I own the BOOX Note 2, it's an android tablet with some E-Ink friendly modifications. It's the best electronic reading experience I've ever had:<p>- It's 10.3", perfect for reading PDFs like scientific papers without being too large to carry around.<p>- The included reader is stellar, with special modes for reading PDFs, comicbooks, etc.<p>- The included note-taking app is pretty good and fully featured. It integrates with the reader and there's a side-by-side mode.<p>- It supports every open format I've tried: PDFs, DJVU, epub, mobi and more. (Haven't tried PS.)<p>- I can scribble on all document types, including ebooks.<p>- I can install apps from the app store. In particular this means I can read my Kindle library and Wallabag feed, and...<p>- with Syncthing syncing is set and forget. When I download a PDF or book on my computer, I simply pick up the tablet and start reading it. Any notes I make are synced back to my laptop.<p>- Of course, the above is in addition to the standard E-Ink features you'd expect: It lasts for weeks on a charge, the reading experience in bright sunlight is fantastic, it's lighter than an iPad, zero eye strain, etc.<p>I installed only the software I need for reading and syncing, but there's a lot more you could do with it since the play store and F-droid are available. You can use it as an external monitor, for instance.
Maybe this is just way too niche, but I've been wondering why there hasn't been any e-ink based laptops with a powerful enough of a processor (e.g. 10th/11th gen core i7 would be great) and ability to put enough RAM (e.g. 16GB) to run a development environment.<p>Something like that would be oh so light and great/easy to carry around. And something purely used for dev doesn't need to have the ability to play videos, etc. (that would just be distracting anyway, right? =)<p>I know there have been a few tablet/reader-based devices that use e-ink and have the ability to run Linux, but of the ones I've seen, none of them seem to have powerful enough of a CPU (and definitely not enough RAM).
I nearly went down this route, with an old, cheap, hacked, reader-only e-ink device with all the cleverness done on a different machine and the output pre-optimised for the specific target device.<p>However, when I looked into it, I found that buying a Boox with a recent version of Android on it, meant that I could replace most of that with apps on the device itself, including borrowing DRM'd books from my local library, which is handy sometimes.<p>And the price difference didn't actually seem that bad, once I took into account my desire for a warm backlight. Maybe if I already owned a simpler device with that feature, I'd have hacked it instead.<p>Having said that, I don't have quite the same aversion to short length reading on e-ink, so I also use Pocket and even a browser (Firefox mobile with DarkMode addon in "light" mode) and so I'm probably getting more use out of that side of things for my money.<p>I have heard very good things about KOReader, but the standard Boox reader is also pretty great, and integrates with the device well (e.g. the default launcher lists books from that reader) so I've not had reason to try anything different.<p>As someone else has mentioned, the only bad thing about Boox I've found so far is that they seems to be withholding their Linux modifications. Doesn't affect me directly in practical terms at the moment, but it's the principle of the thing.<p>Oh remembered, one other potential bad thing, there are apparently core apps that phone home. People have workarounds involving fake VPN apps that block specific urls.
I'm currently using an older Kindle (the Touch, which sadly doesn't include a backlight at all) with a booklight cover, but it's getting very slow thanks to what I assume is storage degradation after 12 years of use. I'd really like to upgrade to a better ereading solution, but I'm at a loss right now. Here are my requirements:<p>- Bigger screen than my Touch (7" would be about perfect, I suspect, but I'm not <i>too</i> picky)
- Backlight with warmness adjustability (my current light keeps my girlfriend up at night because it's not embedded)
- The ability to take notes on device would be a nice add, I like to annotate PDFs and such
- Ample storage to use for another 10ish years.<p>I don't need many bells and whistles. Unfortunately the Kobo series looks like it's a bit out of date right now, or I would just get one of those. Any recommendations?
I can only violently agree with the author: koreader is incredible. When I look for ebook readers, running koreader is an absolute must. The nicest thing about it is how <i>hackable</i> it is, since most of it is written in Lua. When I got my Kobo Aura One, koreader did not yet support the colored background LEDs, and adding support for that was actually pretty easy. The koreader developers are incredibly helpful and it's just a great project.
Where does everyone get their books from? From what I could tell, all books you can buy commercially come with proprietary (Amazon) or Adobe (everyone else) DRM, making them impossible to read on koreader. It seems like you always have to buy into someone's ecosystem, or am I missins something?
Reposted in the eink subreddit: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/lo3ibm/my_life_in_eink/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/eink/comments/lo3ibm/my_life_in_ein...</a>
I can't read anything long on a computer screen, so I use a Firefox plugin to send articles to my Kindle to read later. It also gives me an excuse to break away from the office and screen to do some in-depth reading on whatever I'm working on.
offtopic, but color e-ink is getting better, there is already a second version for the Kaleido screens and we are getting bigger screens:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6K53j1k1vY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6K53j1k1vY</a>
I've long wrestled with myself whether to buy a remarkable (2) and have finally decided against it because I expect that I will own another technical device that will be obsolete and an expensive door stopper in a couple years time (made that mistake with a 1st gen Kindle). Also, while it's extremely sleek, my main use for paper & pen these days is for editing and it's just no fun without a red pen ;-)<p>My expectation (and sincere hope, ngl) is that we will see a major innovation push in e-Ink displays and devices over the next year(s) and I have now resolved to buy a remarkable 3 (or 4) which will hopefully be available in color (and fully usable without any mandatory public cloud tethering). And maybe with some saner pricing options. I mean, a cover for $150? That makes it clear that this is a veblen good, not a workhorse for a wide audience (like schools, students etc.) - or it's Apple-monitor-stand-style consumer rip-off, who knows. I'd much prefer a faux-leather option anyway (not too comfortable with wrapping my tablet in dead cow skin, but don't like the $79 grey option either) but they unfortunately don't offer that.