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Kindle loyalists scramble as Amazon turns page on old e-readers
- dev_l1x_be 5mo agoDeadwood loyalists raise an eyebrow and keep reading.
- burner420042 5mo agoThere I go Turn the page
- echelon_musk 5mo agoOn the road again
- prvc 5mo ago>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson. Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
- kuboble 5mo agoI can and will still use mine to read files. What is discontinued is integration with Amazon account. Which seems fair to me to be fair.
- wrxd 5mo agoLess fair when they sold an integrated device and store
- literalAardvark 5mo agoIt'd be fair if they unlocked them.
- devilbunny 5mo agoThe device isn’t locked, and you can continue to read anything on it. You just can’t put new things on it directly from Amazon via its built-in interface. An original-model Kindle has more of its original functionality than an original-model iPad.
- hoppyhoppy2 5mo agoThe OS is locked, no? That's why people have to jailbreak it to install software like KOreader?
- devilbunny 5mo agoYes, the OS is locked. I misunderstood the point of your statement. But all you are losing is the ability to use the Amazon store and borrowing that requires DRM. It still works fine as an e-Ink reader. Anecdotally, the OSes on the really old ones are easily jailbroken. They have never updated them to an unbreakable one that I am aware of. More than I can say for my first-gen iPads, which would still be wonderful devices for reading books today. I have a Kindle because it is, and long has been, the cheapest e-Ink device. It’s my reading-outdoors device; I don’t use it except at the beach/pool.
- alok-g 5mo ago> Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. Why -- Aren't they also claiming productivity enhancements with AI? ;-) And did they calculate how much environmental damage may result the decision?
- bananaflag 5mo agoJoke's on them, I keep the Kindle permanently on airplane mode anyway.
- moffkalast 5mo agoThe first time I got an ad on mine I did that and switched to the Calibre + z-library workflow. It's been most of a decade since. It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
- iLoveOncall 5mo agoYou paid for the ads-supported version if you got ads...
- nosioptar 5mo agoNot always obvious. I've stopped several relatives from making that mistake. For some reason, they're inclined to trust Amazon.
- iLoveOncall 5mo agoIt is always obvious. https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Kindle/dp/B0CNVCQZG1/ https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Kindle/dp/B0CNVCQZG1/ This is the first one that pops up if you search "kindle" on Amazon. I'm not sure how more clearly you could show the variants with and without ads.
- moffkalast 5mo agoI don't think it was an adware version, though I can't exactly recall, it might've been. It doesn't show ads on the lock screen, but you still get "suggestions" on the home screen instead of your onboard library if it's connected to wifi.
- 5mo ago
- onidj 5mo agoHaving used an early kindle and a recent kindle, they are incredibly similar. One of the main innovations of the new models appears to be adverts you have to pay to get rid of.
- madarco 5mo agoActually, the old Kindle had physical buttons, which I find more ergonomic when reading in bed
- gruturo 5mo agoThat's what your nose is for. (I'm quite skilled at advancing or going back by gently tapping the kindle against my face. It helps that I'm very nearsighted so it's kind of already there)
- cbdevidal 5mo agoSame here. I read your comment from two inches away lol
- literalAardvark 5mo agoReally wish my 1st gen Paperweight had split forward and back buttons on the right side. But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie.
- phil21 5mo ago> But then I also understand that'd increase the price by 10% and only help right handed people with weak hands so... c'est la vie. You can... turn them upside down to become a left-handed device. That way you can be weak-handed with either hand!
- literalAardvark 5mo agoOnly way to get buttons that are comfy on both sides would be to flip it screen out. That doesn't seem like a very useful position to hold a reader in though. If you turn it upside down the left hand buttons will be way too high on the reader
- kyranjamie 5mo agoMy 14 year old Kindle functions so perfectly I've no desire to upgrade. This is exactly why KOReader and all the jailbreaks exist.
- rando1234 5mo agoSo it will be possible to jailbreak it and upload my own files still?
- loloquwowndueo 5mo agoYes, I did it for my Kindle 2 and it works well.
