Ask HN: Best Open E-Reader?

14 points by lemure 2 years ago | 19 comments

I have too many books (~200) which I bought but I don’t want to have around. Mostly novels which I’m probably going to donate to local libraries or similar.

However I feel entitled of having a copy of those books in electronic format. Very slowly, I’m looking for .epub files and storing these in a hard drive.

Now, say I want to read one of them on an e-ink device. Which one is going to allow me to load these files without going through proprietary stores (I’m not going to pay twice for something I already own) or jailbreaking the device?

I simply want to spend x$ and have something which will last for a long time.

stuxnet79 2 years ago |

Kobos[1] and Pocketbooks[2] are a lot more open than Kindles. AFAIK you can transfer .epub files into both devices and these epubs are perfectly readable via the stock OS. If for some reason you find the stock proprietary OS lacking, you can install an open source one like KOreader[3] or Plato[4]

Of course you want a good way of organizing epubs pdfs mobi, and like has already been mentioned Calibre[5] is a great option.

[1] https://www.kobo.com/

[2] https://pocketbookstore.com/en-ca

[3] https://github.com/koreader/koreader

[4] https://github.com/baskerville/plato

[5] https://calibre-ebook.com/

jjice 2 years ago |

You can send epubs and other formats via the Kindle web service to your Kindle directly. It handles the conversion. I understand if you feel uneasy with this though, as I do as well sometimes.

As others have said, Kobos support many formats (including epub) out of the box via a USB cable. Kobo has some color ereaders coming out the end of this month as well, if that's something that appeals to you. My brief experience with color eink displays is very positive, and I'm considering purchasing one as well, despite owning a Kindle already.

throwaway38375 2 years ago |

Also voting for Kobo. I have a Clara I just use for reading books.

Really nice device and the price is good too.

I've never connected mine to the internet. I just use it as a giant USB stick with a screen.

Not that I've needed to, but you can take it apart and increase the storage too!

https://yingtongli.me/blog/2018/07/29/kobo-sd.html

lelanthran 2 years ago |

I lost my kindle (gen1, I think) recently (Someone in my neighbourhood now has the best curated collection of free fiction ever, so I'm not too sore about it).

I'll probably get a new one, but it occurred to me, with all the current excess electronics I have now on my desk (everything from PIC18Fs, esp32s to SBCs running Linux), the only thing I am missing to make my own e-reader is a large and cheap e-ink display.

Any recommendations for a large-ish e-ink display that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

999900000999 2 years ago | |

By the time you buy an EInk display and a battery you might as well buy a full e reader.

E ink programming isn't fun. If this is about the journey, go for it, but the results won't be optimal

lelanthran 2 years ago | | |

> By the time you buy an EInk display and a battery you might as well buy a full e reader.

That's the problem I ran into the last time I looked at this - it was cheaper to buy an e-reader at retail prices than just the display at retail prices[1].

I was only wondering if the prices have fallen yet (seems like they have not). There's a bunch of low-power applications with large displays that I could do with an e-ink display.

[1] I don't really understand why the displays are as expensive as they are. It could just be that the e-readers are sold at a loss, and the manufacturer makes a profit some other way (with Amazon, they make their profit on the books, not sure about the others).

RealStickman_ 2 years ago |

There are various chinese vendors offering android tablets with e-ink screens. The disadvantage being less guarantees of future updates and some vendors (Onyx, probably others) don't release their device kernels as required by the Linux GPL.

vik0 2 years ago |

I never understood why, barring lack of money, people would rather read something on a screen (even if it is e-ink) instead of holding an actual book in their hands and reading it that way. The smell alone of any book (used or new) is worth it

Anyway, I've heard calibre is good. I've never used it though

al_borland 2 years ago |

You can manage the files with Calibre[1] and sync them onto an e-reader like the Kobo with a click.

[1] https://calibre-ebook.com/

roelj 2 years ago |

I only have experience with Kobo e-readers and there you can connect the e-reader over USB and just put the epub files in the root folder.

horsellama 2 years ago |

Not really what you’re looking for but close

https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book