eReaders Ressources

Foreword

As any avid reader, I have had a look at eReaders. In that respect, I must say that I find the anti-ereaders' reaction very funny and very similar to what I heard many years ago when microwave ovens started to appear. Many people were objecting to microwave ovens on various grounds, but there was one common feature: they didn't seem to understand that the microwave was not there to replace the cooker, but to supplement it.
What we hear today about ereaders goes very much in the same direction. Most of the objections start from the premisse that if/when you buy an ereader, you will stop buying/using/reading paper books. I personally don't see why. I happily continue to use both. And even if you do at some point, I guess it will be for the same reason the car replaced the horse. End of the subject as far as I am concerned :-)
Last comment: I also have tablets, and of course I sometimes read on those as well. However, whatever the quality of the display, I find the tablet/phone screens more tiring for the eyes than the eInk.
Une partie des informations de cette page est disponible en français ou sous forme d'ePub.
A previous version of this page is available here, with the obsolete information / machines I've removed.

In the beginning...

If you think eReaders are new, think again...


Machines


So far I played with 5 families of machines: the Kobo(s), the kindle, the Nook, the Trekstor, and the Touch Lux, but there are many others: Tolino, Sony, iriver, pocketbook, vivlio, etc.
ALL of them use the free ePub format, except the kindle which uses a proprietary, closed format (azw3, formerly mobi).

The Kobo(s)


<== Kobo WiFi
Let's be clear: at £50 (€60), the Kobo wifi was a bargain ! It was probably the cheapest ereader on the market, and it did its job very well. It was my first reader, and I loved that machine. I say was because unfortunately it has been phased out.


<== Kobo touch // Kobo mini ==>

I also have a Touch, because I travel a lot and the Touch features a browser, which enables me to check my emails or read the paper (so to speak !!) on the go on a bigger screen than my phone. It also sports other improvement compared to the basic model, but apart from a slightly longer battery life, none of those mattered to me. Some extra gadget are a sudoku (and now a Chess game), stats on your books/reading, possibility to share directly on facebook, "badges", etc.
Kobo (a Canadian firm now Japanese-owned) was smart enough to make its device the exact same size as corresponding kindle model, which means that any kindle accessory will also work with the Kobo :-)
One thing I like about the Kobo is that you can hack it: change dictionnaries, add fonts, etc. Very useful if you want to read books in a less-known language that uses special fonts!
Two notes on that: I had the opportunity to see the inside of a broken kobo wifi. The hard disk is in fact a 2G sdcard under the main board. I took it out for examination (of course), and here are the results of the Luxemburguese jury:
3 partitions: 2 of 250M, 1 of 140M

Device Boot      Start          End           Blocks    Id    System
/dev/sdf1          19456        543744       262144+    83    Linux
/dev/sdf2          543745      1068033       262144+    83    Linux
/dev/sdf3         1068034      3862527      1397247      b    W95 FAT32

2 Linux  partitions, one Fat32 partition
sdf1 seems to be the active partition, while sdf2 would be a back-up partition, with an image ready to run or be restored in case of problem. Once archived, the sdf1 partition tgz sizes at 5 megs and sdf2 at 150 megs.
sdf3 is data only.
Examination of the linux system partition doesn't reveal anything specific, except that it is a minimum linux system based on busybox and the QT libraries.

One of the most useful feature of the Kobo is the built-in dictionaries. Not only do you have the one provided for free by kobo, but you can add whatever you want. Go to Mickaël Schoentgen's project for free French, Catalan, Danish, German, English, Spanish, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian and Swedish dictionaries.
The Kobo software is short of fantastic.
With no registration, the kobo can In fact, the kobo software is so good, somebody installed it on a nook!

See here for more very useful customizations.
Mine:


At the time of this writing (Dec 2024), the kobo clara is still the best and probably cheapest machine you can buy (spotted at €78).

