Kobo Clara BW VS newest paperwhite VS smth less popular but still good. Not interested in color. Libra 2 seems very interesting but very hard to find.
Pocketbook also makes great devices, not that well known outside of EU but their software has more features than Kobo and is (as of yet) not in the book selling market so no conflict of interest (and no analytics, contrary to kobo).
I love my Kobo Libra 2, with KoReader installed. I manage my books with Calibre.
What do you like about KoReader? I think I installed it on a bold reader a while back and didn’t feel that impressed. Willing to have my mind changed though.
It allows me to have all my books in one place, has a bunch of customization options, and works offline and lets me load “aquired” ebooks
I got the kobo bw. I spent a weekend downloading all 500some ebooks I’ve purchased off Amazon (which they do not make easy) to my laptop. Then I imported them into calibre, stripped all drm, and loaded them onto the kobo.
It’s great, I love it.
You can even self host a calibre web instance and have it fully integrated/replace the kobo store on the device
Can you elaborate? Do you use it that way?
You use calibre web. Then on the Kobo you connect it to your computer, backup 1-2 files, then change the store link to your domain name for your calibre web. Simple json file iirc.
Works well but doesn’t sync progress I don’t think.
Thx! How can you describe you reading experience (especially outside) ? Is device durable?
Durable is an understatement, to be honest. I have the a Kobo Clara BW and it’s fully waterproof. As in, “shit, I dropped it in the ocean lemme run it under this tap to clean it” waterproof.
I’ve dropped it a good many times as well.
The Kobo Clara BW is hands down the best ebook reader I’ve owned, and definitely better than the ones I’ve encountered in the wild with my mates
Worth noting that the one exception for every e-reader is the screen. E-ink screens are very sensitive to pressure, and can be damaged internally even if the surface is totally fine. It’s not something that any one model will do better or worse, because it’s simply due to the way e-ink screens work. Fixing the issue would require inventing new e-ink tech.
Get a folio cover, with a hard/stiff fold. This will more evenly spread any pressure out across the entire screen, ensuring that no damage happens to the underlying e-ink. Nothing worse than pulling your e-reader out of your bag and discovering that it was resting up against something pointy while you walked around, and is now damaged.
That being said, the Kobo’s waterproofing is no joke. I take mine when I go camping, because I’m not worried about it getting wet at all. I could read in the middle of a monsoon, and it would be totally fine.
How easy is it to strip DRM from Kobo ebooks?
Sorry, I strip it from Amazon ebooks. There’s a plugin for calibre called deDRM that does it, it’s pretty simple once you get it setup.
Just import book, and the drm is gone.
My last eReader purchase was the Kobo Clara 2E and it’s fantastic. I got one for my dad as well. I love the fact that you can use it completely offline and without any account.
Then they announced a partnership with IFixIt, and that cemented for me (barring any changes), that my next eReader will also be another Kobo… though with this partnership I expect that to be a long time down the road.
without any account
Did they make this easier? I have a Sage and I had to open a SQLite database file on the e-reader, then flip some flag, to bypass account sign in. But that was a few years ago.
I don’t think so, I had to go in and do the song and dance with changing a config file. Reposting this comment here for posterity.
- Delete
.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite(if you are already signed in). - Restart Kobo
- DO NOT tap “Set up over wi-fi”. Press the other one and connect it to a computer.
- Go to
.kobo/Kobo/Koboreader.config(or something like that) - Open the config file and under
[], write on a new line:SideloadedMode=true. - If you did not do steps 1 and 2, delete
.kobo/KoboReader.sqlite. - Eject and restart ereader.
- Yay! You just bypassed registration!
- Delete
A decade old paperwhite is plenty good jailbroken. A real bargain.
I’ve been using Kindle Paperwhite since 2013. The hardware is fantastic, but their locked down nature is less than amazing. I’m currently looking at options for upgrading and moving away from the kindle ecosystem, and the the Kobo Clara BW is a compelling option. Or maybe wait and see if a new BW Libra comes out.
