doubt this will ever get better. Overdrive has moved its focus to its mobile app. I hope Kobo support will improve, but I am not optimistic.
It seems like they have deprecated their OD branded app in favor of the "Libby" app, right? Which does have better UX. It is really gross how Amazon feels the need to control the means of delivery used by most library systems :facepalm:
Yes, it's Libby going forward. It fairness, Kindle delivery is very easy if you are not a tech savvy person, which a lot of library users are not. They have a Kindle because they desire the accessibility tools (larger printer, lighter weight) or their kids bought it for them or whatever. Being able to do delivery just like they would buy a book is great. But Amazon requires prominent Kindle branding and locks the Libby app out of their app store, so it's also somewhat annoying if you are a librarian who doesn't want to promote a specific brand. But the Kindle is such a huge part of our user base, it's hard to go back now. Other methods work, there's just nothing as smooth as the Kindle.
This is fair, and a good reminder for me that a Librarian's prerogative is to follow the means, mode, and preference of the readership with the goal of enabling folks to read. This is a noble goal and it's good that Amazon has contributed something to "accessibility" via a smoother delivery mechanism.
Yeah — I get my ebooks DRM-free and manage the contents of my Kobo through Calibre. It works great; I'm happy using my Kobo as little more than a screen for Calibre.
E-readers and books both have their strengths, but these days I read 95% on my Kindle. Things I like:
- instant look up of words and vocabulary builder
- highlights and notes - I would find it very onerous to keep a paper notebook to the same level of detail (I know some do - kudos)
- search across books. For history books this is brilliant: 'Hmm La Mettrie, rings a bell ... oh yeah him'. Like having your own mini, super high quality wikipedia (or indeed www)
I bought a Kobo Aura in 2013 or 2014. It handles epubs/mobis perfectly while PDFs are a terrible experience, but what impresses me is that the device works just as well as it did 8 years ago. The battery life is weeks or a month, the (modest) performance feels as good as when I bought it and no updates has screwed it up. I guess it is because it specializes in one specific task and tries to be nothing else than just that.
I have the exact same experience. Like many readers here on HN i love to get new gadgets. I've been looking for an upgrade for several years now just for the sake of it.
But, the device is still rock solid and newer ones don't add any relevant additional extra value to motivate the decision.
Since I read several books per week my Kobo Auro One is the single best purchase I've ever made. :)
I replaced a Nook with an Aura One after the page turning buttons started failing. On the one hand the main thing I miss is the page turning buttons, which were great in the winter because I could read a book with my hands under a blanket and the book above it. But on the other, the Kobo should last longer without that failure point.
It's waterproof too, though again being touch only and no buttons it's not great to turn pages if it's wet.
For what it's worth, KOReader does a much better job with PDFs on Kobo than the stock reader (Nickel). PDFs with large page size and complex layouts (like multicolumn that's periodically interrupted by images not in the text flow) are still Not Great, but more manageable.
I find my iPad bigger screen works better with PDFs for technical books. And if I want the Kindle /e-reader feel, I can just map accessibility greyscale shortcut. Reduction of colors actually makes a huge difference for eyestrain problem for me.
I've had a Kobo Glo HD for the past 5 years or so and it's been a very functional device. This looks like a compelling upgrade (I like that it's waterproof).
Kobo is quite friendly with 3rd party software. Both Plato (in rust) and KO-Reader (in c/lua) are excellent alternative to builtin reader app, the only drawback is they can't open DRM-protected books.
I may feel about this differently in the future, but right now I prefer to rent access to entertainment media (books, movies, etc) rather than try to maintain ownership. I find it difficult to even maintain digital resources, but physical media is especially challenging.
Most books I read just once, so being able to check an e-book out of the library is perfect for me. Even if I bought a book on the Kindle and Amazon ripped it away 5 years from now, that would suck but it would probably not make too big a difference.
I appreciate the argument about ownership vs DRM, but at this point in my life I would rather just have less stuff to worry about!
My problem with e-readers is that they don't look that good when most of your reading is scanned books, e.g. from archive.org
But if one only reads common e-books, they seem way better than a tablet.
