19 ms·

I like e-readers now

• vmurthy 5y ago
  >I’m still not into the prospect of purchasing books on the e-reader – it’s something I’ll probably avoid Agree with most of what the author (including a preference for physical books) says but this. I must have spent close to USD 2k on various e-books (I use Amazon because of legacy reasons .. availability of e-readers in India around 2013 etc ) and the joy these purchases have given me can't compare with what I might have gotten with Overdrive etc. YMMV but I like to be able to go back and refer a passage I read 5 years ago.
  • frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Also, I've come to realize that physical books are heavy and take up more space than they're worth, for me. I have probably about 50 books that I value most (mostly novels), but the rest I own as e-books or audio books. I used to have more. It's one thing if you have a permanent home with space for a large library, but when I've had to move my books, and try to fit them into small living quarters, I decided to pare them back a little and keep only what I value most. I haven't regretted it.
  • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    i am a pirate and i extensively use a borrowed overdrive. i still buy kindle from olx because i can get them on the cheap, much more than amazon itself.
    • Otek 5y ago
      Ebooks are so cheap these days, that it's a shame to pirate them.
      • xur17 5y ago
        I realize it's irrational given the price of ebooks, but the lack of "ownership" of the books makes me a lot less interested in buying them.
        • dageshi 5y ago
          Personally I very rarely re-read books so the concept of owning them just doesn't really matter to me. If my ebook collection suddenly disappeared I wouldn't particularly care, I already got the value out of them I was going to get. As for physical books, I'm trying to get rid of 200 or so I bought pre ebooks and damn it's a pain.
          • neonnoodle 5y ago
            I love lending books to friends without the expectation or need to get them back, and ebooks often make this impossible. I also love perusing used book stores, another sad casualty of digital formats.
        • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
          i tried once to find paperbacks of my favourite books i have heard over the years, like louise penny or henning mankell series in thrift book stores mainly in Delhi (sunday market) but havent been there in a couple of years because of the pandemic but i would like cheap paperbacks on the shelves but not all the books i have heard over the years.
        • Otek 5y ago
          It depends on where you buy the book. Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. If you buy through amazon, you are tied to that store unfortunately, but the situation is similar to games. It is very rare now to buy a game that is not part of some account.
          • xur17 5y ago
            > Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. Do you know what stores offer that? Last time I looked around it was mostly small shops with very minimal book offerings.
            • Otek 5y ago
              I can name two (never used any of them, I'm going full Amazon) ebooks.com but you have to look if the book you like has an unencrypted epub versions smashwords.com
      • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        i borrow from overdrive. i wrote that. i pirate stuff not on overdrive because buying from amazon ties me to their devices and they give me a "license" to read on their devices only. i want mp3 of ebooks. i pay for an ebook and get a epub file. is that too hard?
        • Otek 5y ago
          So don't use Amazon. ebooks.com sells epub files. Was that too hard to find?
        • missblit 5y ago
          > buying from amazon ties me to their devices and they give me a "license" to read on their devices only This isn't strictly true since you can also read Amazon ebooks on 3rd party android devices that have the Kindle application installed. It's true in the more general sense that the Amazon ebooks have DRM that limit interoperability.
      • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
        cheap? amazon india at least has ebooks priced equal to or more than paperbacks which makes no rational sense other than that amazon is price gouging. for a physical paper back, i was told that the author is lucky to get 5% of the sales price. Would it be hard to price an ebook lets say 10%, 20% of the paperback with 100% of the proceeds going to author. or does that price canibalize the paperback industry so they price match it to keep the demand of paperbacks alive. ?
        • Otek 5y ago
          Printing a book is cheap. Very cheap. Most of the cost is prepress, proper typesetting, proofreading. There is no reason why ebooks should be noticeably cheaper than paper books, because the costs are not where people expect them to be.
      • BeetleB 5y ago
        I'm not sure what you mean by "cheap". A lot of nonfiction is $15-50. Also, when I buy physical books, I often buy used ones. At local used book stores, I can often get them for $5 or less.
        • Otek 5y ago
          I mean, while the prices of paper books and ebooks don't differ much after release, the discounts on ebooks, are often much higher than on paper books. I've seen great books for a dollar more than once.
          • BeetleB 5y ago
            That's true, with some big disclaimers: 1. You won't see those discounts in certain categories (e.g. full length Stephen King novels). Whereas with physical books, you can expect to find cheap used ones no matter the author (unless it's a rare book or something). 2. You have to time purchases to the discount availability. With used physical books - as long as the book is popular enough - you can get that discount at any time.
      • int_19h 5y ago
        "Cheap" is very relative depending on where one lives.
  • jacurtis 5y ago
    My favorite part about ebooks, and specifically Kindle/Amazon is that you can flip through your highlights. I will highlight parts of a book I really enjoyed and sometimes write personal notes about them as I read. I enjoy going back and spending 15-30 minutes going through my highlights and notes on books I previously read and re-reading sections around highlights. It brings back a surprising amount of memories and emotions from the book that get lost over time. Now Amazon lets you read these with read.amazon.com and offers some export features. The export features are still not perfect, but are better than they were. I also like the sheer number of books I can keep on my Kindle and they don't take up physical space in my home. I don't want hundreds of books stacked up that i read once. So instead I find that I read on Kindle first. Then if I REALLY enjoy the book, I will purchase a physical copy for my bookshelf. So my bookshelf becomes a physical embodiment of my curated favorites. I also have an obsession with old books, so I enjoy hunting down cool copies at used bookstores to get the right one for my bookshelf. Here is the tool I use to get highlights and notes off my Kindle and onto Notion, which allows multi-device syncing and web-access to my notes and private storage. https://github.com/paperboi/kindle2notion https://github.com/paperboi/kindle2notion
• jwalton 5y ago
  If you’re looking for a good source of ebooks at sensible prices and without DRM, check out Baen’s web store. Their prices went up quite a bit a few years ago because of some marketing deal, but they’re still pretty good, they’re still DRM free, and they often have a “webscription” of the month with a collection of books at a fantastic price.
• willvarfar 5y ago
  I fell into a phase of reading free e-books (I love amateur authors and fan-fiction generally) on my phone and that lasted about a year but the constant charging and eye strain was a pain. So I finally got an e-reader (the cheapest simplest Kobo) and I've had it nine months now. Oh what a difference the screen makes! Completely transformed how much I read and for how long I read. The software on the Kobo sucks, and even with a builtin web-browser there is no good way to get free e-books onto the device without a cable to a laptop with Calibre. But once you have your books on the reader, it's super easy and nice. I still love browsing old second hand book shops (they are dying) but I'm thinking there really isn't much future for commercial fiction generally. The chances of authors 'making it' is so slender and when its accepted it isn't a job, it can be unleashed as a hobby and they'll reach bigger audiences and get more interaction with readers by giving their work away. And that's what you see when there are over 800k Harry Potter books on fanfiction.org, and perhaps 50k are fantastic and fun to find. The 50k I like might not be the same 50k you'd choose, but its there. Any leads on where to find similar other sources of amateur fiction appreciated.
  • severine 5y ago
    Definitely install Koreader! http://koreader.rocks/ http://koreader.rocks/ I can't even begin enumerating the features. It really rocks!
    • mooncakes_ooohh 5y ago
      Came into this thread looking for anything to make my Kobo more tolerable. Gladly going to give this a go. I had an original Kindle and it felt just seamless at the time. I broke the screen and had to migrate to a Kobo Touch. It does the job but it's not nearly as responsive and the battery life is abhorrent.
    • alasano 5y ago
      Gonna install this just to get screen rotation on my Clara HD. Thanks!
  • JetSetWilly 5y ago
• mitquinn 5y ago
  eReaders are awesome. I used to read so many physical books but the physical space that they were taking + needing to carry the books around was a barrier. I tried reading books on my phone but it just destroyed my eyes. I got a super old Kindle Paperwhite and it has been super enjoyable. There are times I just throw it in my pocket now I will end up reading on the go. It took me a while to discover Calibre but once I did the management of ebooks became really so easy. I am 41 books in this year on my goal of 52.
  • logosmonkey 5y ago
    Yeah, personally I find e-readers significantly more useful than physical books for casual reading anyway. I might prefer a physical book for reference work but otherwise I find using an e-reader much easier overall. Calibre is great, I would second your recommendation.
  • pfranz 5y ago
    I'm not sure how many authors are aware when writing books, but it changes how you read it. With physical books I often peek a few pages ahead to the end of the chapter or just by the weight of the book know when I'm near the end. Sure, there are progress bars, but they're way more subtle. Knowing when something will wrap up I tend to have an expectation of what might happen. Without those cues I have a different experience. Similarly, my wife can burn through thick books without realizing it for the same reason. Previously, you may even be intimidated by how much is left, but now it's one screen at a time.
• 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  i listen to audiobooks. come to think of it, i have been doing that for the last decade and i recently found out that i do not sleep well if i do not have some book speak to me while i fall asleep.
  • robsalasco 5y ago
    what kind of audiobooks you enjoy for that purpose?
    • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
      i like to listen to detective fiction, louise penny, henning mankell, my favorites, then books like jusse adler olsen and lars kepler, johnathan kellerman series also. what i do is, i put on the audiobook on play with a 10 minute timer. voice app on android has a shake to play again. so if i like the book, i can finish the 10 minutes and i shake to start playing again. right untill i fall asleep. that way the next morning i have to go back within the last 10 minutes to the point i can no longer remember what was said. that is where i continue
  • fullstop 5y ago
    How do you remember where you left off?
    • 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
      voice. android app. does what i want. auto sleep timer bookmarks
    • damontal 5y ago
      the audible app has a sleep timer you can set that will turn it off after a specified period of time. 15 mins is usually enough for me.
    • xsmasher 5y ago
      Not OP but Librivox has a bunch of Lovecraft, Howard, HG Wells, Mark Twain, etc that I use. I often listen to books that I've listened to before, or that I don't really care about. I turn it down low enough that I can barely hear it anyway; just enough to provide a mild distraction. Now I can fall asleep in less than ten minutes like clockwork.
• clktmr 5y ago
  Personally would love to use an e-reader to read lengthy blog posts, but last time I tried it was very tedious. I converted the post to PDF using firefox's reader mode and uploaded these to the device. Are there any e-readers with something like firefox's reader mode integrated?
  • xekul 5y ago
    Kobo has Pocket integration.
    • te_chris 5y ago
      Yep, it's super convenient for storing up long-form articles.
  • dont__panic 5y ago
    I use a Boox device (see my top-level comment in this same thread for a breakdown of my experience), it runs Android with some light customization on top. So you can just install FireFox right on the device. Or you can use EinkBro, an e-ink optimized fork (of FF, I think?) that has paging built right in to better work with e-ink.
  • organsnyder 5y ago
    Pocket or Instapaper work well for this.
  • magpie09 5y ago
    I use Kobo with Pocket integration for exactly this! Just install the extension, click the button, refresh on your e-reader and get reading :) It doesn't work for every page but it has been really useful for me.
  • jetrink 5y ago
    A long time ago, I used a service where you subscribed to any number of blogs via their RSS feeds and the service created a daily or weekly e-book for you with all of the new posts, complete with a table of contents. If you had a Kindle, you could have it automatically sent to your device via the device's email address. It was wonderful, but eventually shut down - probably due to fewer and fewer blogs offering RSS feeds.
• bobek 5y ago
  I have ended up with Onyx Boox about a year ago and it is awesome. Being an Android tablet opens up space for a bit of customization. For example, I am running syncthing on it keep book collection in order without any 3rd party...