Yeah, I love everything about my Kindle except for the fact that it’s tied to Amazon. Calibre goes a long way in bridging the gap, (I have a fairly large personal library that isn’t tied to Amazon), but it’s no replacement for native support. If you plan on using Calibre, you should seriously consider a Kobo.
What does kobo do that kindle doesn’t? I’ve been thinking about switching since I damaged my kindle, but calibre works great and I love the kindle hardware.
The Kobo and Kindle are functionally identical in terms of hardware, except for a few things that are specific to Amazon. But Amazon has been increasingly hostile towards Calibre in recent years. It used to be supported almost natively, but it seems like each update from Amazon locks down something that used to be accessible, or breaks existing functionality.
For instance, you used to be able to edit collections directly in Calibre, but Amazon broke that because they want everyone to use their collections (which are only included on books purchased directly from amazon) instead. So for instance, if you uploaded the entire Harry Potter series, you used to be able to tag all of them with the series and they’d be added to a collection together. You can’t do that anymore, and have to add them manually one by one on the Kindle’s laggy touchscreen.
They have also started breaking included cover art, because the Kindle automatically polls Amazon to download art instead. And when it doesn’t find any, (because the book isn’t from Amazon,) it wipes the included art instead of just falling back to it. Luckily this has a fairly simple fix (just unplug your kindle, let it index and break the cover art, then plug it back in so Calibre can push the cover art back to the Kindle,) but that means you need to actually take the extra time to do that every time you upload something new.
The Send To Kindle email functionality has recently been broken to where every .epub file you email just gets sent to Documents instead of Books or Newsstand. So if you have Calibre set up to grab news every Sunday, or to send new books to your Kindle, they won’t actually land in the News or Books sections like they’re supposed to. The only way to fix that is to plug it in and upload them via USB. Additionally, they have the same issue with broken cover art. So you need to plug your Kindle in to update the cover art, even when emailing your books. Which kind of defeats the purpose of emailing them, because you’d most likely do that if you don’t want to plug your device in every time.
The kindle’s indexer also has some weird issues, where certain books will just crash it and new books will stop appearing entirely. And there’s no way to see which book is the issue. So if you uploaded a bunch of books to your kindle, you’ll have to play guess-and-check to see which one is the issue. This may not be exclusive to the Kindle, but I haven’t experienced the same issue on the Kobo.
Have you used Koreader? That’s one reason I would get a kobo. As well as their new partnership with ifixit.
I also like the idea (which apparently doesn’t work with koreader) of syncing with Pocket. I don’t use Pocket, but would start if it meant I had a nice read it later ereader.
I’m the same way
If you can get an Onyx Boox tablet used by a first adopter that it wasn’t right for, it has the best of all worlds. Open, Android, EInk, large screen, and can be used to bang out content and read email. Other than that I would just get a downmarket but new Android Tablet and use it as a dedicated eBook and audio book/podcast device. The screen isn’t ideal but you can get a stock android tablet for $150 bucks us and use Caliber on it along with all the typical android stuff. Hell you might even be able to get a Linux tablet that would fit your needs but cost a little more. But if you go tablet the devices tend to be a bit more open to sideloading.
Don’t get a device without e-ink as a reader. It will end up in the trash where it belongs. A low resolution backlit display will just discourage actually using it to read.
Who said anything about a low res backlit screen? And if you read monitors and screens all day, it may be an issue, but with dark mode reading it is fine. The devices I am talking about have about twice the PPI as a 22/24 inch 1080p monitor. There are cheap e-readers that have atrocious resolutions but the tablets I am talking about are fine, but not as good as EInk.
All LEDs are backlit, and a full 1080p on a 7 inch LED screen is a dogshit reading experience that will make your eyes bleed in about 2 minutes. If you manage to find a terrible OLED at a low price, it’s still emissive and still absolutely terrible for reading.
Free is obscenely overpriced for using a budget LED tablet as a reading device. It’s terrible and has nothing going for it. Don’t pay a penny for a device you intend to read on with any display that isn’t epaper. You won’t read on it because it will be a torture device.
