Asklemmy

I think I’m on my 3rd kindle now - I had the paper white, the voyage and now the oasis. I read loads, a good hundred books a year. I have lupus though and the arthritis in my hands was making it really painful to physically hold open a book. Plus I’d filled two huge bookcases in my tiny flat. The kindle is obviously much lighter and with a case or popsocket it doesn’t hurt me to hold it. I have damage to my vision now and the kindle has worked out brilliantly for that too - I’ve been able to upload a particularly legible font to help me out and adjusting the screen brightness has been kinder on my eyes too. They really come into their own when you go on holiday - the oasis is waterproof too.

I have e-book readers that use e-ink, and I love it. I can read books for hours and not have my eyes feel tired, that's what it was designed for.

I have a remarkable 2. Had it 2 years, use it daily for taking notes during consults.

I don't use it for reading or any other task. For me it's pretty much just an infinite notepad. For this purpose it's perfect. After 2 years it's cost has reduced to something similar to paper notepads and pens.

These devices are definitely not for everyone. They have a way to go to really fulfil their potential, but I wouldn't be without one.

My spouse bought a Kindle Paperwhite that was gathering dust on a shelf, so I loaded it up and gave it a whirl. I absolutely love the thing: it's light, clear, easy to read, and easy to load things onto (especially via Calibre). The only thing I dislike about it is that the idle battery usage seems completely random at times. Sometimes I can leave it alone for two days and it'll be at half power, sometimes I go away for a few hours and it'll drop from 80% to 8%. Usually it's fine, but I've learned to keep a power source handy.

I have been really hankering for an 8 inch ereader, but it seems like everything needs to use a proprietary OS with all sorts of drawbacks. Is there anything out there that is more FOSS-minded, or is the best option to load a Kobo with KOReader and just disable as much of the main OS as possible?

Bought a Kindle Paperwhite in 2018, loved that and still use it as my carry-around book because I prefer reading on that over my phone. Recently bought a Boox Nova 2 for note taking, I don't use it for that as often as I want to but I still love reading comics on Tachiyomi and regular books synced with my Kindle through their app. Love my einks cause the battery lasts for weeks at a time

I have one and barely use it, but that's more about my reading habits than it is about the tablet. When I am in a good reading habit, I love it because it's frontlit, lighter than a book, and way easier to read while laying on my side.

I have thought about getting a Boox e-ink tablet but currently just read ebooks on my phone. It's hard not to get distracted though with other apps installed.

I have a kindle (paperwhite I think) that I won in a raffle and I've grown to love it. Much lighter than a book or a phone, no cramps from holding my hand in strange positions, and a very gentle backlight. The only thing I don't like about it is being tethered to Amazon. When it dies I'll try to find an alternative that's still compatible with my library's ebook system.

I bought a Kobo Libra 2 at the start of the summer, after trying reading both on my 7" OLED phone and a 14" OLED blet/tablet for about a year prior.

It's one of the best purchases I did this year.

I have an E-ink e reader. It’s nice on the eyes and books are super cheap along with not needing a bunch of physical space for the books. I love an actual book but I prefer the convenience of an electronic device and with the e-reader I can have at least a paper look and feel.

What is an example of a good e-ink tablet?

I have an Kobo Glo since 2013 that is working well and still getting software updates. My only gripes are that the back light is a little too bright and it can lag a bit when following endnotes.

The only eink device I ever owned was a Pebble. It was pretty great in its time though.

I got a Sony PRS-505 from late 2007, around the time of the first kindle. At the time it was amazing to be able to travel with just that instead of travel guides and multiple novels like I did before taking up weight and space. That was also like two years prior to me getting a smart phone. Since then I have had two different kindles, but they did not have as much of an impact as that sony ereader did.

I have a Kobo Libra 2, I quite enjoy it for borrowing books from the public library.

I have one that can rent library books. It's decent and I like it, but there's no open standard, you are chained to their store. I want to be able to shop all stores including tiny real-world bookstores on my Kobo.

I think that e-ink is better for books, and tablets are better for magazines and comics. I like the feel of my ebook, it has very much the same kind of feel as a paperback. The larger format of a tablet is great for magazines, and being able to pinch and zoom is useful there too

Had 6' onyx. Replaced all textbooks in school with it. Then internal flash memory broke and I returned to reading on the phone. I use speed reading module in KOReader and it'd need third crosshair, third glance per line on a wider screen. Considering how I plan to switch to zig-zag reading.. Mb I prefer phone size. Most books I read nowadays are for studying, which means emacs, large screen. I'll test a friend's reader and mb buy one if it really reduces eyestrain

I have a Kobo eReader. I like it a lot but unfortunately I forget to read books so I don't use it much...

In my curiosity, I bought a Nook Simple Touch off eBay for 15 dollars a few months ago. It actually works really great for reading EPUBs off Overdrive and OpenLibrary, and it definitely makes night reading a hell of a lot more comfortable, lasts quite long on battery, even as a cheap second hand device.

Yup. I have a Likebook Ares that I put Tachiyomi on for manga. It's a bit bigger than my phone, and the aspect ratio is a much closer match to that of manga volumes. It's nice.

It's worth noting that the paper look isn't the only benefit of e-ink, it's also crazy power efficient. Only changing what is on the display requires power. Unless you use the front-light (e-ink has to be lit from the front, light cannot pass through the display), the battery life on these things can be weeks and even months.

If you want to get into books or comics, I recommend one, but starting off reading on your phone, which I did, is a good idea.

I've got a ReMarkable (got it for free from a friend who never used it) and I think it could be great depending on your specific use-cases.

It's a pretty great tablet for taking notes on, using the pen to write feels like writing on paper, the writing is responsive, and now they have an optional keyboard for typing things up on it for situations where that works best. The biggest downsides on the note-taking front is the difficulty in adding new templates. It comes with 15 or so templates, and you can add more, but you need to be somewhat tech savy (basically if you can work SSH and know how to move files around on the CLI, you'll be fine). Though the added templates won't be able to display previews properly, but that's not the end of the world IMO.

As an E-Reader it's functional, but a bit subpar. The screen size is awesome for reading, I use a somewhat small font, and so I can fit a good chunk of a chapter on a single page, which is nice. The built-in E-Reader is basically useless, but you can download KoReader on it (again, some proficiency in using the CLI is required here), which is excellent. The biggest issues I have with it's ability as an E-Reader are the lack of a backlight (so no reading in bed without a reading lamp) and - somewhat ironically - the size (which is both a blessing while you're using it, and a curse while you're travelling with it).

It's somewhat (but not really) FOSS - they use a proprietary flavor of linux under the hood, and you can access the base operating system over SSH. If you're a linux guy/gal, it can be pretty cool, since you can install all sorts of stuff on it and setup recurring jobs via systemd (for instance, I wrote a short systemd service which swaps out the screen saver image every 5 minutes while it's in use). This also means you can potentially brick your remarkable though, and it's not easy to unbrick (though it's possible most of the time using a USB-C breakout board).

Overall, i honestly don't use it a whole lot, but if i was the sort of person who liked making handwritten notes, I'd probably use it a whole lot more. But I generally find it easier to just use my kindle for on-the-go reading, and my phone/desktop for note-taking

I like the tech but I'm waiting for a phone with a 60Hz (minimum) color display to come out first. So I'll be waiting awhile.