I’ve been down the e-reader rabbit hole the last few years - currently use a Kobo Libra Colour as my daily driver, but also have a Boox Palma, PocketBook InkPad 3 Colour, Kindle Oasis & Kindle Scribe (Gen 1) I did try a Boox Go 7 II Colour but that was very quickly returned (and if I never have to deal with Boox customer service again it will be too soon)
I moslty use KOReader so I can keep in sync between the devices (and Readest on my IOS devices and Mac, using KOSync) but I do really like the naitive nickle interface on the Kobo so recenly I’ve been using that more. With a few tweaks installed via nickle menu, and some Kobo patches, I have it running in a similar way to my KOReader setup (This site is amazing for easily adding Nickle Menu / KOReader & patches to a Kobo)
I was a heavy Calibre user, but I fully moved over to Grimmory (a community fork of Booklore, with a very active Discord community) and it’s a massive improvement. It’s Kobo sync implementation is great, and it has a built in KOSync server element which is nice.
Of all the hardware I own, the PocketBook InkPad 3 is by far my favourite. It just feels more premium, and the screen (for bw reading) is better than the KLC (neither are as good as the Oasis) I’d use this as my daily driver with KOReader/KOSync (because the PoketBook cloud service is a hot mess) but I have a really annoying issue with cases for this device. I like to use an origami style case so I can sit the device on a desk/tray table in a vertical position for reading, but whatever case I try, none of them sit level on the desk. I’ve tried to live with it but I just can’t.
Yes! I recently bought the 11" 32GB grayscale Kindle Scribe, and I like it a lot. The screen isn’t backlit, however—this model has a front light. It’s fine! The text is crisp and clear, and you can adjust both the brightness and the color temperature. It comes with a magnetic stylus that uses Wacom’s EMR tech, i.e., no need for bluetooth or a battery. It’s nice enough to write on for the limited amount of book annotation I do; I suspect it’s not as sophisticated a digital notebook as its competitors. I got it primarily for its size (I need something big enough for PDFs), not its notebook capabilities. I will admit that the fact that Amazon offered me a big discount to trade in my ancient, no-longer-supported Paperwhite was more than a minor inducement.
I much prefer it to my iPad for serious book reading and annotating. Some things I particularly like: I can connect it to my Google Drive to download books and articles. It’s not limited to the mobi or azw formats, i.e., there’s no need to convert from ePub to use it as an ebook reader. And, my highlights are ported to Readwise, and from there, right into Obsidian.
As an owner of the first-generation Kindle Scribe, I recently picked up the new Kindle Scribe Colorsoft. Both have front-lit screens, but I see no reason to upgrade from the original to the newer grayscale version. The first-generation model is perfectly capable and actually offers a slightly better writing experience. The Colorsoft Kindle Scribe is much better for reading technical documents; the color display makes interpreting color-coded charts and figures much easier. I also use the Colorsoft Scribe to read illustrated books in my Kindle library, such as those on birds and botany.
I almost went for the Colorsoft, but most of the reviews indicated that the text on the grayscale model was sharper, so I opted for that instead since what I’m reading is text-heavy with little in the way of charts and graphs. I can see where color—even if muted—would make a difference there.
I bought the XTEINK X4 “credit card-sized” (it’s a little bigger) ereader a few weeks before this episode aired; my first ereader in several years, so the timing was fun.
I had a blast “tinkering” with it; setting up custom firmware, setting up Calibre plugins an automations to begin an ebook library etc, etc, but after all the fun was over: I still prefer to read paper books, and I’m still “pretty good” at focusing on reading a book on my iPad or iPhone when in a pinch.
There’s not one single notification enabled on my iPad; that’s what my phone is for. But after a few weeks on the X4, I’m appreciating all the “real estate” of my iPad Air (which is how I read comic books, too, like Jason mentions!)
I use the Rock Paper Pencil removable matte screen protector.
I have worn glasses all the time I’m awake since I was 18 months old, though admittedly, not the same glasses.
My glasses were damaged by TSA in 2016, but I managed to use them until 2019, when they fell off my face and had a negative interaction with my mom’s patio.
With COVID, and my Mom breaking her hip, I was unable to leave her to get new glasses until early this month,
I have been entirely dependent on ebooks during that time. I have boxes of printed books I can’t wait to read once I move next month. I think I will be able to read print, though I will still read lots of ebooks.
One downside to Kobo with Overdrive Library books is that unlike Kindle, you can’t keep books longer than the checkout period. On Kindle, I can go to Airplane mode and keep reading beyond the two week limit. I often download 5 books at a time and stay in Airplane mode until I finish all of them. Because the Kobo/Overdrive/Libby integration is so good, library books on Kobo become unavailable as soon as the loan period expires.