- sphars 5mo agoJailbreak it now before you forget https://kindlemodding.org/ https://kindlemodding.org/
- devilbunny 5mo agoYes. And you can sideload without jailbreaking. They aren’t bricking the devices, they are making them not work with the Amazon store and library features anymore. My Kindle Keyboard (3rd generation device) still works perfectly well with sideloaded books. It’s jailbroken and runs KOReader, which lets you read ePub directly. It’s easier to read things on my Kindle Keyboard than on my original iPad.
- comboy 5mo agoI was looking for a good rationalization to leave the ecosystem, one-click e-books is great and having old device that I can take anywhere not caring about it getting beaten up even more was another major advantage. Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
- arikrahman 5mo agoGlad I went the Kobo route. Koreader beats Kindle any day of the week.
- Bud 5mo ago[dead]
- BeetleB 5mo agoKoreader is available on Kindle.
- arikrahman 5mo agoSays it needs a jailbreak on the device voiding the warranty from what I read. That's good though, I'd like to see my Kindle peers break out of that walled garden.
- Weryj 5mo agoIf only there was a way to download e-books and upload them to a Kindle with Calibre.
- lagrange77 5mo agoI'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but there is! I've jailbroken my Kindle Scribe and installed coreader and feed it my Calibre library and its awesome. Oh and i kept it in airplane mode from the first day, which is important so it doesnt self update and break the jailbreak.
- rahimnathwani 5mo agos/coreader/KOReader/g Voice input or autocorrect?
- lagrange77 5mo agoa lack of concentration ;)
- yuchtman 5mo agoKindles don't need to be jailbroken to transfer books via calibre (or a file manager or a terminal).
- ajdegol 5mo agoThe price of convenience.
- WithinReason 5mo agoJust got an xteink x4 and flashed crosspoint on it, I've been tuning fonts by modifying the font generator and now it renders great. https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4 https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
- dabeeeenster 5mo agoLove my x4! I saw 1.3 allows you to bring in your own fonts - any suggestions?
- crtasm 5mo agoIt also added a list of fonts that can be directly downloaded, not had chance to try them out yet
- bwilliams 5mo agoSame. It’s the best ebook experience I’ve had so far despite its size and I’ve tried a myriad of ereaders. The only missing feature is a backlight for reading at night.
- neves 5mo agoBack light is a necessity for couples or places with bad light. It is one the greatest Kindle features of all time.
- rahimnathwani 5mo agoMaybe I'm getting old, but I don't see the appeal of reading on an eink device that's smaller than my phone, which I'm always carrying. Maybe if I'm reading outside in sunlight rather than in bed? Or if I'm worried about getting distracted by a FB/X notification?
- kstrauser 5mo agoDifferent person, but I bought a set for me and my wife on a whim because they’re so cheap, and found I adore the little thing. I have a public transit commute to and from work. Since getting it, I’ve spent my commutes reading books I’ve meant to get around to. I have a Kobo I keep at home. I love it, but don’t want to risk breaking it while carrying it around in my backpack, and it’s too big to comfortably hold on a crowded BART (let alone to dig around in my bag to get it out and put it away). The X4 is always in my pants pocket during the commute and small enough to break out wherever I am. Also, it’s small enough to not feel fragile, and cheap enough that it wouldn’t be devastating if I broke it anyway.
- CGamesPlay 5mo ago14 years support window is so insanely good. But as it goes... You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
- generic92034 5mo agoMaybe for ebook readers, but not for books.
- azalemeth 5mo agoMy local library has some dead tree format books with a 500 year support window. Or dead animal or dead reed format books with more like a 2000-year support window. Planned obsolescence is always bad.
- jhbadger 5mo agoUnless they are very popular books, they will be weeded (thrown out or or sold) in a matter of a few years though. People imagine that libraries are infinite storehouses of material, but except for places like the Library of Congress they really aren't. There is limited storage space, and in order to get new books they need to discard the old ones that were rarely checked out. Even the example of old books on parchment aren't immune to this trend -- the books we have from Ancient Greece or Rome are just the really popular ones that were copied over and over again, and the vast majority of works from those times are lost.
