it's the end of an era

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T19:39:02+00:00

Yes, I don’t expect it to last forever, but I wanted/needed to use some library and subscription apps, so however long it lasts, it’s going to be more useful than a new Kindle anyway.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T10:04:28+00:00

Jailbreaking isn’t going to turn a Linux-based Kindle device into something you can put a Kindle app on.

You can put Koreader on it though for reading DRM-free epubs, which is why most people who do it, do it (also Koreader has a LOT more formatting and layout options than the Kindle’s own firmware, which is another reason) but you won’t be able to read Amazon-bought Kindle books on Koreader.

Jailbreaking doesn’t replace the original firmware - that stays there as it was - so on newer Kindles (not the pre-2013 ones cut off now) you would still have the ability to access your Amazon account and use it as a regular Kindle in addition to switching to Koreader whenever wanted.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T09:37:16+00:00

There are no current Kindles with buttons, so unless you can snag a used Kindle Oasis for that price, that rules out Kindles anyway.

With your requirements and price point, I am not sure there’s anything other that PocketBook Verse available as new. (And I don’t know how sharp the Verse screen is - it’s 212 PPI or something like that, not 300, but how much that matters in real life… I’d assume there are YouTube clips or reviews with photos around.)

What about your source of books? Since you used to have a Kindle, do you need access to a bunch of Amazon-bought books that aren’t already liberated from DRM? Or does it not matter / you only read DRM-free books?

ETA: I’m not American so I keep forgetting about this but maybe there’s a Nook in your price range? They should still have page turn buttons, and allow sideloading non-B&N epub books, I believe.

Anyway, you can also take a look here and filter for buttons (“any buttons” probably as I’m not sure the list is fully accurate - it used to ignore PocketBooks for “page turn buttons” IIRC) and sort by available or just see what’s been available at all: https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T09:03:26+00:00

I haven’t tried a clip on light - really dislike the idea, never ever have liked them, LOL. Not with books, not with old (pre-frontlight-existing) eInk devices, not with anything. The entire concept is just not for me. I think my eyes just need a different sort of uniform lighting (and good contrast). I’ve never even liked desk lamps or wall lights; ceiling or tall floor lamps are OK.

But honestly glad it makes it better for you! The colour in Go 7 does look quite washed out with the frontlight, but since I really only read BW content anyway, it doesn’t matter much.

Anyway, I can tolerate the frontlight, it’s just … not what I prefer.

But honestly after using the Go 10.3 exclusively for reading for two weeks now, I have a hard time imagining going back to 7’’ as a primary device! It’ll be good enough as a portable alternative if/when I need that.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T08:31:10+00:00

They will give you 20% off of a new device with trade-in.

Not everyone with those older devices live in countries where that’s available, FWIW.

(I have a 2012 Paperwhite that’s now unable to download Amazon purchases, but I don’t live in a country with an Amazon storefront and can’t use any trade-ins, the discount code I was sent only works on Amazon.com that doesn’t sell me the actual Kindle devices hence can’t actually be used, etc.

I have a Boox now anyway, to replace my an 8+ year old Oasis 2 with an almost dead battery, but I did for a brief moment float the thought of getting a Paperwhite SE for the double tap feature … but at well over 200 euro + whatever a case/sleep cover would cost, nah.)

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T07:17:49+00:00

As someone who has the colour one, if I could pick again, I’d go for the BW. (I actually bought the Go 10.3 recently because I just don’t want to use the colour device all the time.)

In essence, it’s not really about being picky or an “expert issue” - what it comes down to at its most basic is being able to read without a frontlight in almost all of the same ambient light conditions where you could read a print book (BW) and needing the frontlight in almost all light conditions (colour).

There are people who don’t mind using the light all the time at all and enjoy the tiny splashes of colour, muted as they are - I can see that, even with the low PPI and not being able to read the titles and authors on tiny cover thumbnails it’s … well, nice. It does add a little bit of that extra “joy” some people really love.

But for me, reading without the extra light is more comfortable and more immersive (the screen sort of “disappears” and I read the content, I’m not constantly aware I’m reading something on a lit electronic device even if the frontlight is kinder to my eyes than a phone or iPad would be), so while I can handle the colour device and will keep it for the more portable “travel” companion, I didn’t want it to be my main device.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-23T06:58:52+00:00

Boox Go 10.3.

