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Also, what better products are there? Kobo? I have a kindle oasis and it's a great device. Not that I love giving money to Amazon, I avoid that when I can with

Also, what better products are there? Kobo? I have a kindle oasis and it's a great device. Not that I love giving money to Amazon, I avoid that when I can with library or at least heavily discounted/public domain or side-loaded books whenever possible.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cyberpunk 2y ago
I kept my oasis chugging for as long as I could stand it but there was no replacement with physical buttons, so I switched to a kobo colour. It's pretty great, if you install koreader on it you can even get to an on-screen linux shell, if you just have to bang out some awk on the bus.. :}
wkat4242 2y ago
At least kobo still has physical buttons on most of their devices. The oasis has them yes but it hasn't been updated in many years. It lacks mod cons like light temperature and white on black mode. The one thing that really bothers me about Kobo is that they no longer have a b/w reader in the Libra format. The Kobo colour has so much worse contrast. That degradation is not worth the slight benefit of mediocre colours for me. It really means always needing the blacklight.
marklar423 2y ago
Kobo is definitely superior to Kindle in my book. The hardware is great and it's completely open to sideloading and even modding (it runs Linux under the hood). I can't speak to their digital bookstore but they integrate with Overdrive for library borrowing.
- permo-w 2y ago
  besides books, which you can sideload very simply with kindle, what do you need to sideload to your e-reader
  - poisonborz 2y ago
    Better reading software. KOReader is fantastic (also on Kindle, if you jailbreak).
  - II2II 2y ago
    There are a few alternative e-reading applications. KOReader and Plato are both under active development. KOReader is great at reading PDF documents on e-ink screens, has nicer options for accessing Wikipedia articles, has useful options for tracking reading progress (e.g. you can see which pages you have read, which is useful while jumping around technical books), and generally goes overboard in giving you control over how a book is formatted. I have also seen random applications make their way to the Kobo, and some people use Kobo's for their own programming projects. Another benefit is the ability to sideload software without jailbreaking it. I'm not going to say it is easy, since you need to know a bit about Unix to package your own software for sideloading (verses something that someone else packaged for you), but at least you can do it using trusted applications (rather than downloading something from a random third-party).
  - marklar423 2y ago
    Adding on to what others said - I added a button that can download book files from my Google Drive, and it was as simple as copying over rclone and a one line bash script.
8ytecoder 2y ago
Kobo Libra color. If I’m being very honest, the screen isn’t as good as the oasis but it’s a compromise I’ve accepted for vastly superior hackability. I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web instance, I have a much better experience overall because the books are drm-free(d) and calibre web handles sync with kobo really well. And it has physical buttons. I was clinging to my oasis for the buttons.
- palata 2y ago
  > the screen isn’t as good as the oasis Genuinely interested: how good does the screen have to be for mimicking text on paper? I have a Kindle from around 2013, I don't think I would ever need a better quality? > I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web instance Wow that sounds great! This would make me consider a Kobo now (though my old Kindle is still good enough) :-).
  - Marsymars 2y ago
    > Genuinely interested: how good does the screen have to be for mimicking text on paper? I have a Kindle from around 2013, I don't think I would ever need a better quality? The 300 DPI screens are a nice step up, as are the variable colour-temp backlights.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cyberpunk 2y ago

I kept my oasis chugging for as long as I could stand it but there was no replacement with physical buttons, so I switched to a kobo colour. It's pretty great, if you install koreader on it you can even get to an on-screen linux shell, if you just have to bang out some awk on the bus.. :}

wkat4242 2y ago

At least kobo still has physical buttons on most of their devices. The oasis has them yes but it hasn't been updated in many years. It lacks mod cons like light temperature and white on black mode. The one thing that really bothers me about Kobo is that they no longer have a b/w reader in the Libra format. The Kobo colour has so much worse contrast. That degradation is not worth the slight benefit of mediocre colours for me. It really means always needing the blacklight.

marklar423 2y ago

Kobo is definitely superior to Kindle in my book. The hardware is great and it's completely open to sideloading and even modding (it runs Linux under the hood). I can't speak to their digital bookstore but they integrate with Overdrive for library borrowing.

permo-w 2y ago
besides books, which you can sideload very simply with kindle, what do you need to sideload to your e-reader
- poisonborz 2y ago
  Better reading software. KOReader is fantastic (also on Kindle, if you jailbreak).
- II2II 2y ago
  There are a few alternative e-reading applications. KOReader and Plato are both under active development. KOReader is great at reading PDF documents on e-ink screens, has nicer options for accessing Wikipedia articles, has useful options for tracking reading progress (e.g. you can see which pages you have read, which is useful while jumping around technical books), and generally goes overboard in giving you control over how a book is formatted. I have also seen random applications make their way to the Kobo, and some people use Kobo's for their own programming projects. Another benefit is the ability to sideload software without jailbreaking it. I'm not going to say it is easy, since you need to know a bit about Unix to package your own software for sideloading (verses something that someone else packaged for you), but at least you can do it using trusted applications (rather than downloading something from a random third-party).
- marklar423 2y ago
  Adding on to what others said - I added a button that can download book files from my Google Drive, and it was as simple as copying over rclone and a one line bash script.

8ytecoder 2y ago

Kobo Libra color. If I’m being very honest, the screen isn’t as good as the oasis but it’s a compromise I’ve accepted for vastly superior hackability. I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web instance, I have a much better experience overall because the books are drm-free(d) and calibre web handles sync with kobo really well. And it has physical buttons. I was clinging to my oasis for the buttons.

palata 2y ago
> the screen isn’t as good as the oasis Genuinely interested: how good does the screen have to be for mimicking text on paper? I have a Kindle from around 2013, I don't think I would ever need a better quality? > I telnet into my kobo and installed tailscale then pointed the api to my calibre web instance Wow that sounds great! This would make me consider a Kobo now (though my old Kindle is still good enough) :-).
- Marsymars 2y ago
  > Genuinely interested: how good does the screen have to be for mimicking text on paper? I have a Kindle from around 2013, I don't think I would ever need a better quality? The 300 DPI screens are a nice step up, as are the variable colour-temp backlights.