• dont__panic 5y ago
  I definitely understand where the author is coming from, with his stance on not liking ereaders until now. I got my first Kindle back in 2009 or so, and it took me a couple of years to truly convince myself to use it instead of paper books the majority of the time. It really took going to college a couple of years later to push me all the way into ereading, where I discovered that lugging books around for all of my classes was a huge pain and I didn't want to deal with moving pleasure reading books in and out of dorms every few months. Well, that and public domain/pirated books -- it's a very cheap way to entertain yourself when you don't have much money. I got a Boox e-reader with a 7.8" hiDPI screen earlier this year (my old Kindle was 6"), and let me tell you, it's been transformative. My biggest nitpick with the old kindle was the screen: it was a little smaller than the average paperback book page, which meant that I was constantly turning pages to read anything of significant length. With a 7.8" screen, ebook pages are almost precisely the same size as pages in a traditional hardcover book. So if you're used to that kind of reading experience, it's an easy transition. Oh, and the screen is also big enough and high-res enough to display tables and images at full size, without awkward multi-line clipping. So you can actually experience books as they were meant, instead of dealing with issues in anything that isn't just a stream of text. I've also really enjoyed using Android (albeit in a modified form) so I can use torrent clients, FireFox, an email client, an Airdrop knockoff, and an RSS feed reader to get content onto my device. You'd think it would be distracting to have all of that at your fingertips, but the limitations of e-ink really rein in the desire to mindlessly browse HN and reddit. And the WACOM layer that's integrated into the display is truly awesome to use for notetaking, drawing, and even keeping score when I play card games. I've basically moved all of my notetaking over to my ereader. And I don't even have to charge the pen. One big issue, though? There are a million cases out there for Kobo and Kindle devices, but nobody makes them for Boox devices besides... Boox. But if you're willing to DIY a bit, it turns out that the Nova 3 is almost the same dimensions as the iPad Mini 4/5... so just buy a case for that, and if it's a snug-fitting case, make a couple of cuts in the case to let it stretch over the ereader, cut out a hole for the power button, and you're golden. Disclaimer, though: Onyx/Boox, the Chinese company that makes my Nova 3 device, is in flagrant violation of GPL with their Android modifications for their ereaders. So you should be aware of that before you decide to buy one -- if you're cognizant of that kind of thing, I assume you don't want to give them money. I figured that it's at least better than giving money to Jeff Bezos and locking myself into another walled garden (that can't even read epub files!). YMMV.
• maltalex 5y ago
  As someone who's reading a lot of technical material, I'm on the fence about e-readers. On the one hand, many technical books are thick and heavy, and can benefit from having a search function. But on the other, e-reader screens tend to be small and require a lot of scrolling back and forth (like between a code sample and an accompanying explanation). Does anyone have experience with reading technical books on an e-reader? Any suggestions?
  • kevinmgranger 5y ago
    The reMarkable is pretty big, maybe that's the key?
    • AlanYx 5y ago
      The Remarkable is the device that convinced me of the value of e-readers, but it's not so much the screen size as it is the ability to just scribble notes in the margins, and underline, circle etc. easily. You can install Koreader on the Remarkable, but then it's just another ereader without a frontlight, rather than something more tangible like a book. I convert everything to PDF before moving it to the device though, for a lot of reasons, some aesthetic and some related to lack of functionality in the built-in epub converter. It's a shame there is no software that does a perfect job at converting epub to PDF though. I use one of three different workflows depending on the source material. One tip for those using the device: the built-in margin trimming feature for PDFs also lets you add margins on whatever side of the document you want, which is a bit counterintuitive but really useful if you like scribbling in the margins.
      • maltalex 5y ago
        How suitable is it for reading PDFs with code/diagrams?
        • phyalow 5y ago
          Basically the best thing I have ever used for PDF's with graphics/formulas/code. I am a very happy user.
• sneak 5y ago
  The trick for me to like e-readers was threefold: a) the new ~300 dpi eink screens b) never, ever connecting it to any network for any reason ever c) a microSD card slot that i can put a huge library of pirated books onto. No distractions, no notifications, no web, no apps, no phone home, no update treadmill. Just books.
  • silon42 5y ago
    +1 Although I would like SFTP support to avoid moving the SD card.
    • sneak 5y ago
      If you connect it to the network even once, it can phone home and do all manner of Android spyware update bullshit. Popping out the card a few times per year is no biggie, I have a card reader permanently connected to my iMac anyway.
      • asdff 5y ago
        Seems like for this and maybe a few other products, it might be useful to set up a local wifi network that doesn't connect to the internet so you could at least use tools like ssh or even operate an iot home network without worrying about phoning home.
  • ccozan 5y ago
    OK but can you list the actual models that fullfill these requirements for your fellow avid readers? This features will sell me and others too!
  • gilbetron 5y ago
    Which one did you go with that meets all of those points?
    • sneak 5y ago
      Likebook Mars. It's android and has wifi, just don't ever connect it to network.
• te_chris 5y ago
  I read technical books on the e-reader. It's annoying as the diagrams are not as good, but so much nicer for that sort of thing. I still buy a lot of general reading books from bookshops though. Partially because I like paper books, but also because I like bookshops and find they improve the areas where they are found.
• nindalf 5y ago
  I prefer reading on my e-reader for a number of reasons you’ve probably come across elsewhere. But the most underrated thing for me is that I can read large books. I feel they’re too unwieldly to carry around and also heavy enough that I feel too much friction actually starting to read. I had The Gene on my shelf for 3 years before I realised this was why I hadn’t even read 10 pages of it. I bought the ebook and finished it within 4 days. This opened up a side benefit. I find that my enjoyment of things is enhanced when I can share it with someone. Since I have the ebook, I can gift the physical book to a friend who I think will like the book. That’s what happens to most of the physical books I receive as gifts - I buy the ebook, read it, then gift the physical book so I can share the joy with someone else.
  • abrowne 5y ago
    Once I bought a used copy of a 1200+ page book and took the binding off so I could carry a couple of chapters at a time back and forth to work to read on breaks. Luckily it was a 10+ year old history book that was available shipped for under $10. But I can't really do that for a library book, so I agree ebooks are the way to go.
  • NoGravitas 5y ago
    I agree about large books. I bought my first Kobo specifically for reading Alan Moore's Jerusalem (1400 pages). It went great.
  • dominotw 5y ago
    > The Gene I read this book but i had to take huge amounts of notes/scribbles on the pages to keep track of various acronyms. I go back and lookup stuff that i forgot about. I thin an ereader is less amenable to going back forth and refer things. I feel like ereaders are designed more for linear reading .
