E-Readers / E-book Apps - Because paper is for grandpas.

  • 🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account

E-Readers and Reading Apps

  • Prefer a book.

    Votes: 26 36.1%

  • Prefer an E-Reader

    Votes: 34 47.2%

  • Nigga I don't read.

    Votes: 12 16.7%
  • Total voters
    72
Do you guys have a suggestion for E Readers besides the Kindle or is it relatively just the best one on the market in terms of pricing and features?
 
Cemetery Support said:
You ever get one bro?
Click to expand...
I did. I never wanted an e-reader cause I thought it'd make the simple joy of reading too zoomerised, but it's pretty nice. I can give a book a shot and delete it if it sucks. If it's good, I can buy it and put it on my shelf for the sake of collection. Quite happy with it: Anna's archive, into google drive, no issues.
 
I prefer physical books but I'll be travelling constantly over the next 6-12 months with plenty of time available to read and it just won't be practical to take books with me. I wanted a portable, distraction-free (including no ads on home screen) dedicated device with e-ink so my eyes don't get sore and to save my laptop battery.

The features I decided I wanted were:
Physical page turn buttons
At least 7" screen
Monochrome - the colour screens just aren't there yet, and I don't really need colour anyway

After a lot of research I ordered a Boox Go 7 B&W, black version.
I don't plan on using any of the Android functions and hope to get decent battery life (the biggest downside of the Boox vs Kindle and Kobo) by using it exclusively as an ereader in airplane mode, stopping background apps etc. I have no plans to use it for taking notes or writing.
Libby access is a bonus but I'll mostly download from Annas. I also had a gift card for a store that I didn't realise sold Kindles and Boox so that sealed the deal.
I specified that I got the black version because the black and white come with different screens - glass and PMMA plastic respectively. The black reportedly has slightly better clarity and contrast, reduced glare and better scratch resistance.
 
fist_of_khonshu said:
Do you guys have a suggestion for E Readers besides the Kindle or is it relatively just the best one on the market in terms of pricing and features?
Click to expand...
Boox makes high-quality ereaders that run on Android. You get worse battery life but you can use multiple stores to get content (including the kindle one). There's a few others that have similar offerings, but Boox generally has the best build quality of the android ereader crowd and the best update support.

Kobo is locked down to almost the same degree as Kindle and their selection is worse so I honestly can't recommend them if you're hesitant about being put into an ecosystem. The only advantage they have is that it's still a "pure ereader" (aka no distractions) while having physical page turn buttons. Some people also support them out of principle because they don't like Amazon having such a dominant position. Personally I think if you're going to support alternatives, you should be supporting truly open devices instead of a slightly less locked down ecosystem device. (I will add though that Kobo's DRM is quite easy to break and so they're the easiest store front to 'liberate' purchased books from other than actual DRM-free stores)

The biggest problem for the competition though is that kindle has the best build quality (and it's seriously not even a competition here) and best out of the box experience while also being incredibly cheap for what you get. Kindle Basic is only $100 and has everything you need to just read books (and you can still sideload whatever DRM-free books you have onto one if you don't want to buy books through Amazon). This means that there's very little incentive for a lot of publishers to bother with any ebook marketplace except the Kindle one, because kindle's accessibility has made it the overwhelmingly dominant ereader on the market (something like 70% of ereader sales are kindles).

Another big factor is Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Publishing, which a lot of new authors (especially ones who write books that the traditional publishing industry won't touch) are going through. Bezos pays them better for exclusivity so if a new author from them catches your interest, you're stuck with a kindle or the kindle app.

tl;dr if you want an open device that can do multiple storefronts, get a Boox. If you want a high-quality, distraction-free device with the biggest selection of stuff to buy, get a Kindle. If you want physical buttons, get a Kobo.

(I wish we had more freedom in this space and all the different players could agree on common standards so I could use multiple storefronts on a kindle or a kobo device, but everything has to be gay walled gardens)
 
Fcret said:
If you want physical buttons, get a Kobo.
Click to expand...
That is not the case with every Kobo. My Kobo Clara Color does not have buttons for page turning, only a power off button on the back. Everything else is touch.
 
stupid frog said:
The worst part of touch is that eventually the place you touch most doesn't like to respond anymore.
Click to expand...
Wow, just like real life!
But wait, how does that work? Aren't most e-readers using capacitive touch? How does that degrade? It's not something I heard of before. I would expect that with resistive touch screens.
 
long waters said:
Wow, just like real life!
But wait, how does that work? Aren't most e-readers using capacitive touch? How does that degrade? It's not something I heard of before. I would expect that with resistive touch screens.
Click to expand...
Someone smarter than me will have to answer, but I feel like the areas I use to regularly turn page are less responsive than they used to be. I'd love to be wrong, because I don't want to replace it.
 
stupid frog said:
Someone smarter than me will have to answer, but I feel like the areas I use to regularly turn page are less responsive than they used to be. I'd love to be wrong, because I don't want to replace it.
Click to expand...
Looking into it now, it seems there are a good number of ereaders with resistive touchscreens. Many of them from Boox. From what I understand, resistive touch can indeed get less responsive the more you use it.
 
I guess I should mention this is on Kobo, I don't have the ones with buttons.
 
stupid frog said:
I guess I should mention this is on Kobo, I don't have the ones with buttons.
Click to expand...
What model of Kobo is it? IIRC the older ones used a different touchscreen tech that relied on IR beams.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom