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Comment by jihadjihad | Hacker News Reader

The site causes cancer but the conclusion of TFA is sensible: just get a Kobo and be done with it. I had a Kindle for years but there's no reason to stick to Amazon for e-readers anymore.

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Kobo + Libby + Calibre has been my loadout for a decade. Works great!

Agree, though for me it's only been a year, so all I can feel toward your "for a decade" is jealousy. It really is a much more enjoyable experience. If only I'd switched sooner!

Kobo was a Canadian company (before being bought out by Rakuten, though I think they still have a big office in Toronto) and I'm Canadian. So I think we were early adopters of their e-readers for that reason. All our bookstores and electronics retailers (RIP Futureshop) carried them.

I really want to like the Kobo. I really do. But I've had such bad luck with their devices. For example, sometimes the pages randomly start turning, really fast, so I completely lose my place. It also never reliably syncs between devices. And the integration with Overdrive is unreliable, only working some of the time. I also read it in the bath sometimes, which supposedly is one of the features available due to the water resistance, but the steam causes random clicks on the device, which makes it not really functional.

For me, I've mostly switched to reading on my phone. Dark mode, plus OLED, works very well for my needs.

I bought a Kobo Libra about a year ago and it's rock solid although I'm not using any sync features. I turned on the airplane mode on day one. Just works.

i love my libra. i added a pop out handle thing they make for phones and its much easier to use one handed.

I've had three different Kobos (two with touchscreen) and never ran into this issue.

But the Overdrive issues are infuriating, especially when you miss out on a hold from the library and have to get in the queue again. On popular books it can take months. :(

> For example, sometimes the pages randomly start turning, really fast, so I completely lose my place.

FWIW, I've had the same issue with my Kindle, and cleaning the screen seemed to fix it reliably.

If you have trouble with the default software on a Kobo ereader, you can install other applications aside it, then switch to them after boot. In my experience, the installation process is innocuous and straightforward.

I use Koreader: after experimenting with various configuration parameters for a few days, the UI is now stable and tailored to my taste. Once in a while, I switch to another app: Plato is better at handling huge PDF files.

Another bonus point is that I can mount my ereader as a USB mass-storage and rsync the git repository of my ebooks onto it.

You can also SSH into it because it's just running Linux.

So you could even just git push.

However I'm inclined to ignore anyone who pushes their argument as "I'm doing X and you should too". Tell the good and bad things but don't tell me what to do

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