    • fullstop 5y ago
      Look into Kindle X-Ray [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_(Amazon_Kindle) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_(Amazon_Kindle)
• AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  > I had a rather frustrating time setting up the damn device – it’s annoying to have to connect to wifi, make a Kobo account, make an Overdrive account, and search for books with a terrible response time to text input, and it’s especially annoying when you enter the wrong wifi password multiple times and end up restarting the device because you’re so convinced you have the right password before finally realizing your mistake. The best advice I can give for the Kobo is to use all of the functions not directly related to reading as little as possible. By that I mean, don't try to search the Kobo store on the Kobo: search on the website or on the smartphone app, and just send the books to the Kobo automatically when you buy them. Don't try to search the library on the Kobo: search with the smartphone Libby app and let the Kobo sync them over when you check one out. Don't try to read Wikipedia articles directly in the Kobo's experimental browser: add the wiki articles you want to read to Pocket and sync them over. The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. I minimize the time I spend "browsing" on it via the methods described above, and I have a much more enjoyable experience.
  • JasonFruit 5y ago
    Mine was a disaster to type on. Slow, unreliable, and for some reason the closer to the right edge of the screen you got, the further left on each key you had to touch, until finally you would have to touch the key to the left of the one you want. But it was a great reader until a kid stepped on my bag a couple weeks ago. I ordered an Onyx Boox Nova Air, in hopes the software will be better. I also hope it's anywhere near as good and durable a reader.
    • mkr-hn 5y ago
      That sounds like a faulty digitizer.
  • mikepurvis 5y ago
    I feel the same about my Kindle Paperwhite— I just buy stuff on the Amazon website or sling mobis/epubs at it from Calibre. Zero patience for the on-device interface other than using it for reading.
  • 5y ago
• inwit 5y ago
  E-readers and books both have their strengths, but these days I read 95% on my Kindle. Things I like: - instant look up of words and vocabulary builder - highlights and notes - I would find it very onerous to keep a paper notebook to the same level of detail (I know some do - kudos) - search across books. For history books this is brilliant: 'Hmm La Mettrie, rings a bell ... oh yeah him'. Like having your own mini, super high quality wikipedia (or indeed www) As well as usual gubbins about convenience etc.
• mrkickling 5y ago
  I bought a Kobo Aura in 2013 or 2014. It handles epubs/mobis perfectly while PDFs are a terrible experience, but what impresses me is that the device works just as well as it did 8 years ago. The battery life is weeks or a month, the (modest) performance feels as good as when I bought it and no updates has screwed it up. I guess it is because it specializes in one specific task and tries to be nothing else than just that.
  • wahlis 5y ago
    I have the exact same experience. Like many readers here on HN i love to get new gadgets. I've been looking for an upgrade for several years now just for the sake of it. But, the device is still rock solid and newer ones don't add any relevant additional extra value to motivate the decision. Since I read several books per week my Kobo Auro One is the single best purchase I've ever made. :)
  • wlesieutre 5y ago
    I replaced a Nook with an Aura One after the page turning buttons started failing. On the one hand the main thing I miss is the page turning buttons, which were great in the winter because I could read a book with my hands under a blanket and the book above it. But on the other, the Kobo should last longer without that failure point. It's waterproof too, though again being touch only and no buttons it's not great to turn pages if it's wet.
  • NoGravitas 5y ago
    For what it's worth, KOReader does a much better job with PDFs on Kobo than the stock reader (Nickel). PDFs with large page size and complex layouts (like multicolumn that's periodically interrupted by images not in the text flow) are still Not Great, but more manageable.
• ConfusedDog 5y ago
  I find my iPad bigger screen works better with PDFs for technical books. And if I want the Kindle /e-reader feel, I can just map accessibility greyscale shortcut. Reduction of colors actually makes a huge difference for eyestrain problem for me.
• puzzlingcaptcha 5y ago
  I've had a Kobo Glo HD for the past 5 years or so and it's been a very functional device. This looks like a compelling upgrade (I like that it's waterproof).
• freewizard 5y ago
  Kobo is quite friendly with 3rd party software. Both Plato (in rust) and KO-Reader (in c/lua) are excellent alternative to builtin reader app, the only drawback is they can't open DRM-protected books. https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/baskerville/plato https://github.com/koreader https://github.com/koreader
• roland35 5y ago
  I may feel about this differently in the future, but right now I prefer to rent access to entertainment media (books, movies, etc) rather than try to maintain ownership. I find it difficult to even maintain digital resources, but physical media is especially challenging. Most books I read just once, so being able to check an e-book out of the library is perfect for me. Even if I bought a book on the Kindle and Amazon ripped it away 5 years from now, that would suck but it would probably not make too big a difference. I appreciate the argument about ownership vs DRM, but at this point in my life I would rather just have less stuff to worry about!
• throwaway59553 5y ago
  My problem with e-readers is that they don't look that good when most of your reading is scanned books, e.g. from archive.org But if one only reads common e-books, they seem way better than a tablet.
• Cycl0ps 5y ago
  The only e-reader I've had is an old Kindle Paperwhite I got secondhand. It's dumb enough to not get in my way and lets me transfer all my various pdfs and mobi files from my PC via cable. It's due for replacement but I have zero trust that newer models would let me use the thing how I want.
• matthewfelgate 5y ago
  I recommend a Kindle and using the computer program Calibre to put free books onto it.
• ubermonkey 5y ago
  I've been a Kindle user for a long time now. I love reading and I love books, but I also used to be a high-travel kind of guy, and the Kindle is lighter than carrying even ONE book. The travel stopped, but the Kindle stayed. I buy MOST of my books in physical form at a great local shop, but I still also use a Kindle for some things -- mostly genre, or for the inevitable moments of "I don't feel like starting any of these books I already have so what can I have NOW via Kindle that appeals to me?" The Kindle is also great for reading in the bath, and is honestly BETTER for reading in bed than a real book for me now -- I'm 51, so my eyes aren't as great as they were 20 years ago. The lovely cool backlight of a Paperwhite, together with the adjustable font, make it a pretty pleasant experience. I have ZERO interest in a Kindle that does anything other than "be a reader." I've read on my iPad in a pinch -- multi-device sync for Kindle books is handy -- but it's heavier and the light is harsher in a dark room. A Paperwhite is a very lovely well made and not expensive device, and it's one of the relatively few gadgets I have that I would immediately replace without a thought if it broke or was lost. Probably with overnight shipping.
