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It seems like all of these eink devices are designed that way. I really soured on the Kindle experience when I bought a second one years after my first and discovered you still had to jailbreak it just to set a wallpaper. I think they might finally have fixed that, 10 years later, but not before losing one customer of the devices who still buys books but now reads them painfully on a phone screen instead.

Nowadays the hip devices for eink nerds seem to be the Hisense range, which are no longer supported by the manufacturer, and you need to root them, and install your own ROM, just to get a recent Android. It's hopeless.

All that said, recently I've been tempted to try again by picking up the cheapy Inkpalm device, which is stuck on Android 8 but it's cheap enough that perhaps the antiquity won't annoy me?

I don't understand why eink has never taken off. I just want a small, cheap, light device that I can use to read novels - sure - but also mostly-text online content like HN, newspapers, blogs and email newsletters. Hey, let's do my Anki flash cards on it at the same time. I spend at least a couple hours doing all that stuff every single day and surely doing it on eink would be better for my eyesight than a phone screen. Much better battery usage too. I can't be the only one?

>> It seems like all of these eink devices are designed that way.

After going through 5 Kindles, I got a Kobo reader a few years ago, and couldn't be happier. It is more expensive than the Kindle because the price isn't subsidized, but the physical design is great, and I haven't broken it yet (I broke 4 Kindles through normal use).

They support loading your own software on without any "jailbreak", and I use Plato (https://github.com/baskerville/plato), which renders documents significantly faster than the stock reader.

Can you read Kindle books directly on the Kobo? I know I could use Calibre to rip/convert/sideload all my books, but that feels like such a pain. I did it that way first time around when I jailbroke my Kindle and it felt like I was spending more time faffing about with software than actually reading books.

The whole point of getting another eink device for me would be to just read without having it feel like my day job, so I'd hope everything was just click and go, a slick, Steam-like experience. That's the thing that has me worried about the Inkpalm - no Gapps without hacking it, which makes the Palma seem more appealing since at least it's just a normal Android with Gapps. I'd probably still put F-Droid on there because I prefer open source if the option is there, but I don't want to do any kind of messing around like rooting it or pairing it with a computer or setting up a new account to sync with some third-party service just to read books I already bought on Amazon.

You're right about the fragility of Kindles by the way, both of mine eventually got smashed, which is how I ended up doing all my reading on my phone with the Kindle app instead.

You can't without de-DRMing. That's basically the point, right? Amazon has locked you in to their ecosystem.

Switching away from kindle is going to require some initial amount of faffing about, no matter what. I feel your pain.

Once you've done the initial annoyances of deDRMing your kindle stuff, you can use the kobo account and store. I know that's another account which you understandably don't want.

I've never used a kindle but my kobo is amazing. I do use the store but I do deDRM my books on a computer before putting them on my reader, which is not necessary lol

I found the Kindles a little creepy, and wanted to go fully non-DRM and non-phoning-home.

So I made a list of my requirements for that, as well as general ereader features, and ended up with the PocketBook InkPad Lite.

I got a Kobo Libra Colour on its release and I also could not be happier. It is my first eink device so I've no experience with other devices. I was reading digitally on my phone prior. The kobo is pretty bomb proof and is repairable as well as being pretty open. I don't know what other readers look like IRL but the libra colour looks great. It apparently only uses the colour rendering when there is colour which would help? Idk, I love the thing. I've been taking notes on it, too, which has rendered my fountain pens rather neglected since I got it. It's the furthest I've ever gotten into digital note taking lol

If you had used another eInk device you could tell. I did pick up a Kobo Libra Color as well and while I like it there certainly is a noticeable grain and contrast loss compared to my B&W devices. It's just a little less sharp and requires more light to read from. For people just reading novels I think the color screen isn't totally worth it. The Libra Color does finally have a decent CPU compared to prior models so it is nicer on that front but I don't think it's worth it for everyone.

Curious, what was the failure mode on the broken kindles?

I have a Kindle Keyboard (k3w) and k4 both going strong (including decent battery life) after a decade of use and abuse by my kids and I.

The jailbreak on kindles that support it (don’t connect your new device to the internet until you have checked) is simple and painless - I prefer koreader to plato but they are both great and an embarrassment to the locked down systems these devices ship with.

Kobo is great but Amazon has better bang for buck (due to subsidy and access to the best eink screens first).

