with extras like […] no lockscreen ads
What the fuck? Why is that an extra not just the default? It’s great that this product isn’t riddled with ads, but that’s like saying it’s great a burger is not made of human shit; it’s crazy that anyone would tolerate a shit-burger in the first place.
Maybe ads are normal in the e-reader space for some reason, but that’s just insane to me.
I think it’s only Amazon that does lock screen ads but since they have two-thirds of the market share globally (and a near monopoly in the US where the Verge is based) then whatever they do in the e-reader space is “normal”
You can buy “discounted” Kindle e-readers with ads, or you can buy them without ads for full price.
There’s no discount there, you’re just accepting their marketing bullshit. That sounds to me like the company is double-dipping by shoving ads in your face and making the product objectively worse, then charging even more for a “premium” model where the only difference is they haven’t intentionally downgraded it.
Hence the quotation marks.
I’m trusting y’all to let me know if it’s worth it
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I like my Kobo, but wish it had a bit better of a storefront. I want to get my books from more than just the kobo store. Overdrive support is nice. It sometimes loses my page just like a real book, ironically.
Still, I find myself still letting it collect dust due to it’s limited storefront and long book checkout times at the library. Physical books and newspapers are a bit bigger and stable software-wise.
I really wish epaper displays were more common. It’s a really cool technology. I’d love an inexpensive epaper monitor or maybe an alarm clock?
pebble smartwatch with ePaper please!
The Watchy exists ;D
I really REALLY love my Kobo Libre 2, it’s a fantastic reader. I would like to move the Color version, but they didn’t actually show anything like a graphic novel, guess I’ll be waiting for reviews, not sure why they wouldn’t show the most common use for one of these unless maybe it’s not great at it.
I have a Onyx Boox Nova C that has pretty much the same technology (Kaleido Plus) and would say that the color display is mostly just a neat gimmick that comes with some tradeoffs. Compared to a pure monochrome E-Ink display the contrast is much worse and colors don’t really pop either. You basically always need at least a bit off background lighting to be able to read.
I’d recommend these types of display only if being able to read without background lighting isn’t a must and even then only for stuff that’s better with color, like notes, technical books or the occasional colored page in a book/manga. If you want to read something reliant on stunning colorful artwork like graphic novels I’d stay away.
This was my fear, thanks. When I saw what they were doing with it I was like come on, who needs to take notes in color.
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If you want pretty good color screen, try the Boox Tab Mini C
I use a kobo libra 2 with calibre and it’s great. If you buy a kobo either make sure you really like it or buy it from Amazon. Their customer service is absolutely horrible.
Bought a math book from them, they refunded it with no questions, after I read a lot of it, because some of the equations were unreadable.
Both use E Ink’s latest Kaleido color screen technology, which has subtle, pastel-like hues and drops from a 300ppi grayscale resolution to 150ppi when you view content in color.
I had to check just how bad 150ppi would be when dropping down the resolution for color.
A 24" Full HD monitor has a PPI of 92. So it’s actually okay.
I’m still using my old Kobo Aura HD (now roughly 11 years old) and the battery still lasts over a month. The screen was already decent back then, but a bit sluggish. I just checked, the old one has 265 ppi. Maybe it’s not time for an upgrade yet :)
A PPI of 92, but that screen is going to probably be between 2 and 3 feet from your face, vs the 150 PPI sitting 6 inches to a foot away… Doesn’t mean it isn’t good enough by any means, but it’s certainly not a conclusive comparison
Of course, but it’s mostly for reading. The color will probably be used for notes and the occasional image, for which it’s easily good enough. When I read it’s usually a foot away, while I keep my monitor at 2 feet.
Black and white content (text) has 300 dpi atleast, so for that it’s perfect.
E-Ink is fantastic for lots of reading and battery life, for everything else an actual screen is leagues ahead. The response time is awful too.
Fully agree, just an observation about the comparison
What e-reader should I buy, when I don’t want to use amazon (or similar) services to log in/buy/transfer books to the reader?
I have plenty of free old PDF books I simply want to copy there and be able to read them without ads and online bs.
I don’t need web browser, mp3 player, spotify, google translator or other such nonsense. I need simple controls, backlight (adjustable) to read at night and that’s basically it.