- Finnucane 5mo agoYour local library keeps papyrus scrolls on open stacks? I mean, sure, yes, there are libraries that haves such things (the university I work for does), but generally they will be kept in special boxes and you need to ask nicely to get to see them. And don't get me started about the crapitude of your average new book these days. Personally, I prefer print books too, but lasting forever is not really why.
- happyopossum 5mo ago> 500 year support window Err, no. Something “existing” is not the same as something being supported. Is the original printer still providing free translations to modern languages? Fixing typos and other mistakes? Adding chapters on a regular basis? It’s kinda ludicrous to call the fact that a thing didn’t spontaneously disappear “support”.
- cbdevidal 5mo agoCrap like this is why I 1.) export my Kindle books to plain PDF 2.) use a Nook Simple Touch. They work perfectly well 100% offline and are CHEAP now. Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go. Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible: https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful_dedrm_with_kindle_for_pc_28_in_january/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...
- literalAardvark 5mo agoPDF is an atrocious format for this though. Why not export to ePub?
- cbdevidal 5mo agoI do both, actually. But I don’t notice the difference personally.
- literalAardvark 5mo agoThere's not much of one until you need to reflow the book for a different reader
- steve-atx-7600 5mo agoIf you want the exact same typesetting as the physical book, pdf is ideal. On a big enough iPad, this would be readable like a physical book. But, yeah, painful as hell on a smaller screen.
- Bud 5mo ago[dead]
- 5mo ago
- thih9 5mo agoMy kindle will not be aware of it. It has been in airplane mode ever since I bought it. Its clock no longer tells correct time; but it’s fine, a book doesn’t have to do that - and I have a watch.
- majorbugger 5mo agoTwo of my paperwhites died so i took the opportunity to switch to kobo and couldn't be happier.
- A_D_E_P_T 5mo agoAmazon's attitude towards its Kindle device customers is one of lofty disregard. Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc. But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care. The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
- paulcole 5mo ago> Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc. WWII fighter plane with red spots on it dot gif. The vast majority of people who buy Kindles simply read books on them and don’t repeatedly cry online about features that are never coming back. I’ve bought about 10 of the things dating back to 2012 either because I wanted to have the latest model or because I wanted to give one as a gift. They are all amazing devices. I’ve never thought, “boy I better go online and complain about this one.” I’ve just been too busy buying and reading books on them!
- Insanity 5mo ago+1. It seems like there is just a vocal minority who complain about the missing HW buttons etc. I’m sure Amazon has enough actual customer data to make their product decisions based on what moves the most volume.
- ryandrake 5mo agoJust like the 3.5mm headphone jack, which a very vocal bunch of people are still complaining about, 10 years after iPhone got rid of it.
- wedg_ 5mo agoI have a Kindle which I think is surviving this purge. But after looking at alternatives like the Kobo, I wondered where people got their books? Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
- Den_VR 5mo agoInversely, try to use a kindle as a Korean.
- bobmarleybiceps 5mo agois the kobo store not good/convenient compared to kindle? I thought the kobo store was pretty good, but it is my first and only e-reader.
- Crespyl 5mo agoKobo store is convenient but feels pricey sometimes (I don't have experience with the Kindle store). I don't mind paying them though, because it's still easy enough to strip the DRM and make backup copies of my books. If that changes, I'll take my business elsewhere. I make a lot of use of my local library through the native Overdrive integration.
- exmadscientist 5mo agoThere's nothing wrong with the Kobo store itself, but some titles are only published via Amazon. Especially from self-published authors or participants in Kindle Unlimited. Whereas the major releases from the bigger publishers are usually widely available. This is somewhat annoying. Please don't offer only one storefront as a place to buy your work.
- rag-hav 5mo agoI buy the books of my favorite authors on kindle store, while sailing the high seas to read the books on my Kobo. I don't buy all the books I read though.
- Ozzie-D 5mo ago[flagged]
- dennismd 5mo agoI’ve been looking into getting an e-reader, but I’m scared to get one from Amazon due to things like this. Are there any decent hackable and/or trustworthy ones out there?
