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Why didn't I buy a e-reader sooner? (dubvee.org)

submitted 2 months ago by ptz@dubvee.org to c/books@lemmy.world

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I've got a large collection of e-books, but I've always just read them on my phone. Finally broke down and bought a proper e-reader with the nice e-ink display. Why didn't I do this forever ago?

It's got a backlight, but using it under a lamp with reflected light is just so much easier on my eyes and feels more like a paper book. I also haven't read a book written on dead trees in a good minute, so sitting under a lamp just brings back a missing piece of the experience I didn't even know was gone.

I also just can't get over how "fake" the display looks. Fake is usually not used to describe something positively, but in this case, it's a huge praise. The text and book cover images just look like they're printed on a sheet of paper and slipped inside to make the device look functional...like a movie prop. Turning the backlight on diminishes this effect somewhat, though (which is another reason I prefer to leave it off).

I also love that I can just set it down and not worry about coming back to a dead battery, lol. The reader app on my phone is set to prevent it from going to sleep or turning off the screen, so sometimes I'll set it down to go take care of something else, forget, and come back to a nearly dead battery.

To everyone who has recommended these gizmos to me, I finally get it. I know I said reading books on my phone was good enough, but I was wrong.

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[-] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 56 points 2 months ago

E-Ink is actually magic.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 15 points 2 months ago

Closest thing to magic I'll ever see, for sure.

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[-] sc2pirate@lemmy.world 41 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Check out annas-archive.org to get digital backups of books you already own that may be otherwise protected by drm. Definitely don't use it to pirate books. Piracy is bad.

Edit:

Also you can use calibre to manage your book library outside of various large book providers.

https://calibre-ebook.com/

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 6 points 2 months ago

I do already manage my library with Calibre and use the webapp version of it to sync books to my phone (sadly, this reader doesn't support OPDS). But yeah, I've got some books that are locked up in Play books and/or Kindle I need to unshackle. lol

[-] hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

My ethics on piracy are it depends on who's profiting. If the original writer is dead and the estate is profiting like Tolkien, fuck em. If the book is good but the author sucks like Orson Scott Card, fuck em. A living writer who you want to keep writing books, go out and buy that shit or at least get it from Libby.

Also humble bundle is a great source for building a large legal library. Though sometimes they tie bundles to kobo which sucks. They didn't used to do that.

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[-] zcd@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 months ago

They are just amazing aren't they? I got one with a colour E ink screen to read comics and it's just incredible

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 months ago

I will pay through the nose and be thrilled about it when Boox is able to get a 13" color reader out.

I love the pocketable 7" color go with page buttons, but I really want one the size of my max.

[-] penquin@lemm.ee 4 points 2 months ago

I don't need a color e-reader, as I only use it for reading books. I just want Kobo to make their 10.3" tablet 300 ppi so I can buy it. For the life of me, I'll never understand why they made their Elipsa E2 227 ppi. It's a big screen and it needs the highest ppi possible. :/

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

I primarily use it for books, but not all fiction. Color highlighting, diagrams and graphics, and syntax highlighting of code all add a lot. Visualization of data is also enhanced a lot by color. And while I'm not a huge comic book reader, some of them look really good in nice lighting on the go color.

I think PPI is a big part of the reason there aren't good 13" color options yet. Color is half resolution and 100 isn't worth it.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 7 points 2 months ago

I almost went for the color one, but got a "starter" one that's just black and white. I think it's a little smaller than the color model, too, which gives it a nice, paperback size to hold.

[-] classic@fedia.io 5 points 2 months ago

All the colors rich enough?

[-] quixotic120@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

color page

Color page on boox ultra tab c. They (and basically all manufacturers with kaleido3) do post processing on marketing images that make things look more vibrant. It’s fine for manga and I like it but it’s definitely underwhelming and washed out.

Additionally the color filter lowers the contrast of the display and makes the image overall dimmer. Like op I think it looks best with no front light but this one is so dim i often have it on unless I’m under intense light (reading outside for example). I can’t upload a second image with my app but it looks good, just dim

The color also increases ghosting. This is remedied by refreshing the screen fully on page turns but this eats up battery. Heavy reading (like 10+ hours a day) gets me 2 days at most. If I read more typically, like 2-3 hours a day, I get 4-5 days. The huge battery makes it heavy

Also fwiw boox is a mixed bag. The device itself is nice but their customer service is dogshit. I broke the panel, which is very easy. Mine broke from a roughly 1 foot drop onto carpet. The panels are much more fragile. Getting it fixed was expensive, over 50% of the cost of the device. That’s not their fault, of course, but then on top of that I had to pay shipping to them. Again, smaller company, but also a $600 tablet. Then the repair literally took 8 weeks and they gave me replacement panel with 5 dead pixels and 3 pixels “stuck on” that are super distracting, but they only define dead pixels as a problem if it’s in a small box that is the dead center. They don’t have enough panels, which is why the repair took so long, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they are okaying shit panels because they are scarce. They also broke the fingerprint reader during the repair. They did offer to fix what they broke for free but I still had to pay to ship to them again (its like $30) and wouldn’t have the device for god knows how long again. I just use it without a fingerprint to unlock but typing the passcode (or anything) is a pain because of the latency for the screen to update.