  • fullstop 5y ago
    >The Kindle is also great for reading in the bath, and is honestly BETTER for reading in bed than a real book for me now -- I'm 51, so my eyes aren't as great as they were 20 years ago. The lovely cool backlight of a Paperwhite, together with the adjustable font, make it a pretty pleasant experience. The Oasis (and the brand new Paperwhite) both have adjustable color temperature. I've found the warm light is much better for my eyes, and feels more natural. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that you can choose your font as well as install your own fonts on the device, so you have a significant amount of control over what the text looks like.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  I've been using an iPad Mini for the last few years, for my reading. I have about 400 books on it. I needed to get used to it. Now that I am used to it, I actually have difficulty with paper books. My wife is the opposite. She doesn't want to use an eReader.
  • fullstop 5y ago
    The battery life of a Kindle is what draws me there, along with the lack of distractions. The screen looks like paper and has no glare like an iPad Mini does. If I were reading reference manuals with either color or a lot of diagrams, though, the iPad would be preferred. Either way, the best feature of eReaders is that you don't need a bookmark and you can carry a lot of books with you. It's perfect for traveling.
    • ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      > has no glare like an iPad Mini does Unless you use a PaperLike screen protector. I don't like glossy screens, so I get matte protectors for all my i-devices (except the Watch).
      • fullstop 5y ago
        I didn't even know that these were available. I'll have to check them out. Thanks!
  • handrous 5y ago
    I really like e-ink, but the ability to fiddle with page corners & edges in the iOS Books app means it's the only way I actually get ebooks read. Mini's perfect for fiction, 12.9" pro's amazing for PDFs (say, textbooks) or other work that needs large pages (comics, too—it's close enough to the size of a two-page comic spread, in landscape mode, to be entirely readable that way, at least until my eyesight gets even worse)
  • alasano 5y ago
    First time I thought reading books on an iPad was actually not bad is when they added true tone. It's been a while I think but it's just much easier on the eyes.
• wheybags 5y ago
  The best thing about an ereader for me is, I can read it lying down on my side. I wear glasses, so if I'm reading a real book I need to have them on, and lying on my side crunches the frame up. But with my kobo, I can crank the font up to baby book size, then take off my glasses and read lying on my side.
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• sharikous 5y ago
  I really like e-readers and e-books, mainly for the reasons commenters pointed out (much lighter than physical books, configurable font size, etc..). But there are big downsides too. Mainly the market discourages ownership on the one hand and encourages piracy on the other hand. The result is that DRM protections are everywhere and some authors like Jonathan Lewin were burned up by e-book piracy and reverted to only physical copies. Also for some reason e-readers perform badly with technical writing (many references) and math formulas. It's not a technical barrier, it's just that the software is not optimized for these use cases. Also showing off huge book shelves is impossible with an all-digital model. Some people care about that.
  • f0e4c2f7 5y ago
    I wish there were a Netflix like model for books. I think Amazon has a service like that, but without very much content (last time I checked). If the selection was good I would be happy to pay monthly for what is effectively a library card (which is basically how you do that today with ebooks but for free. Much worse user experience than piracy unfortunately) I too love ebooks by the way. Between that and audiobooks I now consume more books than any other kind of content. It has been pretty amazing, highly recommend it.
    • toast0 5y ago
      Amazon has two services like that with different content; they used to have three! For kids, there's Amazon Freetime Unlimited, which has a catalog of younger people stuff. This one needs a newer kindle --- if you've got a Kindle Keyboard or similar, no go. For adults, there's the more expensive Kindle Unlimited? or Prime something which has more older people stuff, costs more, and may have the first book of a kids series, but not all of them. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is now gone. It was a lot smaller catalog. A lot of libraries offer ebooks at no cost to patrons, so maybe check your local library to see if that's an option for you. It does come at a cost to the library (which is worthy of its own discussion, but probably not in this thread), so consider a donation if you can.
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• ipaddr 5y ago
  I stopped using readers after the open ereader maker alaratek stopped making them. The brands left are twice the cost and do not support as many formats. If anyone knows of a good non-amazon, kobo brand is please share.
  • mdm12 5y ago
    I have an Onyx Boox Note Pro that I have had for about two years now. Not cheap (was $500 when I purchased it) but well worth it for me, given how much time I use it and how much space it saves. I only use it for reading, so I can't attest to its writing capabilities. Or all the other crap that it technically supports, as it is an Android device.
• enjikaka 5y ago
  The best thing with Kobo is the Pocket integration
• grlass 5y ago
  Worth highlighting the Open Book Project [1], an open source e-reader hardware design and software stack. The design is open, and you can make your own with commodity parts. People are starting to sell PCBs, and complete devices. It has its own open software stack, and I hope will have a variety of vendors in the coming years. Ofc the e-ink patent issues remain, but this goes some of the way to solve things at the e-reader level. [1] https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book
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  • fsflover 5y ago
    Another open-source e-ink book reader is PineNote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28190756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28190756.
  • admax88qqq 5y ago
    Super cool. I feel like the bigger struggle will be getting actual books. Unless you pirate them, most books are encumbered with DRM.
    • 0des 5y ago
      I appreciate companies like Packt who supply credits to download DRM-free versions of the books you read. I get a free credit each month to download any book from them, DRM-free.
    • kenmacd 5y ago
      It's very easy to remove that DRM. Personally I don't log in to my kobo so library books get stripped before being copied over (the kobo acts as a usb storage device).
      • criddell 5y ago
        The most recent version of DRM used by Amazon hasn't been cracked yet (AFAIK) and the workarounds get you a version of the file missing a lot of recent typographic improvements.
• hzhou321 5y ago
  An ebook device can easily hold many books and makes it equally easy or difficult to switch chapters or switch books. I think that is the very reason I still much much prefer physical books. Picking up a physical book confines me to a set of hierarchic contexts -- the book, the chapter, the page. The contexts helps me to read and enjoy the book.
  • thomascgalvin 5y ago
    One of the things I like about my eReader is that it has a "minutes left in chapter" feature. It knows roughly how fast I read, and how long it will take me to get to the next logical break in the story. This is really nice, because I tend to read in bed, and knowing whether the next chapter is going to be five minutes or twenty-five minutes helps me decide when it's time to go to sleep. Of course I used to do this with physical books, too; flipping forward until I saw the next chapter. But I like having the little number at the bottom of the screen.
