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Comment by acabal | Hacker News Reader

The hardware's fine, but software-wise Kindle is still a horrible ereader. It still refuses to read epubs, the de-facto ebook format used by the rest of the world. Its native formats are terrible: mobi is an ancient, horrible proprietary binary format. If you get a nicer modern mobi but use "send to Kindle" to transfer it, Amazon inexplicably and silently removes all advanced formatting, effectively downgrading it to a mobi from 2002. azw3, its own proprietary format that competes with its other two proprietary formats (the third being kfx), is kind of a repackaged epub but more annoying to create, not open source, still lacking in many of the formatting features we expect from ebooks in 2021, and incompatible with "send to Kindle"!! The fact that Amazon has three competing proprietary ebook formats, each more terrible than the last and one of which literally can't be sent to its own devices, should be telling.

Kindle software is software made by people who hate reading. If you want an ereader, get literally any other device. Don't support Amazon's disdain for the market it has a stranglehold on.

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Calibre is your friend when you get a Kindle. I've converted a hundred epub books by now.

Rarely ever had a problem with that, it's just one additional step with emailing your kindle address with the book.

To add, I used to keep my kindle not attached to an amazon account (so no email), but I plugged it into USB like a flash drive and synced books with Calibre.

Worked for me really well, it's great at bulk conversions. and I used to charge it on my desk anyways, so it wasn't much of a hassle to remember to sync.

It really depends on what you're content is. Technical books with equations turn into garbage when I convert, and the formatting is all off. It's just easier to do PDF for me.

Have you tried the KindleUnpack plugin? [0] I originally used Calibre's built-in "convert" option, but I found I've gotten much better results from KindleUnpack. It gives a much "cleaner" EPUB with less of the annoying Calibre watermarking in the CSS and such.

[0] https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/KindleUnpack

Just rename your .epub to .png and they can be emailed as is to your Kindle. Yes, it's insane and mostly works.

What?! Why does that work?

There's also the excellent ebook-convert command line tool as part of Calibre which can be used to convert between the formats[1], I use it convert HN content to Kindle e-book for my https://hntokindle.com.

[1] https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/generated/en/ebook-convert....

It sounds like inkjets printers - subsidized cheap device, but full of DRM to lock you in. BUT! They are great if you are an advanced user and willing to buy 3rd party cartridges, mess with firmware, etc.

I wonder if all the mentioned issues can be fixed by using koreader.

https://github.com/koreader/koreader/releases

I was hoping that Koreader would be a solution but after hacking my Kindle I found that Koreader would keep randomly locking up and require me to hard reboot the Kindle (wasting several minutes, and it would lose my place in the book). I ended up buying a used Nook for around $15, the online service is discontinued but you can still sideload books (including epubs).

Interesting. I want to try this on my old Kindle Touch.

I would love an alternative. I've tried multiple Kobos, but I've had a variety of issues with them.

The Kobo Libra H2O had an extremely inconsistent backlight that was blue on one side, yellow on the other. The Kobo Clara HD had no landscape mode (why?), and some ghosting issues. I've heard reviews say the Kobo Forma has a barely-functional power button. On top of all this, the build quality just feels cheaper and more plasticky than the Kindle.

I really hope someone makes a better e-reader soon so I can stop supporting Amazon and their ecosystem.

I've been using a Boox e-reader for months now, migrated from a Kindle. I've really loved it, particularly the stylus for notetaking. And if you want something cheaper, the smaller versions don't have a stylus or a WACOM layer.

What app do you use for reading ebooks on that one?

And how is boox. I've been looking for an ereader with a very big screen and haven't found a decent one yet, but the boox might be the one. Is the drawing any good?

I have an android ereader without a wacom layer, my favorite app to use is Moon+ Reader. If you have access to an android device, I strongly recommend trying it out. The customizations allowed are staggering and I can't imagine getting a new device that is unable to run it. KoReader is also great and open source. People don't love the way the animations work on an ereader but you could use the Kindle app as well.