On the other hand their software team is great. The software has some rough edges but it runs mihon fine and when the software has issues I report them and often get an update on how to fix and occasionally have gotten feature suggestions implemented even.

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[-] zcd@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago

Mine is a boox and I find the colours totally acceptable? But I'm very simple and probably easy to please, maybe if you wanted to do art on it it might not be up to snuff but as someone who's just casually reading comics day-to-day I love it

[-] johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 14 points 2 months ago

E-ink is fantastic for reading and i wish the technology was more widely used .

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[-] negativenull@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago

I've had a Kindle Paperwhite for many years, and love it. I run a Calibre server at home (using https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web), which makes e-book management nice and easy.

I just wish Amazon didn't so thoroughly control the e-book reader and book market. I know there are other options, but there have been few in the past.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 7 points 2 months ago

I got a Kobo based on prior recommendation and also run Calibre-Web, but I don't have (or haven't yet found) a way to connect the two. On my phone, I could browse Calibre via OPDS but haven't found a way to do that with the Kobo (yet?). It has a primitive web browser, but I couldn't get Calibre to load on it to try downloading books that way.

Ended up just downloading my books from Calibre-web to my laptop and shuffled them over USB. 🤷‍♂️

Had considered a Kindle but read that they were a hassle to load your own books onto, so went with something less beholden to the manufacturer.

If/when I upgrade, probably looking at something like the Scribe (or the Kobo equivalent) to also use for note taking.

[-] Mnem667@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago

I don't know about your specific model of kobo, but my Clara hd has a rudimentary web browser built-in, in a "Beta Features" menu.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 3 points 2 months ago

It does, but it wouldn't load Calibre web. At they very least, it choked when it redirected to Authelia for login.

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[-] negativenull@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

For my old Kindle Paperwhite, I have calibre-web setup to email books (to the super-secret kindle email address). It's very amazon-y, which I don't like. I keep waiting for my reader to die so I can replace it, but it just won't die

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[-] anguo@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 months ago

I've had my kindle paperwhite for over 12 years now. For some time I've been secretly wanting it to die so that I can replace it with a Kobo to be able to borrow books from the local libraries. But lately I became proud of how long it's been serving me, and just ordered a battery replacement.

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[-] UnPassive@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

I have a Kobo Libre 2 and love it. I used to read physical books at night with a neck light to not bother my wife, but a back-lit e-reader is so much better and easier. I definitely read more just from convenience. Better to travel with too. I'm also dyslexic and the dyslexic font helps me read longer with less mental fatigue

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 6 points 2 months ago

I'm also dyslexic and the dyslexic font helps me read longer with less mental fatigue

Same. I definitely appreciate that it includes the OpenDyslexic font option. Have had decent luck just using the built-in serif font which helps a lot, but the dyslexic font is there when I need it.

[-] Boozilla@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago

I love mine, too. It's nothing fancy, and is pretty old at this point. Maybe I should consider an upgrade.

Of course I can't mention it to anyone in person without them telling me how much they prefer reading "real books". It's no joke happened 100% of the time. I don't know why people feel required to reply that way.

[-] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

What I really miss is the browsing. There's no similar experience to just wandering a section of a big library/bookstore and seeing what looks interesting.

I definitely prefer custom fonts and the ability to use a size that fits more than 3 paragraphs on a page though. And having whatever book I want on hand immediately.

[-] metaStatic@kbin.earth 6 points 2 months ago

it's the smell and while I agree with the sentiment I'm team e-reader all the way.

[-] dustyData@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I'm one who definitely prefers reading books. But, you'd have to pry my e-book reader from my cold dead hands. It's so much more convenient to read everywhere without having to haul around the weight of paper, it fits neatly in a backpack and I always have a full library of stuff to read. It multiplied my reading 10 fold.

I would definitely love to start a book collection once I have a home of my own. But right now I can still read to my heart's content without having to worry about storage space or costs when moving places. It's almost perfection. Planning to upgrade to a kobo soon.

[-] dresden@discuss.online 3 points 2 months ago

Haha, I am one of those people. Never thought about like that. Though I go with "physical" not "real".