• morsch 5y ago
  I finally found a way to do remote page-turning for Kindle -- something I was trying to do for years. It does mean I have to read books on my Android phone instead of the Paperwhite. With OLED and white on black, I find it's pretty all right though. But I can finally rest the reader somewhere, on my knees, on a pillow, whatever, and click a remote button to get to the next page. Freedom! You enable volume button page turning in the Kindle app settings. This already means you can attach e.g. a USB keyboard to your device and use its volume buttons. But you can also use these tiny BTLE media control gadgets[1], meant primarily for putting on steering wheels of cars that don't have built-in media controls. The replaceable battery lasted a couple of thousand pages so far, which is kind of amazing. Note that the volume buttons of bluetooth headsets do not work. I've never understood how this isn't a standard feature with standalone Kindles. People made it work using the USB port, but you need to install a custom ROM. It makes incredible sense for accessibility purposes, alone. Imagine a big fat button for people with limited limb control, or something based on eye movement for people who are even worse off. [1] e.g. https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32948528629.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32948528629.html 5.49 USD
  • AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    What is the use-case, exactly? The only real-life experience I have with wanting to turn ebook pages remotely is during the winter, when my hands are cold and even touchscreen-compatible gloves/mittens don't work well with the touchscreen sensor. But if I ever truly got that desperate, there are several lines of Kobo and Kindle devices with physical touch buttons that would solve the problem.
    • sipior 5y ago
      A lot of musicians these days keep their sheet music in digital formats; hands-off page turning is handy when playing. I'm sure there are many other use cases.
    • morsch 5y ago
      I've already gone into it in a sibling comment, but basically because I can rest my arms and hands wherever I want, especially when reading a book for hours on end. If you ever watch long-ish video content on your tablet or phone, do you keep holding the device? Or do you put it down someplace where you can see the screen? Same thing, really. Maybe it's not for you. But I've seen enough people in public precariously balance their phones on their knees while watching Youtube that I know I'm not totally alone.
• ambar123 5y ago
  Bring if on readers with colors ink
• visarga 5y ago
  I like e-writers even more, I have a Remarkable 2. It's a great writing tool.
  • codebook 5y ago
    I'd had Ratta Supernote A5x for an e-writer. Really loved it. Bigger storage than reMarkable 2, better software and cloud integration than reMarkable 2. The pencil response time is somewhat slower than reMarkable 2 though. I'd used it extensively. And lost. I instantly changed my Ratta cloud password. But any taker can see my notes in the device. No way to block the access remotely. The only protection from theft is to set the 6 digit PIN. Now, I am hesitant to buy another Supernote A5x. Maybe I just admit the device can be lost, so that I just copy old notes and delete from the device regularly.
  • selykg 5y ago
    Their return policy is insanity. While I was okay with the device itself, the lack of search-ability in the notes (GoodNotes on iPad can do it just fine) was a deal breaker for me. The return process is just stupid. I had about a dozen different issues with the return process and their support is simply awful. I would not suggest getting one unless you plan to keep it, or write it off as a $600 mistake and keep it anyway.
• UncleOxidant 5y ago
  I'm thinking I'd much prefer a non-internet connected ebook reader. Something that might have wifi but only for transferring books. The problem with a reader that's essentially an android device is that it's much too easy to become distracted as you go off to look up something that's come up in the text - and then an hour later get back to actually reading the book.
  • throwaway1777 5y ago
    That’s exactly how I use my kindle. Keeping the wifi off saves battery life and the web browser is terrible and the eink screen isn’t color so it’s not like you want to do web things anyway.
• JoeDaDude 5y ago
  I share the mixed feelings about e-readers. It would appear these mixed feelings predate even the invention of e-readers, as humorously presented in this (politically incorrect) short story "The Holmes Ginsbook Device" by Isaac Asimov in 1968. http://sfwritersworkshop.org/node/1232 http://sfwritersworkshop.org/node/1232
• petercooper 5y ago
  I really like the Kindle Oasis for things that can be read sequentially and where the formatting doesn't matter (e.g. plain text) but as soon as you fall off those rails it turns into a nightmare. You can't flick through the pages easily, draw on it, jump back and forth easily, and all manner of natural things you can do with the physical book.. so they'll never go away, IMHO.
• dnilasor 5y ago
  Lol I like your unvarnished criticism embedded in encomia. But I share it...as soon as I started thinking...I can use it in the bathtub...and with my OverDrive account?? I want one. I started reading real books much more frequently this year (my #1 childhood pastime) after yearssss of basically only "reading" audiobooks besides books for grad school. So maybe I want one. Hardware experience sounds annoying AF, but that's nothing a shitty/lazy Linux user can't handle, right? And as others have said...a natural deterrent from doing anything but reading, woot.
• andrewingram 5y ago
  One thing I noted after using a Kindle for the first time (about 10 years ago) is that I was reading without a constant physical sense of how far I was through the book, to the point that the ending almost caught me off-guard. It was certainly an interesting experience, I'm still undecided as to whether it's a pro or a con.
  • ksd482 5y ago
    For me personally that's a con. Not specifically being caught off guard when the book ends, but not being able to physically tell how far along I am. I am currently reading "the way of kings" which is a very thick book. My progress is very slow, but I really really enjoy my bookmark work its way down the stack of pages.
  • dmart 5y ago
    Kindles have an option to turn on a time estimate for progress through a book which sort of simulates this, but I don't really like it (the constant changing/recalculation is anxiety-inducing). Really wish they had an option for a small low-resolution visual indication of progress, like most devices do for their battery indicators.
• Farbklex 5y ago
  All I want is an e-Reader with USB-C. I refuse to buy any device which require me to use another charging cable.
  • agentdrtran 5y ago
    The new Paperwhite coming in october has USB-C
  • humen99 5y ago
    Onyx boox note air is USB-C.
    • Farbklex 5y ago
      Thanks. Will check it out.