- theiz 5mo agoThere are Android e-Readers, like Boox, but that does not imply it is easy to do fun stuff. Seems pretty locked down. I have a PocketBook myself, no complaints there and you can install software (at least I can on the one I have but it is a few years old now) and thus never had the need to hack the thing.
- crtasm 5mo agoKobo's devices let you bypass the account signup via a single option in a config file. Whether you do so or not it's easy to install koreader and start writing plugins for it. You can also hack on the linux OS they use
- lostlogin 5mo agoYou can also sync to your own library - eg calibreweb. It’s not too disgusting, and over-the-air is nice to have.
- gradstudent 5mo agoHow do you sync over the air with calibre-web? My understanding is that you can only use sideloading, or a device that supports reading on the web?
- pyreko 5mo agoYep, there's a plethora of tweaks and stuff out there to mess with Kobos to make them your own, and it's not hard to do. Been super happy with my Kobo Clara.
- MegaDeKay 5mo agoI have a Kobo Clara HD and one day it wouldn't connect to USB anymore. Changed cables, took it apart to examine the connector (it was fine), tried it on both my Desktop and my laptop, etc. I was about to give up on it when I found out that it just doesn't work with USB 3. Verified that by successfully connecting to an old PC downstairs on USB 2. Turns out I hadn't used the Kobo in a while and I had replaced my Desktop and ancient laptop since. Both those older machines were connecting on USB 2 ports. Got a USB expander dongle on AliExpress for something like six bucks that breaks out a few USB 2 ports and the Kobo is happy as a clam. So am I now, because the Kobo is great.
- periphery 5mo agoBrought a Kobo after Amazon locked my account. There is no going back to a Kindle.
- atoav 5mo agoExcuse me, but I am not sure what to make of people who: - use Chrome, by Google, a company earning money with selling ads and wonder why the adblocker is not working - use Kindle, by Amazon, a company that earns money by renting out DRM-protected content, that sees the Kindle just as a vehicle to (1) sell more of that content and (2) as a vehicle to lock you to their platform Please for the love of the universe, just start to factor in the incentives a company has when selling you a thing. Before buying my Kobo reader 12 years ago (still going strong!), the first thing I researched is how to get out of Amazon DRM hell. The answer is: get a reader by a company that sells readers as a main business and has an incentive to make sure they work and use it together with something like Calibre, so you have all your books if you lose the thing somewhere. If you're going to the powerful quasi-monopolist, that may be cheaper in the short term, but what about the time you lose when they eventually hold your whole library hostage or decide to drop support on something you relied on? You're not the person picking when that happens. If I sum up how much I spent on books in 12 years that Kobo has paid for itself 50 times over and I still don't think there is any reason to replace it with something newer.
- albert_e 5mo agoTip: if you let kids and others in your home use a Kindle and they might unintentionally turn off the airplane mode ... Go to your router settings and blacklist the Kindle's mac id. Sleep peacefully that your kindle will never be bricked or wiped by a software update.
- 217 5mo agoYeah mines been on airplane mode for probably a decade now, really not seeing a reason to ever connect it to the internet
- kleinishere 5mo agoOne benefit of jailbreaking - https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/post-jailbreak/disable-ota.html https://kindlemodding.org/jailbreaking/post-jailbreak/disabl...
- CptKriechstrom 5mo agoI was in the market to buy a new E-Reader since my old Kindle started to act funny (Random shutdowns while reading and it won't come back for several minutes). After the announcement I decided to switch to physical books
- ajay-b 5mo agoIs it possible that Amazon views the Kindle as less than profitable, and so they’re taking the hard line tactic to try and boost revenue?
- PeterStuer 5mo agoSo their inhouse AI which they are forcing all their devs on is not capable of figuring out how to render what is basically the equivalent of an .md onto the older Kindles?
- butvacuum 5mo agothey're updating the DRM.
- __rito__ 5mo agoI will just stick with Kindles. Indian heat and humidity make a Kindle unusable in 7-8 years, unless you have a 100% AC life. Kindles last a month on a charge or two. It's very light. It's affordable. It doesn’t show colors, but I have an android tab to read papers and technical content, anyway. I tried looking at alternatives, but low price + extreme power efficiency + being able to sideload books is just great.