The only e-reader I've had is an old Kindle Paperwhite I got secondhand. It's dumb enough to not get in my way and lets me transfer all my various pdfs and mobi files from my PC via cable. It's due for replacement but I have zero trust that newer models would let me use the thing how I want.
I've been a Kindle user for a long time now. I love reading and I love books, but I also used to be a high-travel kind of guy, and the Kindle is lighter than carrying even ONE book.
The travel stopped, but the Kindle stayed. I buy MOST of my books in physical form at a great local shop, but I still also use a Kindle for some things -- mostly genre, or for the inevitable moments of "I don't feel like starting any of these books I already have so what can I have NOW via Kindle that appeals to me?"
The Kindle is also great for reading in the bath, and is honestly BETTER for reading in bed than a real book for me now -- I'm 51, so my eyes aren't as great as they were 20 years ago. The lovely cool backlight of a Paperwhite, together with the adjustable font, make it a pretty pleasant experience.
I have ZERO interest in a Kindle that does anything other than "be a reader." I've read on my iPad in a pinch -- multi-device sync for Kindle books is handy -- but it's heavier and the light is harsher in a dark room. A Paperwhite is a very lovely well made and not expensive device, and it's one of the relatively few gadgets I have that I would immediately replace without a thought if it broke or was lost. Probably with overnight shipping.
>The Kindle is also great for reading in the bath, and is honestly BETTER for reading in bed than a real book for me now -- I'm 51, so my eyes aren't as great as they were 20 years ago. The lovely cool backlight of a Paperwhite, together with the adjustable font, make it a pretty pleasant experience.
The Oasis (and the brand new Paperwhite) both have adjustable color temperature. I've found the warm light is much better for my eyes, and feels more natural. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that you can choose your font as well as install your own fonts on the device, so you have a significant amount of control over what the text looks like.
The battery life of a Kindle is what draws me there, along with the lack of distractions. The screen looks like paper and has no glare like an iPad Mini does. If I were reading reference manuals with either color or a lot of diagrams, though, the iPad would be preferred.
Either way, the best feature of eReaders is that you don't need a bookmark and you can carry a lot of books with you. It's perfect for traveling.
I really like e-ink, but the ability to fiddle with page corners & edges in the iOS Books app means it's the only way I actually get ebooks read. Mini's perfect for fiction, 12.9" pro's amazing for PDFs (say, textbooks) or other work that needs large pages (comics, too—it's close enough to the size of a two-page comic spread, in landscape mode, to be entirely readable that way, at least until my eyesight gets even worse)
First time I thought reading books on an iPad was actually not bad is when they added true tone. It's been a while I think but it's just much easier on the eyes.
My wife is a big reader and used to be pretty deep into the Barnes and Noble Nook ecosystem, but we found the Nook hardware to be pretty lacking.. loading a book onto a GlowLight was not a good experience, and that's from their shop directly, not even side loading.
After her 2nd GlowLight stopped working reliably I gave her my iPad Mini 4 that I wasn't using very much. She proceeded to kill its battery in about two years after countless books.. (it was already a couple years old) and was happy to be able to read Kindle now.
Apple gave us about $100 for it towards a Mini 5, she still seems happy with it. It's the perfect size for purse duty. I think the True Tone display helps with eye strain a little.
I read on an iPad Pro a decent amount but nowhere near as much as her.
The best thing about an ereader for me is, I can read it lying down on my side. I wear glasses, so if I'm reading a real book I need to have them on, and lying on my side crunches the frame up. But with my kobo, I can crank the font up to baby book size, then take off my glasses and read lying on my side.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 298 ms ] threadAgree with most of what the author (including a preference for physical books) says but this. I must have spent close to USD 2k on various e-books (I use Amazon because of legacy reasons .. availability of e-readers in India around 2013 etc ) and the joy these purchases have given me can't compare with what I might have gotten with Overdrive etc. YMMV but I like to be able to go back and refer a passage I read 5 years ago.
