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.

I used my old ones a ton. I had the original nook and had been using it for 13 years. I finally upgraded to a newer one with a color e ink screen and I like it a lot. It’s a boox ultra tab c. It was pricey so I wouldn’t get it unless you really read a lot and like e ink

I use it for reading almost exclusively. I read 1-2 books a week and a few volumes of graphic novels/manga per week as well. I have poor vision and the e ink is much easier on my eyes than lcd/oled screens. I can read on this for hours but reading on a traditional phone/tablet/laptop gives me eye strain/headache after a few hours. It’s nice to have a screen you can read with no back or front light. I do use the front light at times but I usually have it off

It’s handy for taking notes and annotations. I’ve read it’s good for drawing as well but I am terrible at drawing so I don’t know. The stylus seems comparable to my friends Apple Pencil except you can use the back as an eraser like an actual pencil

battery life is much better to a traditional tablet - a charge lasts 2-3 days usually, can last longer if I keep the front light off and all the wireless radio stuff off. I’ve gotten it to last a week. It’s a bit heavy bc of the battery though

Wrt color it’s a mixed bag. It’s a very handy feature for manga and graphic novels. But the color panels are new tech so they come with issues; primarily ghosting/image retention. After some time I’ve found an ideal mix of settings to minimize the issue and make the color look as good as possible. The boox os also has a little nav ball that can quickly force a full refresh the screen at any point to remove any retained image. But the color is still not comparable to an lcd/oled by any means

Mine is based on a kaleido3 panel. There’s a newer gallery3 panel that has more vibrant color but with a trade off of noticeably slower refresh rates. It’s not actually an eink panel but something called acep; it was more meant for advertisements/billboards so quick refresh rates weren’t a priority. There’s also no real options for a device with it at the moment aside from one that has real mixed reviews and one that has an open preorder with no eta on delivery as far as I know.

It’s also a somewhat capable android tablet but I don’t really get this part. Like you can run YouTube and games and stuff. But i don’t know why you would bother? It’s workable but not nearly as good. The exception to this is web browsing depending on the site. Heavy text based sites work well in Firefox.

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.

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 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 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?

I was originally thinking of getting a BOOX or so after my old tablet died. In the end I went with a Lenovo that was on sale instead, and that was a good choice.

I just don't have the use case for them, much as I love their screens. I already own a Kindle, so maybe I'll look into the BOOX again if my Kindle ever dies and I need a new reading device. I will say that I cannot imagine reading on an normal screen after reading on a Kindle for a while. There's so much eyestrain from looking at a lit screen compared to the more paper-like e-ink display. An important thing to note is that my current Kindle came with the back-lighting set up all wrong:
It was set to behave like a mobile screen, getting brighter the lighter the room was. But that's not how you'd use it IMO. I now set it up so it's off when it is bright, and dimly lit in the pitch dark, so that when there is external light it behaves exactly like an actual paper page, and only when reading at night in bed is there any backlighting so I don't have to keep the lights on.

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

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.

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.

Recently got a Onyx Boox Ultra and it's incredible compared to my previous Kobo. Basically, its 10" with stylus input and a keyboard case. The special sauce is it running Android, complete with the Google store. The display tech is advanced enough that normal apps, for instance Connect for Lemmy, work fine. I have mine setup with Syncthing, Home Assistant, Obsidian, it all just works, mostly. I'd recommend using a 3rd party launcher and not touching the Onyx account, though.

I've had great experiences with Kobo, though. I literally went through 4 models because they kept upping their game. They're less sketchy than Onyx and are very open; you can load your own books of nearly any format and modify it as it runs linux. You can even completely replace the OS.

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 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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

I love my paperwhite. Frankly I don't think I could enjoy reading on a typical screen, and I read other shit on my phone a LOT. So reading for fun I need that difference I guess.

Does anyone recommend any e-ink e-readers that have compatibility with apps? Mine is so old I can only get stuff directly from Amazon store but can't use the library apps like libby.

I have a Supernote A5x, use it as a note pad, annotate cad plans on site and sketch basic renders on it, I use it a lot at work.

loaded it up with the kindle app, but I find it's a bit annoying to use the app, so I upload books as a pdf to a folder on it and that works. It's just a shame I have so many books locked into the kindle app. But it might get better with an update one day.