- jay_kyburz 5mo agoKobo is all that but without Amazon.
- kstrauser 5mo agoSeconded. I bought a Libra 2 a few years ago and loved it so much that I’ve gifted a couple more. There’s nothing about it I’d want to change.
- Lanrei 5mo agoI'd change mine so that the portrait and landscape button layout were separately configurable.
- kstrauser 5mo agoHuh. OK, fair point. I have my portrait buttons swapped because my thumb naturally rests next to the top button. I don't use in landscape enough to be an issue. BTW, slapping a pop socket on the back so I can comfortably read with one hand was a game changer.
- stock_toaster 5mo agoUnfortunately a lot of fiction (sci-fi/fantasy) ebooks are effectively kindle exclusive these days (amazon publisher deals exclusivity), due to the near monopoly amazon has… and since they have locked things down even harder lately, it is much more difficult to export purchases to other readers.
- aliasxneo 5mo agoI guess I've never been strongly compelled to ditch mine. It sits there next to my bed. I pick it up and read it every night. Every few weeks I remember that you have to actually charge it. My last Kindle started malfunctioning after about 8 years of constant use. I opened a chat with Amazon support and they gave me a 50% coupon off the current version. That was two years ago and I'm still using it. I do get the argument about lockdown. And there's some mediums I feel more strongly in that area. I suppose Amazon just has me exactly where they want me :)
- Procrastes 5mo agoI gave up on Kindles long ago. They wake up and drain their batteries, so they're always dead when I pick them up to read something. Not a problem with Kobo. But I really want to pick up one of these little Xteink readers next. They just seem perfect for pulling out of a pocket and reading. Also, I'm a smaller person, and they look like they would fit my hand. Modern phones feel like tablets to me.
- neves 5mo agoDoes anyone has experience with Android e-ink ebook readers? Are they worth it? Brazilian Government just released a great public library of e-books: https://meclivros.mec.gov.br/ https://meclivros.mec.gov.br/ An Android e-ink reader would be perfect for it. And I'd use kindle app to read my kindle ebooks. But I don't really see people using them.
- oddeyed 5mo agoI bought a second hand Meebook M6 on ebay. At least, it was listed as second hand but seemed to be fresh out of the box when it arrived. I completely love it. For actually reading ebooks, I'm using Koreader instead of the built-in reader because I find the UI a bit easier to get my head around. I mostly use it for PDFs related to classroom learning, but have the odd epub knocking around from project gutenburg etc. It has Google Play support, so I can use the Libby app to access my local library's ebook collection (including offline access to travel guides - so useful). I also use the Sefaria app to read Hebrew scripture (also supports offline). These apps tend to use the battery faster than Koreader and having scrolling controls instead of page-turning controls is a bit of a pain, but quite manageable. I haven't tried the Kindle app, but I'm sure it would work fine.
- qingcharles 5mo agoThis seems to be a hot e-reader right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/ https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/
- teruakohatu 5mo agoI really don’t understand the hype of that product. It’s like an entrepreneur with social media marketing skills came across a container full of really cheap small eink displays, then designed a product and marketing around it.
- unfitted2545 5mo agoThe reason it's trending right now is because it's a convenient price, simple to use and making people read more because of its size. If it helps people cut down on phone use then it's a good product. The build quality could be better, but there doesn't exist a similar product with better build quality. Can you build a DIY version that's significantly cheaper? Well, this was my thinking for getting one, we shall see when it arrives :P Edit: Also you can choose to install a nice open source community firmware
- html5cat 5mo agoMaybe it's ok to upgrade an o($100) device once after, checks notes, 14 years? Incredible longevity compared to any other device
- ipeev 5mo agoEach of my kindles so far stopped working in about 2 years. I had 5 or 6.
- decafninja 5mo agoI got a third (I think?) generation Paperwhite brand new when it was released. From day 1 it was super laggy. Once I opened a book to read it was fine, but everything up to getting to that point was lag upon lag. This was a new device of a new generation. I find the Kindle UX better on my iPhone or iPad.
