I’m a lover of physical books but I’m looking to get an e-reader as well, for those books that are hard to find physical copies of, or are just very expensive.
I’ve ruled out Onyx, because I try to avoid Chinese tech as it’s usually poorly made. But I’m not sure whether Kindle or Kobo is best. Is being tied to Amazon’s ecosystem too restricting? Are the Kobo e-readers compatible with everything you need? Which ones have the best screens, ideally how a physical book would look?
So many questions, but hopefully some of you can help. 😁
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Lurking to see what folks think… I have a really old nook which I rarely use anymore. Reasons for getting it was my ebooks are all in epub format, and I heard scary things about Amazon doing shady things with my books/data.
After setting up a home server, I now self host my books and haven’t found an easy way of transferring books onto it, other than plugging it in with a cable. (Tried rooting it, kind of got it to work but it wasn’t great).
I really miss being able to send any new epubs to it over WiFi/email/without needing a cable.
Now I usually read books on my phone, using Moon+ reader app and a WebDAV (LAN) connection to my server. Calibreweb is running to enable me to grab books when I’m travelling/away from home, but for long trips I’ll sync the nook up with a cable. Battery life is incredible compared to a phone…
I’m not a reader but I do have three readers on my Christmas list. Based on this thread they’re getting Kobos
I use a Kindle Paperwhite which works well for me–colour shifting screen, USB-C charging, and incredible battery life. That being said, I have never connected it to wifi, and instead prefer to sideload books so my reading history/money are not sent to Amazon
I used to own a Kobo Aura One and was very happy with it, until the battery decided to balloon and it got destroyed.
I did a bit of research for the replacement. Initially I was happy to go with another Kobo, but the Mozilla Privacy Not Included article about Kobo e-readers made me reconsider. It’s from 2021 so maybe by now they’ve changed their policies but it prompted me to look a bit further.
In the end I bought a Pocketbook Verse Pro and I’m very happy with that one. It has a nice screen, is small and fast enough and comes in pretty red (which is already covered up again with a protector :) It supports all the usual formats and that’s about all I really need from it.
Pocketbook is a Swiss company, so I’m not sure if you can get them easily in the US.Well, you don’t need to give your Kobo network access to get ebooks on it. Transferring ebooks via USB cable works fine.
Their privacy policy might still be bad or they may have improved it.
Either way, they can’t collect data if the device isn’t online.That’s true, and I’m not saying that Kobo is a bad buy or anything. For me the reasoning was that if there’s another company that has a better privacy policy and delivers a similar or better product. Then I prefer to choose the other one on principle.
Your reasoning makes sense.
I just wanted to point out a way to use Kobo readers without privacy issues for people who already own them. I should’ve stated that more clearly.
People still looking for an ebook reader should consider leaning onto your reasoning.
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I’ve had an Oasis since 2017 and I generally like it. I am not crazy about all my e-books being hosted in the Amazon cloud. But I made that bed over a decade ago, and will have to lie in it. I do love the convenience of e-books, too.
One thing that annoys me about Kindle is that if it can’t connect to the Amazon cloud for some reason, it will burn through the battery pretty quickly as it desperately tries to connect over and over again. This is an issue in my house, because my WiFi is filtered by a Pi Hole. So I end up leaving my Oasis in Airplane Mode most of the time. The battery lasts a lot longer that way. When I want to sync or download a new e-book, I just take it out of Airplane Mode for a couple of minutes.
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IMO the one you already have. I use my phones Books app. It can read epubs and you can buy books in the store too. Also has settings for different colors, I really like the white on black dark mode theme.
Eink is so much nicer to stare at long term though
Get a Kobo. They are excellent. I had a 2020 or so Paperwhite from 'zon but it made me feel sad all the time. My Kobo Libra 2 has caused me to read more since I got it than the entire before portion of my life.
If you get any books off amazon use calibre and DeDRM. IIRC DeDRM has stopped but also has been forked on git and continued by someone else so you would want the more up to date fork. Adobe digital editions DRM or whatever it was called I believe can also be removed up to a certain version but you have to download it for the first time with an old enough Adobe app version get the old drm version or it will get permanently locked to the newer version that can’t be removed. Anyway removing DRM let’s you read the ebooks on whatever device you want. It’s not illegal in any country I have bothered to research except if you are doing it to distribute or sell.