I also just realized that my kobo mini, bought in 2012, still works, and so does my original kobo touch, bought in 2010, even if the latter is getting really old - but it's my fault, it fell on the ground a couple of times and the on/off button was damaged.
I expect it to die any time now and always have another ereader nearby, just in case :-)


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The Kindle


The kindle has become the synonym for ereader in many people's mind.
However, it is not the machine of my choice, for various reasons.
  1. First of all, there is the tie to Amazon. Amazon has been known to erase books you have bought from your kindle remotely without asking permission. This happened in July 2009, and again in November 2010, and again in October 2012. Whatever the reasons, I haven't seen anybody from WHS Smiths breaking into my house to reclaim a book I had bought at their bookstore.
  2. Amazon may also simply decide they don't like you, erase your kindle and remove your account, no explanation given, like they did with a Norwegian lady in 2012.
  3. More horror from amazon in 2009
  4. Or the book you want to read may have too many hyphens, in which case amazon will also remove it. (Dec 2014)
  5. Another problem I have with the kindle is a more practical one: the format of the books. The default formats of the kindle, AZW3 since Kindle 8 (.mobi before that), are closed source (even if the earlier versions were reverse-enginneered). This means that there are very few tools that enables you to create your own books to put on your kindle. If you do, you have to create an ePub and use a converter. This extra step is not only annoying, but despite the best efforts of the people behind the conversion software, sometimes the result isn't optimum (mangled toc, etc).
  6. I find the ergonomy of the kindle lacking. For example, it is fine if you have few books, but I routinely carry hundred of books, and the "catalog" system of the kindle is not very practical or ergonomic - not as easy as the Kobo anyway.
  7. The strict management right of amazon causes problems for travelling people. This is a milder version of (1). An example of this: you buy a book in the UK, but your reader refuses to allow you to read it when travelling in Norway (or the US). Even inside the US, you might not be able to cross a state border.
  8. Milder case of the above: if you live in a country NOT on amazon list, good luck to buy some books available to anybody else.
  9. And then there is the tracking. Bezos is selling your data and profile to whomever pays, and that includes US federal agencies. Yes, you read that right. See the details here (12/2023).
  10. And of course, since it relies on internet and amazon servers, the day they don't work, you're up shit's creek without a paddle...

In 2024, as I was travelling in the US, my trusty old Kobo died, and the only replacement I could find quickly was a kindle 11th generation (G092). You cannot make collections if you are not registered, and the device still can't read epub, so I had to convert my 483 books to azw3. That's the only positive point I found: it has a 16G storage. And then I had a big pile of books, no collections or nothing, because for some reason I wasn't able to create an account (which would have been fake anyway, but that's not the point). So I was able to use it as a basic reader, but I must say I wasn't impressed at all. I was able to sideload a new version of the firmware and dictionnaries from another kindle.
I was also given a kindle touch wifi 5 (B011) with firmware 5.3. (Although it looks like a 4th generation ?) By mistake, that one was still registered, so I could make collections but nothing else much (no sideload firmware upgrade because it's no longer updated, no font adding because it doesn't support it, etc). As a basic reader, it's ok, but... As I examined the disk, I also noticed that when you erase a book, the kindle didn't erase the temporary directory it created when you opened it. This means wasted storage space after a couple of months of usage if you don't do a manual clean up.
Compared to the functionalities of the kobo (which doesn't need registration), the kindle is light-years behind... (see above)
To be fair, you can do some customization (for the moment).
In fact, strangely enough, the capabilities seem to depend also on the type of book. so if you have an azw3 you're fine, but a pdf or a mobi has very reduced possibilities.
Apparently Amazon wants to kill the ability to load books via USB, so that is really the end as far as I am concerned (assuming there was a beginning). It already started cutting functionalities:

And if you think amazon won't do it, think again. This is the company that sold you a digital picture frame for 160€ - yes, expensive - but for just 2€ per month on top, it even allows you to display your own pictures! What a sweet deal. Now imagine - if you can - that they cease to offer this feature and decide to display ads instead of your pictures. On your digital picture frame. Which you paid for to have in your home.
See by yourself
The short-lived Echo Show 8 Photos Edition and PhotosPlus service are joining Amazon's graveyard of gadgets, which include the discontinued Astro business robot, Just Walk Out, Amazon Glow, Fire Phone, Dash buttons, and the Amazon Smart Oven.

For all those reasons, I do not want a kindle.

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Nook


I was given an old Nook simple touch (from 2011). What I didn't like was that I couldn't do anything with it until I registered. And it took a while, because in 2018 Barnes and Nobles changed their system, and any Nook that hadn't been upgraded couldn't connect any more. To their credit, in 2024 the update file was still available from their website, so I was able to update the rom, make a fake registration, and go on with the Nook simple touch, which is a nice little machine. You can easily makes "shelves" to keep together some books. All in all very nice quality software, easy to use and very functionnal. As such it comes with about 240M space, but you can add a micro SD card to extend storage.
The model no longer exists, but it certainly would drive me towards their newer models - priced the same as the kindle. The only thing I didn't like (and quite frankly, didn't understand!!!) is that you can't erase a book with the machine alone.