- scubbo 5mo agoKinda baffled by people preferring buttons on their devices. When trying to de-Amazon I bought two Kobos - a Clara BW (without buttons) and a Libra Colour (with). I _much_ prefer the Clara because I can slip it in a pocket, whereas the extra bevel required for the buttons means the Libra must be in a bag (though I still end up using it despite this inconvenience because it can load books wirelessly, unlike the Clara). Totally agree that a manufacturer should provide both options - I'm just surprised to have non-standard preferences.
- latentframe 5mo agoA big amount of user loyalty comes from products that feel finished more than always evolving. Early Kindles felt closer to bookshelves than software platforms
- 0x38B 5mo agoMy Kindle Touch, judging by the plastic, is old, on its second battery. I love that the reading experience has not changed at all in the time I’ve had the device. I never thought of it as a bookshelf, but that’s a great way to put it. In contrast, my iPhone changes with each update, but often I find not for the better – I hated the new control center at first, and while I made it mostly match the old one, the tap targets are smaller than they used to be, on my 4.7” display.
- Zambyte 5mo agoI'm writing this reply on a Daylight Computer. I can't reco it enough. It's been my primary mobile device over a year now
- landgenoot 5mo agoMine doesn't remember the last opened books when the date isn't correct. Unfortunately you cannot set the date manually.
- Zambyte 5mo agoDid you mean to reply to someone else? You can set the date manually on the Daylight and even if you have trouble, you can just use a different app. It's just Android.
- landgenoot 4mo agoYes I meant to reply to someone else. My bad.
- MerlinDE 5mo agoThis move has nothing to do with usability or device capabilities or software support. The only reason for turning them off is to remove a hole in their DRM. These old devices allowed you to remove the copy protection from their books (hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore). Removing the old devices makes freeing your books from DRM just much harder.
- cvcount 5mo ago> hardly anyone else uses DRM these days anymore I thought that all the major ebook stores had DRM on most purchases, and it was just a few indie publishers choosing to be DRM-free. Has that changed?
- generic92034 5mo agoThere is a difference between hard and soft DRM. Soft DRM can be only some watermark, not keeping you from creating copies for your own devices. Hard DRM aims to prevent any copying. In my experience soft DRM is very common, hard DRM not so much.
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- stbenjam 5mo agoIt hasn't changed, and I don't know why people are saying that most books don't have DRM. It is only a small minority. Tor books is the largest publisher without it (owned by Macmillan). Otherwise everything is truly hard DRM either ACSM with epub or Kindle's. They are both more or less easily defeated though.
- u_fucking_dork 5mo agoBecause these are people that don’t buy the books anyway. They pirate them and put them onto their 2010 Chinese ebook reader.
- somewhatgoated 5mo agoWhat is a good e-reader nowadays? I had a pocket book 2 for 15+ years but destroyed the display recently :/ Looking for a replacement now that is black&white, has a very good paper like screen, long battery life and allows me to read any .epub/.mobi without DRM or other bs restrictions. I don’t need colour screen, don’t need audio support and no integrations with any shops or anything like that. Kindle is ruled out, I looked at Kobo but the screen appeared low quality compared to my old pocket book. Anything you can recommend here?
- fsflover 5mo agoHow about PineNote?
- d-us-vb 5mo agoPineNote isn't really a consumer device. PINE64 has made it abundantly clear that the PineNote is a developer playground device; they're waiting on the community to refine the software support and flesh out the ecosystem for it.
- tacker2000 5mo agoI've now moved to an Android eReader (Boox Note 7, for example [1]). I can just get the Ebook or PDF files and transfer them via Calibre, simple as that, and I can also download any Android app i want. There are tons of apps out there that support eInk screens. [1] https://shop.boox.com/products/go7 https://shop.boox.com/products/go7
- somewhatgoated 5mo agoThis looks very promising, thanks for the tip!
- d-us-vb 5mo agoRemarkable 2 is pretty good, though last time I used it the search feature for large pdfs was pretty janky. The BOOX eink devices are also perfectly fine; they're really just android tablets with a special build of android for eink devices. Those are the ones I've used personally. Pocket Book still makes eink ereaders, though. Is there something wrong with their offerings if you stuck with one of their products for 15 years?