How do you go by syncing your bookmarks with different devices?

Moon+ Reader has a built in cloud sync function and so does KoReader although I can't say more about KoReader as I only keep that installed on my old kobo.

Here's the link I followed to set up cloud sync for reading positions/notes/bookmarks:

https://raymondlamsk.blogspot.com/2018/03/moon-reader-how-to...

Calibre is a very useful piece of software regardless of what ereader you end up with, and there's this feature request about syncing back to calibre too but I haven't personally explored it. https://github.com/koreader/koreader/issues/3814

One annoying thing I sometimes run into is that if you keep wifi off, you'll have to remember to turn it to sync. But that's understandable.

I use the built in ereader software, called NeoReader. It's pretty fast, and after a small ramp-up of figuring out how to customize things (for instance, the font size wouldn't go small enough for me, so I had to learn that the "pinch-to-zoom" gesture could make the font size even smaller than the font size slider could go)... I've been really happy with it. I've also played around with KOReader, which works very well, too -- I'm just more used to NeoReader at this point, so I haven't switched over.

Drawing is very good in my experience, though I haven't tried the reMarkable or the Kobo Ellipsa. Maybe I just got used to it really quickly but it doesn't lag enough for me to actually notice when I'm writing on it, and hasn't slowed down at all since I got it.

Well let me give an opposite view: I've had 3 Kobos (Touch, Glo, Clara) and they're all excellent :) great software, hackable so I can install other apps, nice hardware too.

Kobo software is great, but their newer e-readers are crap hardware. Both the Forma and Libra have a giant dark lighting band and uneven lighting throughout.

I’ve never had an issue with my kobo ereaders.

Have the Kobo Aura One: It has none of these problems.

Unfortunately you can't buy an Aura One new now. So you're stuck with the Kobo devices that do have those problems.

Sorry - I meant Kobo Aura H2O. You can still buy it.

Amazon should have been investigated 10 years ago for monopoly action on e-books, not Apple.

There's a class action lawsuit filed this year against Amazon, alleging conspiring with the Big Five book publishers on e-book prices: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/p...

The Kindle is an Amazon book reader. You hate it because you want it to be a generic ebook reader. It's not that.

Perhaps the idea is that there are "Amazon books" is what's undesirable. They undercut everyone on pricing and have coercive market power.

I agree with all of this.

The only reason why I've stuck with a Kindle paperwhite is because there's nothing out there that is as readable under so many conditions in that form factor. OLED/LED displays are garbage at the beach and weigh a ton. Similar displays (Kobo, Onyx) are bulky and heavier. The paperwhite is perfect hardware. It's just the ecosystem that eats ass.

What good alternatives are there though? I failed to find anything good a few years ago when I needed an e-reader.

Kobo is the best alternative and they provide software updates to sort out issues. It supports epub and pdf.

i almost bought a Kobo earlier this year but talked myself back into the Kindle ecosystem just for whispersync. while i vastly prefer reading on the kindle itself, i do often find myself reading on my phone during unexpected downtime. MOBI sucks but even self-converted epub MOBI seamlessly syncs progress.

Today on HN there's an extensive thread about Kobo readers.

Here: http://devinlogan.org/e-readers.html

Thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28585129

I've enjoyed the Kobo. It's easy to side-load books using Calibre, and they're store is fine, and library integration using Overdrive is fine.

I love my Nook. And you can easily install a launcher and other apps on it via ADB. I use mine to study with Anki (Ankidroid).

The Nook has had the colour-temperature changing feature for a few years now. I have two devices with that feature.

Personally I still use a Kobo Aura One from ~2016. IMHO it's a perfect ereader: Larger form factor, eink, amber frontlight, and the 2nd-best renderer on the market. (iBooks being the best, but obviously not an option for eink.)