As a side note if it helps anyone, I was able to get the whole procedure to work on Linux too by installing the required versions of kindle desktop and Adobe digital editions via Lutris and wine. Calibre and plugins are already cross platform.
Edit: updated DeDRM fork link because goog search results are utter shit these days. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools
I just replaced a Kindle Paperwhite that was probably 7/8 years old with a Kobo Libra 2. Can’t compare it to a modern Kindle, but the Kobo screen is bigger and looks more like paper.
My only gripe is that the software has some odd design choices. On a Kindle, the night mode button is on the main drop down menu, but in Kobo you have to hit the gear button to get to the settings, then scroll down a page to toggle night mode.
Both devices seem to read most formats out there. Look up a program called Calibre to maintain a local library on your PC and convert formats easily.
The main selling point for the Kobo was not sending more money to Jeff Bezos. I cancelled Prime last year and the Kindle was my last link to the Amazon ecosystem. I usually get my books from the library or other online sources but sometimes I’d be out of town craving a certain book and I’d buy it on the Kindle just for ease of use.
had a 1st gen paperwhite for years and eventually it just became too slow to use. go a fire8 tablet recently, does all the same things + other options.
I have a Kobo Aura H2O that I have had for ages that I love. It replaced another kobo without water resistance. Had kindles before that and I like the integration with overdrive too much to move on to anything else. Plus the store if you want to use it is nice and also has some DRM free options available last time I looked.
I’ve used a kindle paperwhite for maybe a decade. Any time one dies or gets lost I replace it. I’ve bought 3 or 4 now.
I love it. Very happy with this little machine. Haven’t tried Kobo to compare.
I know you said you ruled out Onyx but I would actually suggest giving that a second thought. My spouse had a Kindle Paperwhite and switched to the Onyx Boox and really likes it. The construction is very similar to a Kindle but you aren’t stuck in the Kindle environment. It also has fantastic battery life (like most eink readers). Since it runs Android it works with basically any e-reader app you might want to use, she consistently uses Google Books and Libby and they work great.
I use a Kobo Glo with Calibre and it’s been great. Calibre will even install firmware updates for me.
The screen doesn’t really look like a page and the experience isn’t like having a physical book, but it’s been good enough for me to enjoy it.
I like Kobo it pretty much let’s you load anything you want manually I even did a mobi once by accident and was really surprised it worked.
Been using Kobos for a decade and I’ll gladly admit they were utter shite to start with
They’ve changed dramatically and are now twice the price and ten times the quality
Plus not giving Gif Bozo money
I’m going to jump on the Kobo train along with everyone else. I have a Kobo Libra H2O that I really love. I had a couple Kindles before deciding that I really didn’t want to stick with an Amazon product, and chose Kobo because of its integrations with Overdrive. It’s really nice to be able to check out a book from the library directly on my e-reader.
The screen is bright when it needs to be, but dims down quite nicely. The touchscreen is fairly responsive, though it’s e-ink and there are limits to refresh rates. The physical buttons to turn the page are perfect, and I still can’t believe Amazon took them off their Kindles (though I guess I understand them removing the keyboard… even though I liked it).
I actually like mine so much, I bought a second of the same model after I somehow managed to lose my first one. So the one thing I wish they had was integration with Apple Airtag or one of the other device tracking networks!
Can you do things like highlight text on a kobo? And can you then export with all the edits?
Also, can you the plug into a computer and transfer books over?
You can definitely highlight text. I haven’t tried exporting with edits, though, so I can’t speak to that.
You can plug it in and transfer, but again, I haven’t personally done it. I get most of my books from the library, so I just use the Overdrive stuff for that.
I should follow the law of the internet and insist that you can’t export edits and that’s why Kobo sux and then someone can let us know if it can!
In all seriousness, I appreciate the input, thank you! I just don’t enjoy reading on my ipad as much as I did on the Nook I had, back when. So the recent posts about e-readers has me considering getting one. But I also need the ability to highlight and jot notes when I read.
I know you said you’ve ruled out Onyx, but I just purchased the Boox Palma, and I really can’t complain about the quality of the device. It’s light years ahead of anything by Kobo, which I was considering.
I didn’t realize that Onyx is a GPL violator until after I purchased the device, but they really engineered an awesome little solution otherwise. Conflicts of interest are hard. :-(
