Recommendations for eBook reader devices, please

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AFAICT currently Tolino is just a rebranded Kobo.

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Haven't tried any other similar product (except the pro version), but I have the Remarkable 2 and in my experience it's pretty good as an e reader as well. Maybe expensive for just using it as an e-reader but you can also use it as a note taking device. It's pretty big but still really thin and light, so it's a pretty good reading experience especially if you have bigger hands, some people may find it too big as an e-reader tho, but I really like the size.

One recommendation I can make is that if you are interested in it, if you have the money consider the pro version. If notetaking matters to you, the little I experienced writing on the pro version was so much better. The pen is much better as well as the tracking. My version tends to be off by about a millimeter at some places and the edges. This becomes extremely frustrating when you're trying to e.g. dot the i-s and you keep missing where you want to write. From what I saw, the pro version is much better at this and is in colour.

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Sorry to hear that. I'll admit I don't buy ebooks. Yoho yoho and all that. And yeah, I also never turn on wifi. Have you tried a hard reset?

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I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.

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I have had quite a battle with/trying to avoid Remarkable's cloud service with both my RM1 and RM2. It is very deeply linked, and their privacy policy isn't the best.

This might not be applicable if you're only going to use it as an ereader, but I want to keep sensitive documents on mine and it has not been easy. I currently use this script, but it's a clunky experience.

Unbelievably good piece of hardware though!

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Yeah I like my Kobo too. It's never done anything sketchy as far as I can tell, plus you can sideload things, and if you plug it in via USB it just shows up like regular drive so you can do what you want with it. And also Libby is awesome lol.

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Agreed on all points!

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Ah, didn't realise this was the Privacy community, yeah not main the goto if that's your focus.

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The problem with all hard resets is that the reset button's either:
a) at the lower back of the device
b) under the cover

Whereas mine seems to be c) these is none.

At least they've partenered with iFixit, better late than never.

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Just... Another kobo. I don't actually use calibre though, i just get the books in epub format. Then when you hook the kobo to the PC, it shows as mass storage anyway. Just dump your files, and after ejected it does its cursory file scan, and it shows them properly listed in the device.

Of course Calibre offers a lot more functionality, so if you want to have a proper library it might make sense to manage your books from there. I'm basically saying no conversion is needed a it natively reads epub.

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OP jumping into say.... It's a good suggestion. Thank you!

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The Miyoo Mini Plus. It's a Gameboy Linux Emulator device. Besides being able to run most games up to ps1, you can also put ebooks as pdf or epub on it.

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You can de-DRM books purchased from the Kobo store, I do it frequently. Use Apprentice Alf tools in Calibre.

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I'm very surprised the top answer isn't pocketbook. Their entire business model is reworking Chinese e ink tablets to make them GDPR compliant and privacy respecting. I'd recommend the pocketbook verse pro if you want a lit screen and USB C, but they have a cheaper model without those features.

Here is a good spec comparison table for ereaders in general. I'd point out basically all e-readers have great battery life.

https://ewritable.net/comparison-tables/comparison-table/

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I'd argue it's a simple toggle, namely if you do not register to their cloud, you don't have access to their features and that's it. If you somehow "mess" registration up and still went through the steps, hard reset and voila, clean reMarkable.

Source : I had the one and now have the reMarkable 2 and Pro and I do not use their cloud.

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Also note that you can how your own self hosted alternative https://github.com/ddvk/rmfakecloud

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PineNote (Pine 64) or reMarkable (Pro if you have budget, 2 or even 1 otherwise)

Both work on Linux proper, the reMarkable comes with Linux out of the box whereas PineNote comes with Android but one can install Linux on it.

They are mostly to sketch but it is also good to read. You can pretty much use whatever you want on them, including developing your own software. I don't know if they have Calibre clients because whats I do is... just scp my ePubs or PDFs on there.

Here are my tinkering notes on both https://fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink but feel free to ask any clarification.

PS: the Bookeen Diva also does not require any software, namely you can plug it on Linux, it gets detected as a filesystem and you can copy DRM-free content on it. It's a totally different form factor (much smaller so IMHO not great for comics) and I don't think there is the same open-source community as the other 2.

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Also a good moment to clarify that DRM sucks, but as a user, or even a consumer, you don't have to be worry of them (at least technically) because it's trivial to remove. For example you can use this super convenient script https://pypi.org/project/DeGourou/ to straight up download content that should in theory be "just" for you. The online public library I use, namely https://www.lirtuel.be/ does offer ePub and PDF so I was overjoy... only to realize they meant with DRM. As I had already registered and was honestly pissed at them for not disclosing it from the start I tried DeGourou and... it just worked and is very convenient (you just give it the .acsm then it downloads and remove the DRM, so you get a proper file after). So... yeah, obviously don't buy any DRM content if you don't have to but if somehow you must, it's not that big a deal technically speaking.

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Oooh, amazing! Do you use it? How mature is it?

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I have a Kobo sage and its pretty good. Just avoid the color ones.

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Recommendations for eBook reader devices, please