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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I did a lot of research and ended up buying a Kobo for my wife who was looking to switch from paperback. At the time the Clara HD was the newer model in the size and feature family she was looking for. I made the choice based on e-ink quality, wide compatibility of formats (including public library rental), and price.
Keep in mind that Amazon keeps device prices artificially low by pushing ads to your screen. I have had four different Kindle Fires over the years, and hate how intrusive the advertising is on their devices.
After spending a year or so jealous of my wife’s Kobo Clara HD, I bought myself the then newer Kobo Libra 2. Then she was jealous of my Libra and bought herself one, and gave the Clara to our kid who is a bookworm as well.
We love our Kobos.
I’ve got 3 Kobos in my house and we love them. I got one of my best friends to switch to Kobo after her final Nook died. If a Kindle doesn’t appeal to you, a Kobo might be exactly what you want. And they have a huge variety of models to choose from.
You can pay $20 to permanently remove the ads from Kindle. At least that’s what it cost when I bought mine. Definitely worth the money if you hate ads as much as I do.
How bright are Kobo’s in a dark room? My wife and I have used kindle paperwhites for years but at some point they changed their backlight and now it’s a beacon at night even on the lowest brightness
It’s a little bright at night, that’s why I use dark mode, inverting the “paper” and “ink”.
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
This is probably not what you’re looking for, but if anyone is looking to make their own Ebook reader I recommend checking out The Open Book Project
Have you built one? I was looking into that before but I think I held back because it couldn’t handle images or something.
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
Exactly what I was planning to do once I get my hands on an e-reader. I’m glad sideloading is a thing.
Last I checked, Kobo will be better specs (screen, water proofness and connectivity) for the money, and if you’re technical it can be modified very heavily, including pretty easily user expandable storage.
Kindle will have a more seamless Amazon experience and maybe better support.
I have a Kobo Clara HD, and I love it to bits. Warm temperature backlight, and I have installed custom firmware on it which lets me use a different reader app, and run an SSH server on it so I can remotely transfer files etc.
And you don’t have to pay to remove ads because there are none. I have 2 Kobos and I love them
While that’s annoying, it’s worth mentioning that it’s a 1 time fee. Basically it’s just more expensive to purchase the one without ads. It was $20 more when I got mine, but idk what it costs now.
Kobo is compatible with Overdrive
and Kindle, and they have their own store if you want that too. I love the screen and the battery lasts about four hundred years per charge. Way better than giving money to a monopolyIt is not compatible with Kindle unless you remove the drm and convert it, but it can be done. It is compatible with Adobe Digital Editions which is pretty much what every store except Amazon uses.
Sorry I was thinking of the Libby phone app, for some reason. Thanks for the correction!
and the battery lasts about four hundred years per charge.
LOL
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.
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.
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 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 hate to recommend Boox,but I have an Onyx Book Poke 3 color, and it’s basically an Android tablet that just pretends to be an e-reader. Any format, any audio, any webpage… Comics too. Had it for years, never let me down. Not as good of battery life as the Kindle, but with Calibre on my laptop and the Boox, I don’t ever pick up the Kindle anyways. Instinctively, I wanna crap on Boox as I don’t like some of their business practices, but the Poke is actually my go to e-reader, so…
As an alternative, I know that there are some e-ink e-readers in a phone sized form factor from a few companies, such as Hisense. Can’t say too much about them as I don’t have one, but half the time I read on my phone because it’s small enough to come with me everywhere. Just a thought.
Yeah Boox seems nice but I won’t support a comany that violates open source software licenses.
Agreed, sadly. I wish there was a good, inexpensive, color e-ink e-reader running Android that I could have gotten at the time.
I know everybody hates Amazon and they want an alternative to the Kindle, but my Kindle is waterproof and I almost exclusively want to use it in the bathtub. I also want one that doesn’t have a strong backlight and feels natural to look at. The Kindle is damn near perfect.
I’ve taken my Kobo into a stream that people cliff jump into. I felt off about it because it doesn’t look waterproof even though it is advertised as such. Maybe I’m just too old for waterproof electronics.
That’s fair. I mostly want my device to survive if my dog knocks it into the bathtub. This has happened before and it will happen again.
I have a Kobo Aura 2, and I love it. That’s my first ebook reader, and I haven’t had any other one since.
Personally I avoid Amazon because I definitely don’t wanna get tied to them. I’m not sure if this is still true, but when I got my ebook reader, these were my choices:
- get a non-Amazon device, and I can read anything except books from Amazon
- get an Amazon device, and I can only read books from Amazon
So it was a no-brainer for me. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
You can get ebooks from any source (well, not considering the AI generated crap that Amazon is getting flooded with; if you want that, you need to get a Kindle), and your computer/smartphone will handle it as a standard USB storage device, so you can simply copy over your ebooks.
You might be shocked how quickly you get used to reading on your phone. A nice epub reader (I recommend a nice app called FB reader) + libgen and you’re golden.
I also have a nice 7-in tablet that I got for reading, one of Samsung’s non-flagships. I use my phone more out of pure convenience, but I have definitely put my hours in on both. Usually I’ll load up a book I’m reading on both and kinda go back and forth.
I did this before but couldn’t keep it up. When I got my first OLED phone I was able to do it with inverse colour and 2 notches over minimum brightness, plus blue light toned down. I read Atwood’s maddaddam trilogy like this.
I have a Poke 2 Color and I have to do disagree with your opinion of Onyx. This device is very well made, battery life is fantastic even with active use, and the software isn’t locked down like Kindle.