When using Kobo's kepub format, you basically get a modern Webkit renderer. (Note that regular epubs trigger the much worse ADE renderer.) It's a pity you have to use their kepub format, but fortunately kepub is just epub with some extra HTML. I've been hoping for years that Kobo will get its act together and enable their good Webkit renderer for plain epubs so we can stop having to make kepubs, but that hasn't happened yet.

Additionally I believe you can install other software like koreader on Kobos, so if you don't like Kobo's own software you have options, unlike Kindle.

There's a plugin for Calibre that converts epubs to kepubs automatically when you send them to the device.

Literally set and forget. Install plugin, get kepubs always.

I had written a comment that some sites just add KEPUB output into its CI/CD pipelines, but then I re-read your username and remembered who I'm talking to. :)

I imagine there's probably some sort of Sales Executive over at Rakuten that thinks keeping an inferior rendering engine present on the device is just enough incentive for the average user to do as much of their shopping as they can within the Kobo ecosystem.

What about a 'remarkable'?

A bit big for an eReader perhaps (10") but supports Epub and PDF, is a fairly open platform with lots of community activity and they are about to add the ability to sync with cloud services which I think will enhance its usability.

Not to mention the ability to take notes with a pen.

Or there are three similar Onyx Boox products.

For reading it does a bad job (check the reddit) and at a pricepoint of 800$, a boox might be better

Not sure where you got the $800?

The Boox has many different models so specifying a price without a model wouldn't make sense, so I assume you were referring to the RM2.

The RM2 is US$400, which is expensive compared to e-readers, but is not $800. And BTW, yes, it is annoying how USD are just assumed, but that is our reality for better or worse (and I'm not an American).

800$ was at the remarkable 2, but I didn't realize it put the pricing in Canadian Dollars, so the total for a tablet + "pen plus" ended up being 800$ CAD, not 800$ USD.

I've replaced my Kindle with a Remarkable 2 and am generally pleased with the overall experience. The larger screen is nice, as is the ability to read/annotate academic papers on the same device.

There are a bunch of little things that would improve the epub experience, like improved navigation and bookmarks (never really made use of these on my Kindle though). The biggest missing feature IMO as a Kindle replacement is the lack of builtin lighting.

Love my remarkable. But it doesn't have a backlight, so you cannot read in the dark which is a pain point.

The latest software update is a huge step back in terms of UX. There's way more whitespace, it takes more taps to change commonly changed settings (super annoying given eink latencies), and clearly no one who worked on it was left handed.

Yes I was shocked with the changes!

I didn't find one redeeming quality, and I'm one of ~those~ people who hate using icons, enjoying words better for interfaces that change so frequently.

It also phones home and reports everything you read, how much, and when.

That alone is sufficient reason never to use one.

That's used to synchronize between devices, and you can disable it.

No, since it's proprietary software you don't know what it's being used for. But I'd bet a great deal of money in how they store and analyse all that data for purposes of advertising and worse.

I personally don't want a list of all the "subversive literature" I read nicely compiled for corporations and government to exploit, fuck that 100x.

I get it, it's not the device for you. You can leave it disconnected from WiFi and sideload everything if you are that paranoid.

It feels like the "Just don't do X if you are that paranoid" attitude is singlehandedly responsible for the increasingly egregious privacy invasions from the last decade.

I didn't say that. I'm saying that if you don't like how the device operates you can still use it in other ways. If the Kindles forced WiFi to be active and connected to Amazon servers, I'd see your point.

A desire for privacy is not paranoia.

You don't even need a threat to desire privacy. It's a human right.

Surely you see that a desire for privacy is not the same as:

> I personally don't want a list of all the "subversive literature" I read nicely compiled for corporations and government to exploit

I do not, that seems like a very basic expression of a desire for privacy.

Not wanting your literature choices under surveillance is a common type of privacy that many people, myself included, desire.

Eh, the comment was hyperbolic at best and paranoid at worst.

The library knows which books you checked out, and the book store knows which books you've bought. Is this really that much different?

The library does not sell my data to thousands of corporations as its core business model. At the book store I can pay cash if I so desire. Yes you're right, it's truly no different from a detailed live-log of everything you read, analysed, packaged, and sold to whomever pays for it.