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TrekStor Pyrus Mini


Since I have used the Kobo mini extensively and found the 4'X 3' screen not to be too much of an inconvenience, I thought I would give the trekstor mini a spin. At €29, I didn't have much to lose anyway. (Update 2018: no longer exists unfortunately)
Note: you can't change fonts to make epub easier to read with the trekstor (except for .txt), but you can hack the epub. When I find an epub hard to read, I use Sigil (see below) to include a font (Roboto or droid serif work fine on small screens) and force the @font-face to it.

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The Touch Lux

The Touch 5 is sold under various names: Vivlio (ex-TEA), PocketBook.

What can I say ? When I offer a reader, this is what I go for. For €100, it has wifi, dictionnaries, 6G storage, backlight, everything you want and more. It even has several games and applications: browser, sudoku, etc.
You can find (or create) free dictionaries as well.
When my trusted kobo finally dies, this is probably the one I will buy.
It is also powered by linux (one single partition), and you can sideloads fonts by putting them in /system/fonts. Couldn't be easier.
There is an OTA update mechanism for the firmware as well, but you can sideload via the pc. It can be used without any registration.



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Tolino

A friend drew my attention to the Tolino, which fits perfectly in the category of readers I like. I haven't tried it yet, but the description seems to be what I want. However, according to the web, it is powered by android and seems to spy on you, so caveat emptor. It can also be hacked. I read somewhere that the Tolino is in fact a rebranded kobo, but then it can't be android-powered ?
More on this when I can actually play with one :-)

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Others

I explored a bit the other ereaders on the market. Here are the results (original Nov 2013 - updated 20240918):
Terms of reference are:
Mandatory:
  • eInk
  • screen min 5"
  • price <= €100 /£90/$110-120
  • decent battery life (>8h)
Nice to have
  • WiFi
  • SD Card
Small devices (Pyrus, PocketBook Mini, kobo mini) have all but disappeared; obviously, I'm the only one who like them. Hunting on amazon and the like might get you one still.
The only recent exception (original launched in Oct 2023, Pro in Sep. 2024) is the Xiaomi Inkpalm 5 (pro). Unfortunately, it seems to be difficult to buy it in Europe. The original is for the chinese market, and therefore in Chinese, but you can hack it to english and install an english speaking launcher.
Otherwise, the solution might simply to build your own.
With cheap chips like the ESP32, the arduino or the raspberry, this is actually quite feasable for cheap. See for example the Open Book project, or simple machines like this one.
I'm thinking about building my own based on an esp32.
In fact, somebody already did.


Considering the terms of reference, the best readers are (Jun 2024):

NameTouch
Screen		Diction-
nary		WiFiPriceRemark
Kobo Clara [OK] [OK][OK]€140
PocketBook touch lux 5 [OK] [OK][OK]€120
Tolino Page [OK] [?][OK]€74NOT on amazon (110!)
  • Dictionnary: touch a word and
    get a translation or definition.
  • Wi-Fi: used to update firmware or
    send books to reader;
    with crude browser
    also allows for checking mail
    or reading online newspaper.

Other worth investigating:
Conclusion:

If you are in the UK, check out Argos. They did carry both Kobo and Nook £50 at some point.

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Envoi

That's all there is to say, really. My advice is to try and borrow one (or several) before you make your choice. Obviously there is room for many readers out there depending on what you do with it. They all offer pretty much the same functionalities. I have done a very rough comparison between the prices of the 10 most read books on amazon and the top ten on kobobooks, and they are roughly the same. So whatever works for you. What matters is that you read ! :-)
You can compare most of them by yourself on ReaderRocket
Unfortunately, small readers seem to disappear from the market: first the kobo mini, then the TrekStor mini. So if you see one, grab it before it disappears. I've had mine for years and they last forever anyway :-)
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Ressources

Tools

As explained above, I create a lot of ebooks. The reason is very simple: like most people, when I am on the internet I don't always have the time to read interesting stuff I come across. One possibility is of course to bookmark the page, but we all have gazillions of bookmarks we will never read. So what I do is simply to capture the page(s) into an epub, and send it to my Kobo to read on the train / bus.
Un excellent tutoriel sur la création d'epub

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References


My current collection:
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