As for physical books, I'm trying to get rid of 200 or so I bought pre ebooks and damn it's a pain.
Do you know what stores offer that? Last time I looked around it was mostly small shops with very minimal book offerings.
ebooks.com but you have to look if the book you like has an unencrypted epub versions
smashwords.com
This isn't strictly true since you can also read Amazon ebooks on 3rd party android devices that have the Kindle application installed.
It's true in the more general sense that the Amazon ebooks have DRM that limit interoperability.
Also, when I buy physical books, I often buy used ones. At local used book stores, I can often get them for $5 or less.
1. You won't see those discounts in certain categories (e.g. full length Stephen King novels). Whereas with physical books, you can expect to find cheap used ones no matter the author (unless it's a rare book or something).
2. You have to time purchases to the discount availability. With used physical books - as long as the book is popular enough - you can get that discount at any time.
I enjoy going back and spending 15-30 minutes going through my highlights and notes on books I previously read and re-reading sections around highlights. It brings back a surprising amount of memories and emotions from the book that get lost over time. Now Amazon lets you read these with read.amazon.com and offers some export features. The export features are still not perfect, but are better than they were.
I also like the sheer number of books I can keep on my Kindle and they don't take up physical space in my home. I don't want hundreds of books stacked up that i read once. So instead I find that I read on Kindle first. Then if I REALLY enjoy the book, I will purchase a physical copy for my bookshelf. So my bookshelf becomes a physical embodiment of my curated favorites. I also have an obsession with old books, so I enjoy hunting down cool copies at used bookstores to get the right one for my bookshelf.
Here is the tool I use to get highlights and notes off my Kindle and onto Notion, which allows multi-device syncing and web-access to my notes and private storage.
https://github.com/paperboi/kindle2notion
So I finally got an e-reader (the cheapest simplest Kobo) and I've had it nine months now. Oh what a difference the screen makes! Completely transformed how much I read and for how long I read.
The software on the Kobo sucks, and even with a builtin web-browser there is no good way to get free e-books onto the device without a cable to a laptop with Calibre. But once you have your books on the reader, it's super easy and nice.
I still love browsing old second hand book shops (they are dying) but I'm thinking there really isn't much future for commercial fiction generally. The chances of authors 'making it' is so slender and when its accepted it isn't a job, it can be unleashed as a hobby and they'll reach bigger audiences and get more interaction with readers by giving their work away. And that's what you see when there are over 800k Harry Potter books on fanfiction.org, and perhaps 50k are fantastic and fun to find. The 50k I like might not be the same 50k you'd choose, but its there.
Any leads on where to find similar other sources of amateur fiction appreciated.
http://koreader.rocks/
I can't even begin enumerating the features. It really rocks!
Thanks!
The best thing to do with a kobo (if you have a modicum of technical interest) is to install koreader and use it instead of the default.
koreader is pretty great specifically for reading epubs. It lets you specify almost anything about how they are rendered even letting you easily create your own css modifications, and lets you fairly easily get books on and off whether by opds or even ssh or whatnot.
If you are a bit anal and like your margins just so and paragraph indent just so and line spacing just so and you want it to left justify and do word breaks just so then koreader is pretty hard to beat.
You could head to the free section of Smashwords.com to get some free ebooks, but I know there are quite a few platforms. Also tons of people are always asking for beta readers in goodreads (check the forum section), there you have a chance to get close and personal with the authors while doing a great service to the community.
Have you read Worm? [1] There are tools available to convert the whole thing to an eReader format, and it was the best work of fiction I've read in a long time.
1. https://parahumans.wordpress.com/
I tried reading books on my phone but it just destroyed my eyes. I got a super old Kindle Paperwhite and it has been super enjoyable. There are times I just throw it in my pocket now I will end up reading on the go.
It took me a while to discover Calibre but once I did the management of ebooks became really so easy. I am 41 books in this year on my goal of 52.
