What kindle? I’d guess the one that doesn’t require a soldering iron to build…
I would love to have an alternative for kindle, but this is not it; not yet at least
this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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There are plenty of alternatives to the Kindle, several years ago I used the Kobo Glo, worked fine with PDFs, though I remeber having to hack it's local database to make it work without an account.
Surprisingly, Remarkable tablets, despite not being open source, you can do just about anything with. They allow root SSH access and the backend is a heavily stripped down version of Linux.
I've been writing an application to allow customizing splash screens over SSH/SFTP and it's actually been super easy to work with. The "jailbreak" scene is also super active, and the company has gone the opposite direction of most. They retroactively removed the need for a subscription to cloud sync on all devices, and seem to very much embrace the ridiculous things people have done with their tablets.
The device is also no nonsense and does exactly what it's designed to do extremely well and no more. No ads, no bloat, no constant internet connection. You could never connect the thing to the internet if you really wanted. Honestly one of the few devices I've bought in recent memory that I feel like I wholely own.
Two big downsides are no Bluetooth, and you need a modified hardware device to unbrick the device if you fuck up (jumping type C pins to put the device into recovery). Overall really solid and would recommend.
I use a Kobo. It has a few warts, but its great overall. Software is definitely the weakest link.
I currently use Onyx Poke 5, which use Android so I can just side load application that I need
Poke 3 here, I prefer to install from play store
Yeah, maybe bottom shelf kindle.
I've had an Oasis for a few years and it shits all over competition at the time I got it.
I just upload my own books to it.
Still this is a neat option for tinkerers.
I have a second hand Kobo that works fine without an account or an internet connection. I just load up .mobi files I get from Anna's or Z-lib.
I had one of the early generation kindles for a while. There was a straighrtforward jailbreak to make it more sociable. The set it up with Calibre which was smooth once properly set up. There was (likely still is) a cool plugin that would get RSS feeds, generate an ebook and sync automatically over wifi per schedule. So then when I went out I would have everything to read fresh with zero effort. Which at the time was pretty impressive. Phone batteries sucked so they were not really viable for reading unless you could have them plugged in all the time. The kindle was magic in comparison.
Anyone who wants to dive into e readers should go to the E-Book Readers section of MobileRead Forums. There people are very serious about ebooks.
I was thinking of buying another ereader a couple years ago. I sort of assumed there would be some open-ish type options. But I didn't find anything that suited me. I really liked eink and wish it was more widely used. I would love one of the phones with dual ekin/LCD displays.
All this to say I hope there is community uptake and participation in the project. I myself do not have a soldering iron and don't really need an ereader. But I think it's a cool contribution.
Kobo ereaders are very freedom respecting. You can run koreader or plato on it very easily if you are a little bit tech savvy. Just involves plugging in the reader to a computer and running a shell or powershell script.
I'm waiting for the PineNote to be out of the development edition so I can get one. I do have an older kindle that I jailbroke a while ago and disabled OTA on. It still sucks, but it is better with KOreader.
reMarkable is also a good device, very light and you can enable SSH/root access with a simple toggle on settings. There are also entire repositories of software for it https://toltec-dev.org/ https://github.com/Evidlo/remarkable_entware
I hear the ReMarkable 2 lacks Bluetooth, so if you want to type you have to buy their keyboard which is $299 here in Canada. Altogether that makes it $768 plus tax, which is pretty steep for what it is.
That is, until the community reverse engineer the communication between the tablet and keyboard. It's through the 5 pins, serial iirc? The complicated part would be to produce/find a decent keyboard
Do you have one? I've seen them used, and I think they've got a lot of potential. If I could use handwriting recognition to work with my Workflowy notes and edit markdown shut up and take my money. However a quick look at the Toltec stuff tells me it's mainly terminals, kernel managers and Doom. Am I missing something?
Package list at http://bin.entware.net/armv7sf-k3.2/ and https://toltec-dev.org/stable/. Personally for me Syncthing is the most important thing I've running there to quickly sync files. After all we're talking about a ePub/PDF reader not an Android tablet.
Even thought it won't ever be an android tablet with hundreds of applications, I like the fact that they actually don't make you go through the nine circles of hell in order to SSH as root, compile code and install stuff on a device you bought. They don't also include spyware like Google does. :)
Here a few link that you might find useful:
Bringing things out of "early access for developers and enthusiasts only" isn't something Pine64 does. They've got a laptop, phone, watch, tablet, ereader, and probably shit I've missed, none are ready for prime time and never will be.
Hey, it is free to wish/dream. lol
Oooo I'll keep an eye on that one!
4.2 inch, 400 x 300 pixel ePaper display
That sounds a bit basic.
It's brutal.
I like the idea, but you need a touch screen and support and you need a far, far better screen before it's in the neighborhood of actually realistic to use. It's not their fault that you can't just go buy a 300 PPI screen, but the end result is just not enough to actually be usable.
Isn't 4.2 inch like about a quarter of the screen size of a small tablet or e-reader? My phone has a bit less than 6 and is considered small.
Upgraded my Kobo Clara HD internal storage from 8GB to 128GB, so that I can put mangas on it, and installed koreader. Dirt cheap and very enjoyable.
Mom: we have Kindle at home