• DashAnimal 5y ago
  It should be noted, for the author of the article, that Libby works really well with the Kobo reader. So, for instance, I will use Libby on my Android device (signed into my overdrive account), search and borrow books through there. Then, on my Kobo, I only need to press sync for the books to appear. Much better than using the Kobo to search for books. I should also point out that signing into Libby and Kobo is somewhat annoying. You need to sign in to both using your overdrive in some specific way. I found the answer in some Reddit thread after some Google searching.
• georgewsinger 5y ago
  Is it really true that eReaders are easier on the eyes than comparable displays? (It seems true to me, anecdotally, but I'm curious if this is just a marketing campaign playing tricks on me). The PPI of eReaders don't seem that much higher than comparable high quality phones/tablets. Is there a theoretical explanation for why eReaders could be better for eye health?
  • arsome 5y ago
    The main difference is they use e-paper displays which reflect light rather than emit it. Less eye strain due to less difference in amplitude to ambient light.
    • 0des 5y ago
      At least in the case of the new ereader amazon just released, some of them include LED backlighting.
      • frakkingcylons 5y ago
        LED backlights have been available in ereaders from Amazon, Kobo, and others for a while now. The first kindle paperwhite with LED backlights came out in 2012.
      • georgewsinger 5y ago
        So in some sense do eReaders with backlights defeat the whole purpose (i.e. increase eye strain back to normal display levels)?
      • dgarrett 5y ago
        There are no e-ink devices with backlights. It doesn’t make sense for the technology, which is purely reflective. There are plenty of e-ink devices (like Kindles) that have frontlights. Even better are the ones that adjust frontlights based on ambient room lighting. Ambient light adjustment (and lighting warmth adjustment) is what the new Kindle Paperwhite has.
• koof 5y ago
  I resonate with the author preferring to read an e-reader than a book when their mind is more amped up. Why is it easier to read from a mutable screen than paper when I'm frazzled?
  • hallarempt 5y ago
    In my case, because the typography (except for some very obnoxious excceptions) is always the same. Same font, same font size, same margins, just different text. A book cannot distract me anymore through mediocre or awesome typography -- the text is on its own.
  • asdff 5y ago
    Screens wind you up, pages wind you down. I've ran this experiment on myself plenty of times. If I'm scrolling on the internet and reading articles there, I can be up almost indefinitely without getting tired. The mind keeps going with the screen. If I sit in the exact same chair at the exact same time of day with the exact same amount of rest the day before, and get into a book, I might last 13 pages before I nod off. If you like to read to help get tired for bed, I would think a book is the best method. Certainly works that way for me. I can't even read in the middle of the day because it makes me too drowsy and sometimes knocks me out entirely, then I lose like two hours before I awake from that unintentional nap.
• ChuckMcM 5y ago
  As reference data I find e-readers are hard to beat. I've got my entire library of No Starch books on my iPad and it beats trying to find some obscure command on the Internet. It also wins when I'm "off grid" and don't have access to the Internet. I also use a ReMarkable 2 with PDFs of data sheets for reference material as well. When doing embedded programming its like having a third screen dedicated to holding the page in the datasheet that describes all of the register bits.
• q-base 5y ago
  On the topic of e-readers I just want to share these two resources for free e-books. I am pretty sure I originally got them from HN and I have been reading almost exclusively from their collections ever since. So if someone can have the same enjoyment from them as I had then they do really deserve a re-post: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks https://standardebooks.org/ebooks https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/
• _moof 5y ago
  I long preferred "real" books, despite having an e-reader for over ten years, but the e-reader has a killer feature: the backlight. Having a backlight means I can turn the light off on my nightstand, and read at night without keeping people up. (Yes, I know they make reading lights. No, I haven't tried one. They look like they're a pain.) I also realized after looking over my (physical) bookshelves that I don't actually care about most of the books on there. This is after multiple rounds of clearing out the shelves and making trips to the secondhand bookstore, free library, etc., so it's not a matter of cruft. If I'm honest with myself, most books are "read once and discard," though there is a small collection that it feels distasteful not to keep copies of. Certain classics, or books with particular personal significance, for instance. The cost of ebooks is an issue, as is the DRM. I haven't experimented with digital lending from libraries so I don't know if that's a solution to the cost problem, but it could be. DRM is... well, a perennial problem for digital media. And it does feel like something is missing in a world without secondhand stores and free libraries. (Edit: It is in fact a frontlight, not a backlight. Duh.)
  • asdff 5y ago
    I've never been able to do a backlit screen in an otherwise unlit room. I get eye strain so fast. The litte reader lites are great. $5 and clips to your book or headboard or nitestand or wherever you want, and the light is pretty focused on your book.
    • dont__panic 5y ago
      Technically ereader screens are frontlit: the glass in front of the e-ink display refracts light across the display evenly. So instead of looking right at a light source, you're viewing refracted light scattered across the entire display. I also get a headache from backlit screens. Frontlit e-ink is much better.
    • hosh 5y ago
      The Kindle Paperwhite uses flattened fiber optics to bounce the light from the edges off of the epaper, so it is still more like indirect lighting than reading on a phone. In a darkened room, or when I am reading outside at night, it works pretty well. When I'm on a plane, or when I'm in a resturant, I don't have to fiddle with an external lighting device to read.
• siver_john 5y ago
  As someone who tried e-readers back around the original Kindle launched, I ended up just giving it to my grandmother because it wasn't as satisfying to read as an actual book. Recently however I gave them another shot (specifically the Onyx Boox Nova) because I started trying to refresh my Japanese and reading manga was easier than other forms of media (lots of pictures rarely wall of texts). The problem is buying manga from Japan and shipping it across the world was a pain and after reading on my tiny phone and that really straining my eyes, I decided to invest in an e-ink tablet. (Partially to use kaku on it but that did not work, however the ability to switch to a dictionary is nice). I also used kobo similar to the author for my app because apparently their DRM was the easiest to break out of everyone which means if they go down at least I still keep my e-books.