Similarly, my wife can burn through thick books without realizing it for the same reason. Previously, you may even be intimidated by how much is left, but now it's one screen at a time.
what i do is, i put on the audiobook on play with a 10 minute timer. voice app on android has a shake to play again. so if i like the book, i can finish the 10 minutes and i shake to start playing again. right untill i fall asleep. that way the next morning i have to go back within the last 10 minutes to the point i can no longer remember what was said. that is where i continue
I turn it down low enough that I can barely hear it anyway; just enough to provide a mild distraction. Now I can fall asleep in less than ten minutes like clockwork.
KOReader, which you can install on several ereader devices, has similar integration with Wallabag. I find it extremely convenient to read lengthy blog posts and news articles this way.
I got a Boox e-reader with a 7.8" hiDPI screen earlier this year (my old Kindle was 6"), and let me tell you, it's been transformative. My biggest nitpick with the old kindle was the screen: it was a little smaller than the average paperback book page, which meant that I was constantly turning pages to read anything of significant length. With a 7.8" screen, ebook pages are almost precisely the same size as pages in a traditional hardcover book. So if you're used to that kind of reading experience, it's an easy transition. Oh, and the screen is also big enough and high-res enough to display tables and images at full size, without awkward multi-line clipping. So you can actually experience books as they were meant, instead of dealing with issues in anything that isn't just a stream of text.
I've also really enjoyed using Android (albeit in a modified form) so I can use torrent clients, FireFox, an email client, an Airdrop knockoff, and an RSS feed reader to get content onto my device. You'd think it would be distracting to have all of that at your fingertips, but the limitations of e-ink really rein in the desire to mindlessly browse HN and reddit.
And the WACOM layer that's integrated into the display is truly awesome to use for notetaking, drawing, and even keeping score when I play card games. I've basically moved all of my notetaking over to my ereader. And I don't even have to charge the pen.
One big issue, though? There are a million cases out there for Kobo and Kindle devices, but nobody makes them for Boox devices besides... Boox. But if you're willing to DIY a bit, it turns out that the Nova 3 is almost the same dimensions as the iPad Mini 4/5... so just buy a case for that, and if it's a snug-fitting case, make a couple of cuts in the case to let it stretch over the ereader, cut out a hole for the power button, and you're golden.
Disclaimer, though: Onyx/Boox, the Chinese company that makes my Nova 3 device, is in flagrant violation of GPL with their Android modifications for their ereaders. So you should be aware of that before you decide to buy one -- if you're cognizant of that kind of thing, I assume you don't want to give them money. I figured that it's at least better than giving money to Jeff Bezos and locking myself into another walled garden (that can't even read epub files!). YMMV.
On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation).
Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-reader? Any suggestions?
I convert everything to PDF before moving it to the device though, for a lot of reasons, some aesthetic and some related to lack of functionality in the built-in epub converter. It's a shame there is no software that does a perfect job at converting epub to PDF though. I use one of three different workflows depending on the source material.
One tip for those using the device: the built-in margin trimming feature for PDFs also lets you add margins on whatever side of the document you want, which is a bit counterintuitive but really useful if you like scribbling in the margins.
However, for me reading material goes back and forth between relatively simple text and things that require pdfs, and I always had trouble with pdfs. They've never displayed correctly and have been ridiculously slow on top of it.
My dream ereader would have an eink display (preferably color but it's not a necessity for me to be happy with it) that is optimized around displaying technical pdfs, like math-heavy scientific articles with lots of images. If it could do that and display simple text well, I'd probably use it a lot, probably next to my laptop sometimes even.
The smallish size and slow screen loading make it really hard to skim (and requires decent search and UX). Because of the small screen info can get reflowed, making code snippets or charts very awkward--if it even renders.
Basically, I'm just reiterating what you're saying. I haven't found a solution to what you're describing. In an effort to minimize physical books, I try to utilize the library as much as possible and buy digital versions to reference on the computer months or years later. I've seen solutions like putting pdfs into Dropbox. Sadly, a lot of the reading software that allows highlighting or writing in margins don't sync between a tablet and desktop (at least last time I investigated). Academics seem to have the most motivation for finding a solution to something like this, but that may be tailored to their own needs.
