I'd recommend everyone to buy a Kobo over these, it's much easier to read your own .pdf and .epub files than on a Kindle.
this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Thanks for this. Was in the market for an e-reader and didn't really feel like jumping through Amazon bullshit
I also love my Kobo. I've heard you can unlock it and flash a community supported OS, which might be another true benefit over Kindle depending on your needs.
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Kobo
I recommend Boox, I don’t know about their dedicated e-reader, but I have the Onyx Boox Air C it’s a little pricier, but it’s an E-Ink tablet so I take all my notes there. (The C versions are color)
As someone who takes a lot of notes during their work, I can’t recommend enough. Gone are the days I’ve bought paper notebooks.
The only reason I never bought into Boox is their flagrant violation of GPL.
Amazon also bought up a comic distributor a while back which may make this easier to get the content I want.
I’ve never had issues emailing PDFs and epubs to my kindle address to read them.
I’ll need to check out kobu though, they have a color one that’s $100 cheaper.
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Got a very old kindle for free, from someone getting rid of it. No touch, no backlight, most basic thing ever. I only got my account on it to download a dictionary.
I am never buying anything from Amazon to read on it, but I've been using it quite a bit, only on calibre converted stuff. It was not too hard to set up, and once it's done it's just drag n drop.
Until it decides to delete every single side loaded book you have on there, which they like to do from time to time. The only way to completely avoid it is to load all your content via email, which unfortunately only supports limited formats.
The type of person to rock Calibre would probably have airplane mode on constantly. Mine's been that way and I still have epubs sideloaded on my Kindle from when I first got mine all those years ago.
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I've had two kindles so far, but my next e-reader won't be from Amazon.
I'm trying to move my tech life away from closed ecosystems as much as possible, So I'll probably go for a kobo or boox.
For me the dream would be a really large colour ereader around 10 inches, where you can view even the densest manga or comics comfortably without zooming or scrolling. I think that's what I'm holding out for.
Have you looked into the Note Air 3 C or the Tab Ultra C Pro from boox? They're both exactly what you describe, and the Tab is out now but the Note launches October 24th.
Thanks. I've been keeping my eye on colour ereaders, and the tech has improved so rapidly in the last couple of years I do wonder if I just hang on for another year then the colour reproduction could be even better.
Can't wait forever of course, that defeats the whole purpose, but it might pay to wait just a little.
Giving you a heads up as a Onyx Boox Nova 3 owner. These devices are poorly supported. You'd get maybe a year of "updates", meaning the bundled apps are updated. But after that you are on your own.
It's a brilliant e-reader don't get me wrong, and I'll take it over a Kobo or a Kindle any day. But go in assuming that you'd want to keep it offline.
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I don't understand what the point is with having an e-reader with a colour screen when the screen is so small. Anything I read that would benefit from a colour screen is either a PDF or a comic, and those suffer from tiny letters on a screen under 10 inches.
Or is there a lot of newer books that have images and such that aren't PDF/CBR based?
pdfs don't have a hard-set text size, and cbr/cbz is just a bunch of jpegs in a rar or zip file, respectively. the first one is a non-issue if you reflow and the second one can be zoomed in to. granted, neither is ideal, but it's workable.
personally i've kept it to comics in pocket format.
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Still, I won't give in to their monopoly
Uhh... What was the Kindle Fire? Wasn't that color, it was basically a very dumb tablet instead of a smart eReader?
Paperwhite is awesome, anyway. Great battery life. Perfect format. USB-C for charging, unlike the Oasis, seriously fuck you guys so hard for giving the Oasis microUSB, fuck you fuck you fuck you. Sometimes...you just need to know your lane & stay in it.
The Kindle Fire was an Android tablet, not an e-reader. Completely different products.
My guess is that Amazon thinks everyone forgot about the Kindle Fire cuz that was before last quarter and that's as far back as they remember.
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Anyone know of a color ereader that I can get a custom Linux distro on? Maybe Pine64 will do one eventually.
Onyx boox runs android. You could probably root it, but I've never looked into it
The remarkable 2 is apparently good for this if you know what you are doing.
I have one and I'm very happy with it, but I use it exclusively for todo lists and taking notes, so I have no need to tinker with it.
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There were already multiple such devices from competitors on the market last year.
Personal fazit: they lose in almost every area against a cheap tablet.
Only if you live in the US or UK. Lol I didn't realize Amazon's international kneecapping of their products moved to include hardware along with software.
For context if you are Canadian you don't get access to overdrive or audiobooks on Kindle. Fun fact this also includes their fire tablets.
I just got a boox e ink tablet. It runs android. I have a sideloaded manga reading app and Google books installed. epub books (found easily on Yandex) can be uploaded to Google books from my phone.
I love it.
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I’m super torn between not wanting more Amazon in my life and wanting a convenient way to binge a lot of comics and manga
I quite like my Kobo Libra Colour
Youre looking for an Onyx Boox tablet - a little pricey, but worth it for the un-enshitified tablet.
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I’ve often wondered why e-ink displays are so expensive
IIRC licensing monopolies and capitalist bullshit.
old link but still : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143407
I have a 2011 kindle, the silver one with no backlight . I got second hand from a friend and I use calibre on linux to convert books to the amazon format and copy them over via USB. It does the job but I have seen that these are like 20 ducats on eBay and other places if anyone wants a cheap option.
Anna's archive with virus total for books
Cool, I wonder which type of color technology this uses though, I can't seem to find that info.
I would prefer Gallery over Kaleido, but I'm guessing it's Kaleido because of the different ppi listed between the b&w and color modes.
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