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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"
Just talking here in the US, the only competitor Amazon has really had here is Nook which also has lock screen ads
Kobo is also available in the US
I know but I meant as popularity wise. I don't think most people outside the Hard-core privacy/tech focused crowd know it.
Yeah it's a big contrast to continental Europe where if you go into any electronics shop they'll have Kobos on display as prominent as Kindles.
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.
I'm trusting y'all to let me know if it's worth it
What do you need it for?
It isn't up to snuff for reading Comic Books or Graphic Novels, and it's worse experience than a good Non-Color E-ink display. Which is saying it's worse for the vast vast majority of books you will read.
I'm not sure why it exists other than it has to - in order for a better version to eventually come out. R&D isn't free.
I have the Boox Onyx Note 3c. Its a color e-ink and its okay for comics. But I mainly use it for note taking. The colors are helpful for more detailed notes. The eink display makes it easier in my eyes especially for long days of note taking.
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
I have a Boox Ultra C. It has the same screen, I can confidently say the colours are utter shite for any kind of colour sensitive work or media. However, they're more than good enough for conveying information, like different coloured lines on a chart.
The colours also look sharp as fuck, as the grey scale is still used for brightness, and the colour just tints it. Meaning it looks a lot sharper than 150ppi and almost indistinguishable from 300ppi
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?
Install Calibre on a computer and use that. Browse online sailing forums for your favourite books and new releases. Then support the authors financially by buying their paper books directly from them or their publishers.
If you buy your books from them digitally use a DRM remover (Like the plugin available on Calibre) so you can forever own your books and move them to any device you want in any format you want. Forever.
Have a few ebooks and audiobooks in calibre that have been removed from Amazon/Audible. Nothing dramatic drama wise as far as I can tell other than the license expiring/moving.
It's nice not having to worry about it.
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.
I've had a Libra 2 for almost 2 years now and just yesterday I was thinking "it still looks great!". I don't feel the need to upgrade and colour isn't a must for me, so I'll just wait for a couple of generations until the colour technology is more mature and they add some kind of feature my Libra 2 doesn't have besides that.
Yeah, sadly a good color e-ink screens seems like one of those techs that is always a couple years away. It seems like maybe the demand just isn't there for R&D with everyone having large form factor phones these days.
I hope the reason they took so long is that they were waiting on a really good color e-ink screen, but I doubt it. That said, I love my Kobo Sage and my LazyLibrarian + Calibre-web + Kobo Sync workflow, and if you can do the same on these, then they'll probably be a good buy.
Keep in mind that only one company makes eInk displays. They're all using the same displays.
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.
That's kinda hilarious. Buying a product from its own competitor.
I had a good experience with their customer service.
My Kobo bricked a few days after the warranty expired (it's possible I broke it installing koreader improperly or something) and they replaced it no problem.
Took a few weeks but I was happy they replaced it at all.
I’m glad you did! I ordered a device from them and wanted to return it and it took multiple chats over multiple days (maybe weeks?) to get it done. Was quite a headache.
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.
Ooohhh, this is huge! And also an upgraded Kobo Clara (in black and white)!
BW e-readers are sufficient for reading but colors are awesome for image content in books, such as graphics and maps and whatnot. Hopefully some reviews show up soon.
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.
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.
I agree with the other reply that pdfs are terrible for e-readers. That being said, Pocketbooks can open them (which is not that common) and it is possible to read them, although it isn't so comfortable, especially for A4 pdfs. It can also open wide range of other formats and I'm quite happy with it in general. You can connect it to a computer and simply copy your books there, among other means of getting books there. But I have to say I have no first hand experience with competition.
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.
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 don't understand why everything by Onyx is so much more money than anything else on the market. I want to try one because Kobo Software is 'meh' but I can't justify double the price for.... ???
I'm guessing because onyx doesn't have a book store to subsidize the price with like Amazon.
Looks like Kobo's primed for the top spot since Jassy gave up on innovation