- shrubby 5mo agoWho needs software updates and Bezos's spying. We have several different ecosystem e-readers in our household and all are used via USB and Calibre. The "extra time used" is won by multitude with approach where the reading stays in the center and uploading is once in a while event. This creates a barrier for addictive bookshopping, though a reader with plenty of books allows the change of minds, not just the endless booscrrolling that a connected device enables.
- shrubby 5mo agoIf there's a problem with the reader the firmware can be updated but I don't remember such issues since my first reader (Kindle version without backlight and physical buttons only, no idea of the year). Now a fourth one (Kobo) in use and all the previous ones still fully functional and in use by close ones.
- torben-friis 5mo agoAny recommendations? I've gone back to paper partly because the form factors of kindles don't feel particularly comfortable. The basic kindle feels kinda cramped but I don't like pro-tablet like devices.
- bborud 5mo agoWhat I don’t get is why the publishing industry never got its act together, listened to customers and got its act together. Yes, like many industries I have worked in I can imagine that they are unable to cooperate because of petty greed and short-sightedness: they would rather have the whole market taken away from them than endure the possibility that some of their direct competitors get a small, temporary advantage. It should not be hard to create truly interoperable systems that can cut Amazon out of the equation. It isn’t a technology issue. We have technology that easily solves every conceivable aspect of distributing, paying for and consuming ebooks. This should be the ultimate opportunity for the publishing industry. Especially given that Amazon isn’t investing much in development of devices.
- swores 5mo agoI'm not very familiar with anti-cartel laws (in any country), but I wonder if there would be legal issues preventing publishing companies from working together in such a way even if they otherwise had wanted to? (Though even if that is the case, I'd still think they could have at least agreed on open standards to use, to prevent anyone like Amazon from creating vendor lock-in.) But Amazon had advantages from its size. In terms of economies of scale for device manufacturing, publishers could have somewhat caught up if they pooled money to invest in a co-owned company that made devices (though still wouldn't have had such an advantage as Amazon, who could share R&D and production costs with any overlaps to other devices such as smart home speakers, Android tablets, etc.) But Amazon was also able to take a bigger picture approach, using cheap Kindles/ebooks to attract people into their ecosystem and then converting a not-insignificant amount of them to buying other stuff on Amazon.
- bborud 5mo agoCollaboration need not be subversive. In fact, it can be the opposite. As you point to, by using open standards. Devices are not a real problem. You don’t need scale to get hold of affordable readers in bulk. There’s lots of them available and if the market were to grow, there would be even more devices. Today these devices are not very useful as putting content on them is awkward and fragmented. If that pain went away, there would be a huge market. I think the problem is that Amazon would retaliate. And the publishing industry are too afraid of challenging them. Because they have never been able to get their act together before.
- rldjbpin 5mo agomy device just missed the window, and pre-covid it had a battery issue. back then, when i requested amazon to replace the battery, they simply offered a discount on a new one similar to the affected users instead. it magically started keeping charge recently and is working as i last remembered. i haven't been keeping tabs but the underlying computing of these kindles has been largely the same, TI-84 like, outdated scrap that happens to be enough for the slow refreshing screens. while it's unlikely for anyone here complaining to own an affected device (that is still their daily driver), i hope they do have a major overhaul incoming which necessitates this. the main pain point with access to your purchases is indeed frustrating, but very few things in computing has lasted me this long.
- mackross 5mo agomoved to kobo (the nice one with colour screen) with calibre web running behind a cloudflare tunnel, getting books direct through smallest publishers/authors. Adds the tiniest bit of friction in book acquisition but reading experience, battery life, everything else shits on my kindle experience (and I’ve owned every one).
- awakeasleep 5mo agoPlease mention that color e-ink has significantly lower contrast than black and white. I thought I did enough research, but was bitten by this caveat- I would trade basically any feature for more contrast. On the plus side, with your setup, you can have the lowest friction ebook experience possible on planet Earth by installing koreader, and then the z-library plugin.