• hosh 5y ago
  That's pretty much my experience with ebook readers years ago. I still love dead-tree books, but I find it easier to use the ebook reader in places I normally can't, or shouldn't: - Reading in places without a lot of light. It is that or bring my headlamp. - Travel, definitely, but also while running errands - Reading while eating (not healthy) - Reading while smoking (also not healthy ... ) - Trying to search for keywords in a book Most recently, with having to help take care of an infant, I find myself unable to put in long, uninterrupted hours to read. It was easier to read a ebook on my phone or on my Kindle. And if my son spits up, it is easier to clean a device than it is my dead tree books. However, I remember growing up with my father's library filling up an entire wall, and my mother regularly bringing my family out to the library. That's an experience I'd like my kids to have. I have a wall of books, though these days, I am much more mindful about curating them.
• stakkur 5y ago
  I buy print books for those I value and probably want to read again or share with others; otherwise it’s e-reading (especially tech/learning books).
• dmart 5y ago
  I've found that e-readers are perfect for novels or nonfiction books meant to be read linearly from beginning to end. I don't buy paperbacks anymore because the experience is superior (lighter weight, backlight, word definitions). But I do still buy physical copies of technical textbooks or reference-style works. Ebook formatting is still just not good enough in my experience for things like code blocks and math formulas. Also, for those types of books, the ability to quickly scan through the pages to find something is important, and e-readers still do a very poor job at this.
• berkut 5y ago
  I've almost exclusively switched over to a Kindle now as well (occasionally get physical books that aren't available electronically), and the one experience/workflow I haven't been able to re-create with the Kindle is very easily going back a few pages (or maybe more) for things like timelines in novels (i.e. with historical dates per chapter or something) to re-gain context. With a physical book, you just stick a finger between the pages of where you are, and start going back pages until you find what you're looking for, then switch back. With the Kindle, the best I've found is using bookmarks, which works to a degree, but isn't as easy...
• Ishmaeli 5y ago
  I bought a Kindle in 2012 but I think I'm finally done with it. I don't have any problem with the device or the format, I'm just tired of all the typos in ebooks. Yes, printed books have the occasional typo, but they seem much more prevalent in ebooks. I think there are just a lot of books out there for which the only electronic copy is an optical scan, and as good as OCR is, the process still introduces errors. I feel ripped off when I come across a typo an ebook that's not in the printed version. It already feels like a stripped down version of the product—I'm only getting the text, not the material assets of a real life book—and now I discover it's an inferior version of the text to boot? No thanks.
• qualudeheart 5y ago
  E-readers can easily be converted into Crypto wallets and used by using steganography to hide data within pdfs. Fun thing to consider.
• throwthroyaboat 5y ago
  I spent three hours the other night trying to get my kobo glo HD to work with Adobe Digital Editions. I've tried multiple different computers, multiple cables. ADE fulfulls the book OK, and my Kobo can read books from the store. But trying to copy them from ADE to the device hangs forever, then eventually crashes. The Kobo is too old for the built-in overdrive/libby integration. I used to like e-readers, but now I just want to throw it out the window.
  • bigfudge 5y ago
    I’ve given up. I buy ebooks but never download the official copy, if you know what I mean.
• WalterBright 5y ago
  I'd like them more if they'd implement any of the UI suggestions I send them, but no response from any of the e-reader companies. Grump grump grump :-)
• chaostheory 5y ago
  I wish Amazon would offer e-readers with larger screens again. Better yet, it would be nice to have a large Amazon tablet with an e-reader where I can surf the web. Soon I won't have a choice, but to buy a Boox
• philips 5y ago
  I bought a phone sized ereader and it has really amped up how much I can read. Now when I have a moment to spare I can decide to pull out my phone or my ereader and after a certain time in the afternoon I plug in my phone and leave it so I only consume books or saved items in pocket. My device of choice was the Inkpalm 5. Some setup instructions :https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english I also highly recommend readwise.io: a super polished service for collating and reviewing highlights from books.
  • int_19h 5y ago
    Why Inkpalm rather than a Hisense or Kingrow eInk phone? It seems to amount to more or less the same thing, running Android, so I'm assuming some hardware differences?
    • philips 5y ago
      I didn't know about kingrow. And the Hisense Touch was released after I bought the inkpalm. It looks like a great device though!
• racl101 5y ago
  Once you make peace with not being able to have bookshelf full of paper books that, books, which, if you are honest with yourself, you: - will only read once - simply want to keep to fill up the bookshelf to let other people know that you read a lot - have no intention of lending to people - have no people who could / would inherit them then it's nice to not have so much clutter and convenience to read from one device and at night. Yes, the DRM issue sucks for the Kindle, but, again, when you don't tend to re-read books or lend them then it's not that noticeable an issue.
• keithnz 5y ago
  I like reading, but I've found audiobooks really good and tend to get through more books these days through listening as I can consume it in situations where I couldn't read (like walking). Also, quite a lot are read by their authors which often gives it a nice quality (even if you do listen to it at fast speeds).
• dredmorbius 5y ago
  Having had a large-format e-book reader since March, I'm largely convinced that most of the unsuitability of reading to screens isn't document formats, but screens. I picked up an Onxy BOOX Max Lumi, with a 13.3" 220 dpi grayscale display. It's virtually indistinguishable from paper in terms of print quality. Contrast is somewhat lower, though this increases readability under direct sunlight (lower glare). The frontlight makes indoor reading quite pleasant. The device is large, and I thought it might be too big. My use case was reading older scanned-in journal articles without having to rely too much on in-page zoom and navigation, and to be able to read most books in a 2-up format. It excells at both. It's also a remarkably effective Android tablet, almost too much so (I'd prefer fewer distractions). But yeah: the reason that reading on desktops, laptops, and smartphones is such a poor experience has much less to do with digital file formats, and far more to do with displays and devices that are too cumbersome, poorly-sized, or poorly-suited to reading. I could still see some improvements. I've yet to find a device that has good library manangement on the device itself. Many have far too little storage (the reMarkable inexplicably has only 16 GB total storage, most of that is utilised by the OS itself). I'd consider 128 GB a minimum and would be far more comforatable with a 512 GB -- 1 TB storage (books plus podcast audio downloads). Costs are low and falling. My other principle concern is that many ebooks are very poorly designed, typeset, and structured for digital devices. This starts with filenames themselves, metadata, tables of contents, typography (I vastly prefer serif to sans serif fonts), and more. It's often much more aesthetically pleasing to read a scan of an older book than a direct-to-digital publication (though of course there are numerous exceptions in both cases).