The solution is screen real estate. Everyone I know in academia has at least one monitor in an office somewhere on campus. The standard monitor you get from the IT department pretty much anywhere is a 27" 1080p dell. Big enough to fit two PDF pages side by side with no scaling. I have also seen people with two monitors turn one vertical. A lot of people just opt to use the free printing from the department and print something out if they really need to read something on the go.
As someone who used a 6" e-reader for years and switched a few months ago to a 7.8" e-reader... it makes a massive difference. Technical material is actually readable on the larger screen, the CPU is faster so I can actually search larger texts in reasonable time, and PDFs display pretty well (though still a bit small).
My advice: go with 7.8" if you want to read fiction and carry it around a lot, but also want to read some technical material. If you just plan on writing notes and reading technical stuff, 10.3" is the way to go.
I've been seriously tempted by splashing out on a BOOX 10.3 (https://shop.boox.com/collections/eink-tablet) - but don't think I can really justify it to myself and from what I gather the refresh rate is still not going to be anything like a tablet.
However, e-ink readers are only suitable for paperback-sized fiction or non-fiction titles. Everything else simply isn't suitable for the small 6-inch e-ink screen. PDFs at A4 (or US Letter size) are not suitable, as is any title with a lots of graphics or a complex page layout. Most academic or research papers are still in PDF and are rarely converted to ePub format suitable for reading on a e-Reader.
Note: When I say paperback-sized, I'm referring books in the approx. 6-inch (15cm) size ballpark. Anything above A5 size is likely unsuitable for small e-Reader screens unless the book is text-only (or predominately text).
Finally, if you are think of buying an Amazon Kindle 6-inch e-Reader, be aware that a lot of print books with graphics, charts, tables etc. have been poorly-converted to e-books and are unsuitable for small e-ink screens. Despite this, Amazon continues to misleadingly promote these titles as suitable for Kindle e-Readers when they are not.
As for the back and forth scrolling, again correct that it is much slower than with a physical book.
You can pack a lot of technical books in your device but, in my opinion, the best ones it is a good idea to have them printed as well.
https://goodereader.com/blog/product/gen-2-fujitsu-quaderno-...
But I have to agree that technical materials are still best consumed physically. Novels and even non-fiction stories are great on the kindle. But if you need to frequently stop and take notes, analyze diagrams or figures, reference illustrations or sidebars, which are all common in technical books, then the physical book is the way to go.
An acceptable alternative is a PDF copy on the iPad paired with an app like GoodNotes or ReadWise. These allow highlighting, notes, and other tools to improve the experience. I still prefer digital books, but this is an acceptable alternative. I recently bought a book set from CiscoPress (Cisco technical manual) and got the eBook + Physical combo. Well after I spent $100+ then Cisco sends me an email that the book is backordered for several months. So I only have the digital versions for a month or more until the physical one arrives. So these apps make for a reasonable alternative, but I am waiting to really dive into the content in detail until I get the real thing because it is just the best way to consume technical information, even though I am a heavy Kindle user for normal books.
a) the new ~300 dpi eink screens
b) never, ever connecting it to any network for any reason ever
c) a microSD card slot that i can put a huge library of pirated books onto.
No distractions, no notifications, no web, no apps, no phone home, no update treadmill. Just books.
This opened up a side benefit. I find that my enjoyment of things is enhanced when I can share it with someone. Since I have the ebook, I can gift the physical book to a friend who I think will like the book. That’s what happens to most of the physical books I receive as gifts - I buy the ebook, read it, then gift the physical book so I can share the joy with someone else.
I read this book but i had to take huge amounts of notes/scribbles on the pages to keep track of various acronyms. I go back and lookup stuff that i forgot about. I thin an ereader is less amenable to going back forth and refer things. I feel like ereaders are designed more for linear reading .
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_(Amazon_Kindle)
Unfortunately, translated books are (in most cases) published in the same way as the original, so the tradition of multi-volume editions is dying out, being replaced by these awful bricks you can't properly hold or keep open, all set in tiny type with narrow margins.
The best advice I can give for the Kobo is to use all of the functions not directly related to reading as little as possible. By that I mean, don't try to search the Kobo store on the Kobo: search on the website or on the smartphone app, and just send the books to the Kobo automatically when you buy them. Don't try to search the library on the Kobo: search with the smartphone Libby app and let the Kobo sync them over when you check one out. Don't try to read Wikipedia articles directly in the Kobo's experimental browser: add the wiki articles you want to read to Pocket and sync them over.
The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. I minimize the time I spend "browsing" on it via the methods described above, and I have a much more enjoyable experience.
Sounds like a feature to me - perfect!
But yes, I'll grant that the Kobo's experimental browser (which I think is the component that powers all the pieces I mentioned above that are slow/cumbersome) is noticeably less responsive than the Kindle's. They could probably do some additional tweaking under-the-hood to make it more responsive.
Beyond a certain point, however, the only way to make it faster would be to increase the hardware specs and put a beefier OS into it. But at that point, you wouldn't really have a dedicated eReader anymore--you'd have something closer to a conventional tablet with just an e-Ink screen. And there are definitely markets for those (see any number of e-Ink tablets running Android), but then the price starts skyrocketing.
This is like claiming that a phone never had the job of an internet browsing device. Sure, the hardware and maybe the form factor has some handicaps, but it is perfectly reasonable hardware, if only the software was up to the task.
But the problem is people claiming the poor software is so that "you can have a more distraction-free experience". That's just ridiculous, and the net conclusion is that again I have to bring a entire backpack full of gadgets rather than just one because of _minimal_ software differences.
If I am forced to bring new hardware in my luggage, I want it to be because of meaningful differences in the hardware itself (e.g. e-Ink easier to read outdoors), rather than ridiculous differences in the software (e.g., I also need to bring another computer because the ridiculous software won't let me visit a website to download a new ePub, even on eInk speeds), most specially if these differences are explained with very dubious excuses such as "distraction-free" experience.
Fair, I think "distraction-free experience" is a cop-out.
But I guess my point would be that there is a trade-off when you try to take a specialized gadget and make it more multi-purpose. The iPods and MP3 players of old did not have wireless-accessible storefronts, for example: you plugged them into a computer and pulled down your library, podcasts, etc. It was definitely more of a hassle from that perspective compared to using your smartphone as an mp3 player, but the advantage was arguably superior audio quality, and objectively superior battery life, since the mp3 player's OS had only one purpose compared to a smartphone's.
I'd argue the same on an eReader versus a conventional tablet. Yes, if you really wanted to browse the store / browse Libby & Overdrive library /browse Wikipedia while reading, you definitely could do all the reading on a standard iPad or Android tablet and use the Kobo App instead, and it would work. I have a 10" Samsung tablet and do this on occasion (mostly for comics, because the Galaxy Tab S5e has a gorgeous screen for a mid-range device). But I generally don't do it for any book that I'm going to read for more than an hour, because the reading experience on the tablet is subpar compared to that of the Kobo, to say nothing of the battery life (measured in hours on the tablet versus weeks on the Kobo).
And this is just me personally, but I don't think it's that big of a deal to pull out my smartphone and buy a book on the Kobo app, then click 'Sync' on my Kobo to connect to WiFi and bring it over. Or do the same with a Libby book checkout, or a Pocket article. It's not like I would've left my phone at home if the Kobo had been able to better do it on its own.
But I don't see a trade-off these days. The iPods and MP3 did not have wireless radios. These devices HAVE wireless radios, and not only that, they're constantly using them. You're paying the cost in weight, size, battery life. It's just the company doesn't want to pay the corresponding cost in software.
> And this is just me personally, but I don't think it's that big of a deal to pull out my smartphone and buy a book on the Kobo app, then click 'Sync' on my Kobo to connect to WiFi and bring it over.
Then why do you read your eBooks on a eReader rather than the smartphone? Whatever answer you give here, same thing applies to why I wouldn't want to bring/use another device.
This means the device is more of an appliance than a general computing device.
A good example is a reMarkable 2. It is a solid, well-designed digital version of a paper notebook. (I will add paper notebooks aren't searchable.)