[-] Boozilla@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I understand the appeal of physical books. And in some ways, they are a better experience. It's just mildly annoying how predictable it is. I pretty much avoid talking about my e-reader at this point. I'd rather talk about titles and authors with my friends who read anyway.

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[-] mp3@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I got myself an eReader from Kobo mostly for the Pocket integration.

It's nice just scanning for potentially interesting articles and submit them to my Pocket account while I'm on the computer, and settle down to read the articles cleared from distraction and junk on a paper-like display before going to bed, or while riding the bus to work since it's all synced up for offline use.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 7 points 2 months ago

That's what ended up buying, a Kobo. I've never really messed with Pocket (usually turning it off is one of the first things I do when setting up a fresh FF install lol). However, this may be a good use for it since it would be easier to do that than print to PDF, copy that over, and then read.

[-] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago

Do e-readers work with pdfs? I have various DnD books I've bought online and I'd love to be able to store them on one easily carry able device.

[-] kux@lemm.ee 8 points 2 months ago

pdfs are usable but generally unsatisfactory on ereaders. there are various pdf to epub converters although i can't say how well they'd deal with the tables and graphics in those manuals

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This one does, but not sure about in general.

[-] WanderingVentra@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

Nice! I'll have to look into this. I love physical books but I'm running out of space 😭

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 5 points 2 months ago

I got a Kobo (which had been recommended to me multiple times over a Kindle), and I'm happy with it so far. A little limited in some areas, but you can copy any supported format over USB easy enough. Looking into alternate firmware that may open more doors, connectivity-wise.

[-] Omniforous@mander.xyz 3 points 2 months ago

If you are able to see up Calibre to manage your eBook library, you can set it up to sync your library to your kobo. I followed this guide when I set it up for my wife. It does mess up the shop on the device, but our way enough to get DRM free ebooks elsewhere and just sync it to the kobo

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[-] TheDeepState@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago

What kind did you get?

[-] dresden@discuss.online 5 points 2 months ago

E-book readers are great. I prefer to read physical books, but for some of the older books that are difficult to find locally, I just get the ebook.

Still have a 15 old Sony Pocket reader, without wifi or any bells and whistles. Still work like a charm though, and battery life is still pretty good. Though, I didn't use it much for about 6-7 years in the middle, and then light use for 3-4 years, but still, something like that to last 15 years, and still keep working is so nice!

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[-] B0NK3RS@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I have a Kobo and it's great but I go though cycles of wanting to read physical books too.

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[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I love e-readers and the tech has gotten pretty impressive. The thing I have a problem with is repair availability, and the fact they often run software that's years out of date. I'm looking at one from Boox but even that one is running android from 3 years ago.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah, though repair availability is hit or miss on most devices these days, sadly.

I got the Kobo, which is Linux-based, and the OS runs off an internal SD card. There's alternate firmware available I'm looking at, and should be easy to play with (can just swap the original SD card back in to restore it to factory)

[-] atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm looking at the Boox Tab Mini C, because I'd also like to use it for handwritten notes. But it's running Android 11 (and Android 15 should be launching in less than a month). I don't know if I want to spend over $400 on something that's already out of date and not likely to get updates for the purposes of security etc.

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[-] itchick2014@midwest.social 4 points 2 months ago

I wholeheartedly agree. I use my e-reader (a Kobo Libre Colour) daily. I still buy physical books sometimes but it is nice being able to have such a small and light device with a few choices on board. I have had many e-readers and tablets over the years and the only one I have had that I do not recommend is Boox. I got the Palma and the screen broke within 24 hours and they said it was my fault? I sold it at a yard sale. I have had kindles and Kobos with no issue for decades at this point. They are well built and worth having around. I prefer Kobo at this point for similar reasons to yourself. I don’t use custom firmware but I do use Nickel Menu to get to the games that Kobo decided to hide away on the latest OS. Also great for things like inverting colors or rotating on the fly. Hope you get a lot of life and enjoyment out of yours as well!

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 3 points 2 months ago

Thanks. So far, it's been pretty life changing in a good way, lol. Definitely regretting not buying one sooner. Reading on my phone was nice since it was always with me, but having a dedicated device made for the task is just so much better.

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[-] luciddaemon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 months ago

E-readers have been one of the best investments I made. Started with the Kobo Libra H2O, moved on the Boox Air. For my personal needs it was a perfect upgrade, a reader and note taker all in one device

[-] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 3 points 2 months ago

I hated readers at first because I bought a Sony one that constantly crashed and lost my place. Replaced it eventually with a Kobo and I've been a big fan since.

Really is nice to have basically a library in hand and you only have to even think about charge every few book or so.

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