1st Kindle DX: Screen cracked, not sure why. Maybe thermal stress? Amazon replaced for free. 2nd Kindle DX: Stopped booting, no physical damage. Kindle: Rolled on it after falling asleep, screen cracked. Kindle Oasis: Dropped directly on its face, screen cracked. This weird anti-bezel obsession means there is nothing to protect the screen. But you need a bezel to hold onto, so not having a bezel makes the device worse in most ways.

The Kobo that I have has large plastic bezels, so it is easy to hold, lightweight, less likely to be dropped, and when dropped, unlikely to suffer direct impact to the glass surface.

I bought the 5.8” inkpalm recently in the regular aliexpress sale, was just over $100. Ask me anything. Which Anki apk do you like? I’ll see if it can be coaxed to install it.

It’s fine for what it is, screen is a little reflective and the system is very sluggish. But it runs KOReader just fine for me, even large epubs and pdfs render ok (eventually).

It’s incredibly light and pocketable but I worry about scratching the screen - it is not iPhone level gorilla glass.

Also the narrow screen takes some getting used to, need to play with then font size to get a decent amount of words on a line without getting tiny.

Eink hasn’t taken off because it’s too expensive. A device like this should be a $20-30 impulse purchase not new-mid-range/used-flagship smartphone price.

Just to be clear, the daylight computer does not use e-ink. They call it an e-paper display, and it's basically a reflective LCD.

If I understand some of the videos correctly, their innovation seems to be in the diffusion layer, which makes the LCD appear paper-like. One video mentions quite a few technical details in this area (sub-wavelength nanoparticles, dichroic dyes, etc), so much so that I can't decide if I'm impressed, or that it's just moat-signaling technobabble. But the devices look great in either case.

I regret getting my boox enough to pipe in to ward others off. I bought into the hype but the colors are very muted as a gimmick and the device is essentially DOA planned obsolescence eewaste with minimal software upgrades planned and no major Android versions.

Battery life is good as a pure ereader but I mainly use pressreader/Libby through my local library for magazines. I came back to edit this post 30 min later and dropped 6% with wifi and full backlight reading.

I use it for meeting notes and some journaling where it does sound but it also does not like my screen protector with poor touch sensitivity on the bottom half the screen with one on. The boox push software isn't bad either but OneNote struggles so I stopped using it. The resolution/size is just a bit small for pdf textbooks so an iPad or expensive Samsung tablet at the same price point would have served me better.

But why the hate for blue light? When you look at this on the manufacturer's web page they advertise that like preference wouldn't be nice. ”100% amber”, "blue free!”, gross! I won't be doing that for any reason.

If someone else wants amber, fine but why not an option?

It's a misinterpretation of the work underpinning f.lux.

We went from "avoid blue light after sundown to help keep your natural circadian rhythm" to "blue light bad! Buy this product!"

Now we're too far down that path with customers specifically avoiding devices that give off blue light whether or not they understand why. Companies like that are just taking the safe bet by avoiding blue light

The sum of all physiological knowledge will end with watering plants with Brawndo because electrolytes.

I've heard that, but I still think the amber light is disgusting and gross, I'm not buying a device that only has that.

I even recently broke my old Kindle, I'd already heard of daylight computer tablets but the amber light was a main factor and why I just bought another Kindle. I would like high FPS and fully unlocked Android, but all I really needed was some way to read a bunch of digital books. The new Kindle also has an Amber mode, but I keep it off I like the blue light I think green would be better) fall asleep reading just fine.

The device does have white LEDs too. So you can adjust the color temperature. It is just that most of the marketing materials are done to highlight the amber display feature.

I have learned to not buy devices and software for features that are counter to those marketed.

If I bought this there would inevitably be a patch that blocked the blue backlight functionality as a concession to some nonsense like class action lawsuit over the existence of blue light as an option. or some new manager wants to "simplify". or something else.

I got a kobo (6") and liked it a lot. You can set sideloaded=True and never hook it to the internet. It has dark mode.

I wanted a bigger screen though, and recently got a fairly inexpensive pocketbook inkpad lite with a 9.7" screen. It's actually quite good. No internet connection required, you can just take it out of the box and copy files to it via USB-C. 8gb of storage is plenty, but it also has micro-sd. One nice surprise is that it reads all kinds of formats, including not only pdf and epub, but azw and mobi.

Before you get too much buyers remorse it's worth appreciating the Boox will have a much greater battery life.

Thanks for reminding me of that. Honestly the battery life on the Boox Tab is great. I've never had it run out on me.

I get months out of my boox tablet, it’s incredible.