What don't you like about that sentence?

> subversive literature

Many books I read were on a list (as in, jail for possession) less than 40 years ago where I live.

> nicely compiled for corporations

It's literally the explicit purpose of collecting this data.

> and government

Yes, there's no way a government could ever exploit detailed data about their citizen's behaviour, inclinations, political opinions, etc.

Lol. "Paranoid" is such a loaded word. Not really suited for disliking something which is openly known to happen.

Are you "paranoid about catching gonorrhea" if you decide to wear a condom? :-)

Yes. I've been happily married for twenty years, so my perspective is likely to be different. ;-)

I'm with you. But, as others have noted, there are ways around it, even before there's a jailbreak available:

(1) Never connect the device to the Internet. There's really no reason to.

(2) Use KFX Output in Calibre, blocking access to the Amazon servers. This is a bit of a hassle but it is doable. Especially since books take hours to read, so you're really only doing the work for a few minutes to get hours of spy-free enjoyment.

Why buy a Kindle at that point? I have a Likebook Mars that has an SD card slot that I use to load books on to it, which I have never connected to the internet.

Out of curiosity, do you have ghosting problems with the Mars? You can also connect a kindle to USB and use the internal flash without ever connecting it to the internet.

No more than any other eink? I haven't noticed anything in particular, but I haven't been looking for ghosting.

It works great for my purposes.

It's reasonably priced pretty decent eink reader.

In general, I find that Kindle has the best backlight, is fastest, and has a generally very smooth UI. Now, I haven't used the latest version of the OS, so that might have changed, but in general all the non-Kindle E-Ink devices I've used, I've wished it were a Kindle without the spy stuff.

I'm hoping the pine note will become a viable device after it releases. A fully open, respects the user, 10" e-ink reader that runs GNU/Linux from an organization that has a proven track record of upstreaming all hardware specific patches to the mainline linux kernel. I expect Debian/Mobian will be available for it, and if battery life isn't terrible, it will be my ideal e-reader.

https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/

https://www.pine64.org/2021/08/15/introducing-the-pinenote/

I purchased the original B&N Nook (e-ink) and later one with the front-lit screen. The low price and ability to side-load epubs were the deciding factors, along with there being no freedom respecting alternative. But, later discovered that Nook too phones home with all your reading habits including side loaded content. I rooted both of them (the Nook runs Android), and installed a firewall to block all comm with B&N, and just side-load everything. Acceptable hardware, but the software on the newer models is a dumpster fire (crashes unless you restart device after every few hundred pages read, loses track of what page you were on, have to navigate more screens to do most common tasks, terrible to navigate to book if more than a few loaded onto the device, etc.)-- the original version's software was better in all respects, but still lacking for managing more than a few titles loaded onto the device at once.

(edited to make links clickable)

>Where is the microSD card slot? The case design of the PineNote is fixed, making physical changes like adding a microSD card slot would raise the cost unreasonably. However, revisions of the PineNote motherboard after 1.1 will feature an internal ribbon cable connector where a microSD card slot may be attached. Attaching such a device will require taking the PineNote apart.

This attitude by the designers shows fundamental cluelessness.

Pine64 is a different model than your typical commercial operation. They are trying to get freedom respecting devices into the hands of hackers at the lowest price point possible. They even subsidized device costs for a run of their laptops after lcd panel prices increased. But, usually, they just suspend production until component prices improve.

They just began offering a more commercial (supported) experience on some devices if you pay a little more. But, historically, if you purchased a Pine64 device there was no expectation of support beyond a 15 day hardware warranty.

They also want to emphasize the difference between the part of the org that sells stuff, and the main org. All commerce takes place on pine64.com. Everything else (forums, wiki, etc.) is on pine64.org.

Basically freedom loving hobbyists building stuff and getting it into the hands of other freedom loving hobbyists. And, if it weren't for that second part, none of their devices would be usable. They rely on the community to develop the software for their devices.