Thanks for any input.
You can easily load PDFs into kobo readers, at-least into mine. However, most PDFs will be unreadable. To reads PDFs properly on a e-reader you need a screen that is at-least as big as their render size. Meaning, that if the PDF was built for A4, your experience will be, in most cases, lacking on any screen smaller than A4.
I have no experience using such big eink and can’t comment on their quality.
PDFs are usually terrible for reading in this screen size. If they are plain text, you might be able to convert them to proper ebooks in Calibra.
OK, thank you for noting that. Never thought about it. My local library hands out free e-books of classic old literature so it might be available in other formats too. I grabbed some PDFs, because it was easiest to open in PC or android. Will check it out.
I use a Kindle, but never bought a single book from them. I mostly use their transfer method for convenience instead of looking for a cable. As for books, I downloaded a few gigs of ebooks in html/RTF/doc format well before e-ink was invented, and use those with calibre to convert to epub. Pdfs are rather suboptimal for ebooks.
This guy reviews all kinds of e-ink devices. https://www.youtube.com/c/MyDeepGuide/videos
I watched his videos before deciding to get a large format BOOX Max Lumi (13") for PDF reading and note taking. I wanted the large one to split screen a PDF textbook on the left and notebook on the right. That was a few years ago, though, and I suggest reviewing some more recent videos to get an idea of what the current devices are like.
Kinda surprised they even still exist. Bought one for my mom years ago. She used it a lot but thought 10-15 bucks for an ebook was too much. So i had to download a bunch of public domain stuff for her. Kept her occupied for a good while
Why would you be surprised? And why would 15$ for a book be too much?
Because we are/were not j.p. gotrocks kin
You can also sideload epubs, borrow books from libraries on Overdrive and read articles online, etc. It’s way easier on the eyes than screens that rely on refresh rates (which also make them better to use before sleep), they have long battery life. And it’s a lot lighter than carrying books around.
They have a lot of advantages over other platforms for reading.
I just wish the tech was there for Graphic Novels.
the day will eventually come that I need to replace my kindle and I assume e-ink will be full HD by then.
Honestly if an e-reader doesn’t last you decades you’re doing something wrong.
I agree with your sentiment, but the resolution on e-readers has been better than HD for about a decade now.
so I can read full colour comics on an e-ink e-reader then?
My kindle oasis (1st gen) cover disagrees with this statement. Somehow my Kindle Keyboard outlasted my oasis by a decade.
I’ve used the Boox color e-reader. It’s fine. My one complaint is that the white background of the screen is not as white as the background in traditional e-readers. Like I saw somewhere that the Kindle’s white background is somewhere near 85% white, and the Boox color screen is 65ish% white. It was noticable when I used it, to the point that I sent it back and got a non color e-reader.
I ended up getting the Boox Nova Air 2. it is fantastic. https://onyxboox.com/boox_novaair2
I love Kobo ereaders but I’m fed up with the DRM encryption on their ebooks, quite inconvenient. I followed this Kobo DRM removal tutorial and tried out these three methods. They’re actually pretty good. Especially BookFab Kobo Converter – unlike the other two methods, it doesn’t require you to install so many plugins or input any code. You can directly convert your ebooks to DRM-free EPUB format. It also has a built-in browser that can directly access the official Kobo website, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between different software. If you’ve been dealing with the same headache, give the method I mentioned a shot!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Both use E Ink’s latest Kaleido color screen technology, which has subtle, pastel-like hues and drops from a 300ppi grayscale resolution to 150ppi when you view content in color.
The seven-inch Kobo Libra 2 is my favorite e-reader outside of Amazon’s ecosystem, offering the Kindle Paperwhite’s IPX8 waterproof design but with extras like physical page-turning buttons, no lockscreen ads, and more storage.
However, it’s $30 more expensive than the Kobo Libra 2, and you’ll have to buy the stylus separately for $69.99.
It offers the same six-inch display and IPX8 waterproof design but now comes with 16GB of storage, as well as an improved processor.
I hope so; the Kobo Clara 2E’s sluggish performance was one of my chief complaints.
All of the devices are available to preorder starting today and will ship on April 30th.
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