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Comment by kstrauser | Hacker News Reader

I love my Kobos (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39993062). When they die, I'll replace them with another Kobo. It's so easy to get things onto them. For my Libra, plug it into a computer (or iPad) with a USB cable and it shows up as a drive I can drag files onto. The Elipsa supports Dropbox and Google Drive so I can add files those ways, too. It also has built-in Libby integration that lets me reserve and download library books from the device itself.

Of course they make it very easy for you to buy books from their own store, but I've never felt like they made it artificially hard to ad content through other methods to benefit their own book sales. That's different from what my friends tell me about their Kindles.

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I have an Oasis 2 (2017 or so timeframe). What would be a good option that's similar to it? I love the screen size, the flush screen (I understand the Oasis is glass rather than plastic), and the page turn buttons are all pretty important to me.

KOReader sounds interesting and the built in Libby support is kind of rad sounding.

I think that'd be the Libra 2. The screen's the same size, although not flush, and it has the nice page turn buttons. I can't vouch for their other models.

KOReader sounds cool but I've been happy with the built-in software. I know me, and I specifically don't want other knobs I could be playing with instead of just reading the thing.

Got it, thanks!

It seems it's between two devices, the Libra 2 and the Sage, but I keep hearing the Sage has worse battery life (sort of the downfall of the Oasis for me as well). I just like using Calibre since I get a lot of epubs from places like HumbleBundle and other book bundles. These always have issues with the Kindle, like covers going missing.

I'd love to get something a little less fickle for my use case and it does sound like the Kobo devices might get me there. I just really like the Oasis from a materials, size and general usage.

The Sage looked nice but the price premium for a stylus wasn't worth it to me for a device I wanted to use purely for reading. Obviously there's a market for such a thing so I'm not saying it's bad, just that it didn't might my own needs.

Calibre works well for the Libra 2. I have a plugin that automatically reformats epubs as kepubs (see https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Kepub). That's not a hard requirement but it improves the reading experience a little bit. The biggest difference I notice is that it makes page numbers handle font size changes more accurately. If I halve the number of words that'll fit on the screen, the reader shows that the number of pages in the book has doubled. Also, the current page number increments every time I turn a page, not just when I cross an invisible page boundary.

It's not a dealbreaker not to have those things, but they're nice and worth the 30 seconds to enable in Calibre.

Nice. I think I might keep an eye on potential rumors of a Libra 3 or something like that given that the Libra 2 came out in 2021, that's nearly 3 years old.

But that gives me time to save a few buckets as well. For now the Oasis is working well enough, just it'd be nice to get away from some of the paper cuts.

Same here with me and the color versions here. If and when I need to replace what I have now, or maybe a software update makes me want to throw them out a window or something, then I'll take a look at the new options. It's highly unlikely I'd get rid of my currently working and mint condition and known-good readers before that.

I liked my Kobo, but it bricked itself after only about a year. I took it apart, and a voltage rail was shorted out. I didn't even finish the first book I put on it!

I read at a similar pace.

Ouch. I'm a couple years into my Libra. I'd be seriously bummed and annoyed if it died that quickly.

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