Not for everyone. But, a worthwhile trade off for some of us.

Not having a SD card isn't "they rely on the community to develop the software", it's hardware. Not designing the thing to include a SD card is their own fault. And "well, if you disassemble a later model you can add an SD card by hardware hacking" is absurd.

Commercial products leave out the SD card 1) to encourage you to pay for their own services for purchases, rather than plopping some videos/mp3s/ebooks on a SD card, and 2) so they can price discriminate by offering less storage on some models. Pine64 doesn't have that excuse.

It is more like, yeah we blew it, but the cost of new tooling for injection molding an updated case would increase the cost of the (very low volume) device too much to reach a price point that would be accessible to as many hackers as possible. We'll add the port on newer revisions of the board, so you can either embed a card inside the device, or make/modify your own case.

Lots of hackers all around the world don't make anywhere near the incomes of e.g., SV developers. So, this is more, "Lets keep the price down to make the community as large and inclusive as we can." The projected price point of the e-reader is, unfortunately, already too high for many.

https://www.pine64.org/pinenote/

https://www.pine64.org/2021/08/15/introducing-the-pinenote/

Lack of epub support is unacceptable. An e-reader should allow you to read e-books (what a concept!)

It's not an e-reader, it's a Kindle.

Even so.

An audio player that played proprietary files by exactly one record company would be obvious bullshit.

Somehow publishing has allowed itself to be squeezed into the e-reader equivalent. The result is a predictable lack of quality in both hardware and software - never mind consumer choice and delivery options.

You're wishing the Kindle wasn't a Kindle. Amazon clearly has 0 interest in making an open-ish e-reader.

Yes, you can dislike the Kindle, but to say it's a bad e-reader is like saying a bicycle is a bad car.

Going with your logic, it's correct to say that it's a bad e-reader, because it's not an e-reader but a Kindle.

What you all guys mean by Kindle? I have one for like a decade and I don’t get it. It’s not a strong brand of itself like iPhone (which is also smartphone).

All I can tell about it is that it’s a mediocre reader and that’s it. I don't upgrade it to any other reader because it just works, so I’m going to keep it till it won’t.

And a smartphone should allow you to install apps, like Android apps on iPhone...

I love my jailbroken Kindle Paperwhite with KOreader on it. Supports epubs without any issues.

I just learned about the existence of KOReader. Have you encountered any downsides compared to stock Amazon firmware?

The most annoying software issue that really cripples kindles for me is collections.

Creating collections directly on the kindle is a soul breaking experience. And it can't be done from Calibre without a jailbreak.

> Kindle software is software made by people who hate reading.

This sounds just about right. How many people read books these days? And of those that do, how many use a Kindle. And of those, how many are the kind to explore other devices and think about user experience? Of those, how many work at decision making roles at Amazon?

With the bad reputation that Amazon has, none of the good developers that I know who also read, want to work there. And even if they do want to, most devs would prefer the AWS team. In India at least, the Kindle team is supposed to be very toxic. I had a chance to interview with them 6 years ago and while the idea seemed super tempting, I'm glad I passed on the opportunity because I'd just joined another company and didn't want to leave the moment I'd joined.

Sadly, Amazon's latest UI change goes against everything that was great with the earliest Kindle designs as well. I'm never buying a Kindle again. I want to get the Boox Max 3 or the Remarkable 2, if I can somehow get these in India.

They don't want you to use anything but amazon's book store, not to side load your own epubs. Epub support is relatively trivial for them, they do not support it on purpose. They love people reading, but only books purchased from them!

It is by design. Amazon wants you to consume only the ebooks you purchase via them. It's almost useless for anything else.

Kindle has an 85% market share so you’ll have to excuse us for not caring about the tiny “rest of the world”.

For ePub file:

Rename extension as txt, then use the send to kindle tool.

I have used it a couple of times (50MB limit though)

It's challenging to find a decent reading software on android devices nowdays

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