- t-3 5mo agoThere are some tablets with RLCD screens that have decent colors and contrast (not quite as good as 300dpi eink, but close, with color and fast updates), but most w/color screens lack proper frontlights for some reason, and they all run android so it's a bit of a mixed bag compared to a proper Kobo/Pocketbook/Linux eink tablet, but having a decent browser on a reflective display without having to cross-compile for 32-bit ARM linux is great.
- carlosjobim 5mo agoColor (Kaleido) eInk screens can't show pure white, because the color filter is in the way. That makes the display significantly darker, and negates the entire purpose of eInk. I sold my color eInk device after trying it for two days, and went back to B&W.
- WhyNotHugo 5mo agoWhat software do you use on the device itself? I recently got a Kobo Clara HD, but software support seems to be a big issue. On one hand, there's folks using the vendor's OS, which looks like an abandoned custom-made Linux distro, where compiling anything is a nightmare. It's not really made to be hackable, but just to read books purchased via their partners. OTOH, there's a near-mainline kernel, which works nicely, and hacking on the device becomes much nicer, but e-reader-oriented software seems to commonly rely on kernel APIs only present in the vendor's abandoned fork, and won't work on a more mainline Linux. But this is a great target for actually developing stuff. I'm tempted to write my own minimal e-reader-focused DE, but honestly, I don't want another project on my hands and would like to use something that's already there.
- Frenchgeek 5mo agoI wonder if there's a KOReader oriented OS for the Kindle, to go beyond jailbreaking it (it's nice, but a bit clunky to me)... There seems to be an Android port for some models so it should be possible.
- Frenchgeek 5mo agoSo there was: InkBox OS, mostly for Kobo but with some Kindle support, it became QuillOS (wirh the same focus on devices) but when Kobo went with secureboot the whole thing moved to the PineNote. But all of that is very outdated now...
- lol8675309 5mo agoThis is my shocked face. Same as my regular face.
- 46493168 5mo agoThe problem Amazon has is that they already designed the perfect e-reader and released it in 2016. It's called the Kindle Oasis. All they had to do was keep making marginal improvements to this design (USB-C, faster processor) every few years. But that doesn't move units, need creation does, and convincing people that they need a new Amazon store front-end requires new form factors. All these stories of people who have been using the same Kindle for 15 years is not an Amazon success story because those people have not been buying Kindles. It's true even though Amazon makes far more on the margin of sending special locked up text files that were written by someone else.
- WaitWaitWha 5mo agoBest path for Amazon would be to unlock and maybe even "open source" ways to flash with third party firmware publicly (I am aware there are methods to do this already). It would gain good will with the techno crowd (important for hire, dev, sec, etc.), and with general fans & consumers (increased likelihood of switching to newer version).
- CosmicBagel 5mo agoBought my kindle in 2012 or 2013, still works fine. I put it into airplane mode years ago, and just never turned wifi on again. I use Calibre to add books to it. (I use a little usb-c to micro usb adapter). There are places and ways to get books without DRM and still pay the authors. It's a faff first figuring things out, but once you do it a couple of times, and discover the treasure troves of standardebooks.org and the gutenberg.org, it really just becomes routine you don't even have to think much about. In my experience it's a better device without the internet, no device updates, no weird book updates (books updating is an oddly unsettling concept to me). Also battery life got way better, I get a few weeks of battery life as long as it's in airplane mode. (Sometimes a couple of months if I'm using it lightly.) Granted I usually leave the backlight off, there's sunlight and lamp light, you don't need backlight. I've forgotten about it for years at a time, charged it up, and it kept working just fine. eReaders that are really just eReaders (and not an android device with apps and nonsense) are a rare case of buy it for life devices. The best kind of device. Kinda like a good watch, I now expect an eReader to work for a decade or two. I would also expect battery replacement as a part of long term ownership, though I haven't had to replace my battery yet. Anyways, you don't need Amazon to enjoy a kindle. Hek, it honestly gets better without Amazon meddling with it at random, and the device phoning home or w/e nonsense background traffic it runs over wifi. Much love for Calibre!