Yes, anything else, including search, is bolted on but the core experience it was designed for isn't half-baked.
The hardware is quite capable, but held back by the software.
It's fine if you don't like that feature, but not every customer would like them to "finish the software" by putting a highly functional browser on every e-reader. There's room in the market for both types of devices.
You have actual root access to a reMarkable device by SSHing into it, so not sure your point here? Were you thinking it was a device locked down like an Apple product?
More details: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable
A bit of "help" from RM (like a plugin system on the main stock app) would go a lot of the way.
Did they sell you a device promising a vibrant app ecosystem? Did they tell you it was a general purpose web connected computer? No, they sell it as an electronic notepad with syncing capability. Just because you think that is an “incomplete” feature set doesn’t change the fact that what it’s sold to do it does, and does it moderately well. Are you the type of person who goes into a vegetarian restaurant and rails on them for having an “incomplete menu” because they don’t offer filet mignon cooked to your liking?
Go and look for any Remarkable review. They all complain about the software being incomplete (expensive, lacks features, no apps, good for nothing else, etc.). Most people expected more and they lose sales because of it. We pay more because the hardware is way overpowered for what the software allows. Saying it's because "no distractions" is a cheap excuse.
The hardware already has Wi-Fi, it is powered on almost constantly, and the builtin software is constantly polling it in order to "sync". Let me know how much extra battery life would it kill for it to ship a browser.
That's... about all the browser really handles. But Pocket or Wallabag get you a far better article reading experience anyway. Any long form article on the web now gets shoved in Pocket and read on my Kobo.
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1998068#p...
As well as usual gubbins about convenience etc.
It's waterproof too, though again being touch only and no buttons it's not great to turn pages if it's wet.
https://github.com/baskerville/plato
https://github.com/koreader
Most books I read just once, so being able to check an e-book out of the library is perfect for me. Even if I bought a book on the Kindle and Amazon ripped it away 5 years from now, that would suck but it would probably not make too big a difference.
I appreciate the argument about ownership vs DRM, but at this point in my life I would rather just have less stuff to worry about!
The travel stopped, but the Kindle stayed. I buy MOST of my books in physical form at a great local shop, but I still also use a Kindle for some things -- mostly genre, or for the inevitable moments of "I don't feel like starting any of these books I already have so what can I have NOW via Kindle that appeals to me?"
The Kindle is also great for reading in the bath, and is honestly BETTER for reading in bed than a real book for me now -- I'm 51, so my eyes aren't as great as they were 20 years ago. The lovely cool backlight of a Paperwhite, together with the adjustable font, make it a pretty pleasant experience.
I have ZERO interest in a Kindle that does anything other than "be a reader." I've read on my iPad in a pinch -- multi-device sync for Kindle books is handy -- but it's heavier and the light is harsher in a dark room. A Paperwhite is a very lovely well made and not expensive device, and it's one of the relatively few gadgets I have that I would immediately replace without a thought if it broke or was lost. Probably with overnight shipping.
The Oasis (and the brand new Paperwhite) both have adjustable color temperature. I've found the warm light is much better for my eyes, and feels more natural. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that you can choose your font as well as install your own fonts on the device, so you have a significant amount of control over what the text looks like.
I needed to get used to it. Now that I am used to it, I actually have difficulty with paper books.
My wife is the opposite. She doesn't want to use an eReader.
Either way, the best feature of eReaders is that you don't need a bookmark and you can carry a lot of books with you. It's perfect for traveling.
Unless you use a PaperLike screen protector. I don't like glossy screens, so I get matte protectors for all my i-devices (except the Watch).
After her 2nd GlowLight stopped working reliably I gave her my iPad Mini 4 that I wasn't using very much. She proceeded to kill its battery in about two years after countless books.. (it was already a couple years old) and was happy to be able to read Kindle now.
Apple gave us about $100 for it towards a Mini 5, she still seems happy with it. It's the perfect size for purse duty. I think the True Tone display helps with eye strain a little.
I read on an iPad Pro a decent amount but nowhere near as much as her.