I’ve got a large collection of e-books, but I’ve always just read them on my phone. Finally broke down and bought a proper e-reader with the nice e-ink display. Why didn’t I do this forever ago?

It’s got a backlight, but using it under a lamp with reflected light is just so much easier on my eyes and feels more like a paper book. I also haven’t read a book written on dead trees in a good minute, so sitting under a lamp just brings back a missing piece of the experience I didn’t even know was gone.

I also just can’t get over how “fake” the display looks. Fake is usually not used to describe something positively, but in this case, it’s a huge praise. The text and book cover images just look like they’re printed on a sheet of paper and slipped inside to make the device look functional…like a movie prop. Turning the backlight on diminishes this effect somewhat, though (which is another reason I prefer to leave it off).

I also love that I can just set it down and not worry about coming back to a dead battery, lol. The reader app on my phone is set to prevent it from going to sleep or turning off the screen, so sometimes I’ll set it down to go take care of something else, forget, and come back to a nearly dead battery.

To everyone who has recommended these gizmos to me, I finally get it. I know I said reading books on my phone was good enough, but I was wrong.

  • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
    8·
    2 months ago

    Do e-readers work with pdfs? I have various DnD books I’ve bought online and I’d love to be able to store them on one easily carry able device.

    • kux@lemm.ee
      9·
      2 months ago

      pdfs are usable but generally unsatisfactory on ereaders. there are various pdf to epub converters although i can’t say how well they’d deal with the tables and graphics in those manuals

        • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
          6·
          2 months ago

          I got a Kobo (which had been recommended to me multiple times over a Kindle), and I’m happy with it so far. A little limited in some areas, but you can copy any supported format over USB easy enough. Looking into alternate firmware that may open more doors, connectivity-wise.

          • Omniforous
            4·
            2 months ago

            If you are able to see up Calibre to manage your eBook library, you can set it up to sync your library to your kobo. I followed this guide when I set it up for my wife. It does mess up the shop on the device, but our way enough to get DRM free ebooks elsewhere and just sync it to the kobo

            • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
              3·
              2 months ago

              Oh, wow. Thanks! I didn’t even know Calibre-web already had that. Was looking at a different sync hack that would let me use Nextcloud, but this is even better.

              Edit: Just set that up, and seems to be syncing. Looks like it pulls everything? Was naively hoping it would present my library as the “store” lol.

              Oh, no, nevermind. Just sync’d the metadata and the covers. Still have to download them. Nice!

              Thanks for that!

              • Omniforous
                3·
                2 months ago

                You can also set it up to only sync certain "bookshelves’ if you share a library or don’t want to look at all the books on your kobo all the time

                • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.orgOPEnglish
                  2·
                  2 months ago

                  Ah, I see that option now (and the option for the shelves).

                  I may just leave it as “all” and keep the metadata for everything on hand and just download the full books on-demand. That way when I add new stuff, it’ll automatically be available.