Hacker News Reader

Comment by __rito__ | Hacker News Reader

I used to read all ebooks on desktop when smartphones didn’t enter the market. Now I read on Kindle and a dedicated tab.

There’s only one kind of book I read on my laptop now- programming books PDFs. To code side by side. That's all. And PDF is better for rendering equations, graphs, code with syntax highlighting, and figures.

I use EPUB for "flat" essays, novels, storybooks, poems, etc. i.e. non-text/non-technical stuff.

And I use my Kindle or my tab always for that.

For the once or twice need of opening EPUBs on my laptop, I just use Okular.

Won't install something via Snap/Flat or compile it for that one-off kinds of use.

View on HN

A Kindle is a physical device and a tab is a tablet (I initially thought it was browser tab)? My family sat/stepped on two Kindles (crushing the screens to oblivion) growing up and nobody has dared buy another one since; I don't know if it's time to reconsider.

I bought a Kindle for this (programming books and PDFs) but was quickly disappointed

The device itself is pleasant enough

But I should have guessed, the experience for managing any content bought/downloaded from outside Amazon is almost unusable

> the experience for managing any content bought/downloaded from outside Amazon is almost unusable

Not at all.

I buy EPUBs from all kinds of vendors, across multiple languages. I also have many downloaded from Standard Ebooks [0].

All EPUB works fine, and provides great experience- as long as a file does not contain one of the following- custom page illustrations, syntax highlighted code, graphs, charts, maps, math equations, color comicstrip etc.

Just use PDF in tablet or laptop for arxiv papers, math/programming books, etc.

Use Kindle for recreational reading- like novels, poetry, essays, etc. I am a huge fan of reading since basically learning to read. And I love Kindle! Am a user for last ~10 years.

[0]: https://standardebooks.org

the EPUB files work fine

and it's possible to load PDFs on there

my complaint is that the tools for organising and managing the library are crap

Yeah definitely. It's very slow, and the screen refresh rate is sometimes frustrating.

But that is how it manages to hold its charge for a full month!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com