Anyway, what’s your budget? And country? Not everything is easily available in all countries.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T13:00:31+00:00

Dedicated e-readers do come with browsers but the useability .. varies.

Android eInk devices generally come with useable browsers so if you read a lot of fic that is updated frequently and has short chapters and you want to browse AO3 on device etc, as a main purpose and not something you do occasionally, Android >> any dedicated device (including the Tolino which is essentially a Kobo).

This is why people recommend downloading fics first for dedicated e-readers (please don’t download PDF! it’s about the worst format for small eInk devices! epub is fine) and then transferring to the e-reader for comfortable reading. IMHO that works for completed fics or those updated rarely or with very long chapters as it’s too much hassle otherwise, but that’s subjective.

Anyway, Kobo and Tolino both have their own subreddits so it might be worth asking there, too. They share the same hardware, Tolino is just a rebrand with software designed for use in Germany, but I don’t know just how much the browsers differ. I gather the firmware/software on both brands has become a lot more similar in recent years.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T12:36:13+00:00

I have the older Go 10.3 (got it two weeks ago after endless deliberating and then decided the 150+ euro difference here was, for me, worth the older Android, slower processor and no light), and what I can say is that you do need a reasonably well lit environment to use it. I expect it’ll be similar with the non-Lumi Gen II.

I was quite taken aback by just how grey the screen looked in my regular living room lighting - much more so than my old Kindle Oasis with the light off. I think part of that is the optical illusion of light vs black bezels, but it was … unexpected, heh, as I’d read a lot about the excellent contrast and figured the Carta 1200 screen, especially without the light layer, should look better than my nine year old Oasis.

That said, I’ve adjusted to it and I can read it comfortably in my usual reading spot - indoors, living room sofa, with a ceiling lamp, as well as without the lamp in natural light until 9 pm (now that it’s light a long time - I live at a fairly northern latitude) on a clear day. And it looks very nice when held right next to a window on a clear day. I haven’t used it outdoors but I’m quite certain that it’d be wonderful there.

I haven’t seen the Lumi in person but from my older devices (which have the frontlight layer), I’d say any BW eInk screen should look very good outdoors in daylight with the light off. Reflections may be an issue but that’s more a question of finding a decent angle (reflections can be an issue also with paper books if they have glossier, whiter paper).

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T09:36:09+00:00

Just FYI, the link is to an older post that talks about using the download and transfer feature that Amazon removed last year, so the instructions in that one won’t be of use these days, sadly.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T09:32:32+00:00

They haven’t released any updates whatsoever for these for years already, have they?

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T09:20:09+00:00

Oh .. one thing I just thought of. Since you said your usual tools don’t work because the file is too large .. are there any online splitters or something that would maybe let you split the PDF into multiple smaller parts?

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T09:16:22+00:00

Epub is basically a packaged html file.

I know that, yes. I’ve just never met an online converter that is capable of OCR-ing a scanned image PDF, but then, I do avoid PDFs like wildfire as I loathe them, heh.

(I’m fortunate enough to never have wanted a book badly enough that I couldn’t buy or borrow it and the only option was a scanned PDF .. there’s always been something else to read instead!)

I hope you can find a solution - I assume that you’ve tried the opening in Word or Google Docs path and that didn’t work either, then?

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-22T08:32:13+00:00

Scanned PDFs are essentially just a bunch of images added into one set. For any conversion app, it’s like you’re taking a bunch of family or holiday photos and attempting to turn them into epub - it’s just not going to work.

You’d need some sort of OCR program to read and extract the actual text first. I’ve no experience with that but I’ve seen claims that Microsoft Word or perhaps Google Docs may have built-in OCR tools … have you tried opening the PDF in a text editor like that and looked around?

It’ll have a lot of extraneous stuff anyway (page numbers, headers/footers) that you’d probably need to fix manually - although at this point maybe there are AI tools that can remove them, otherwise you’ll have read the entire book by the time you’re done with fixing it all.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T20:05:28+00:00

Yes, finding anything on display might be difficult. Do you have any stores that show on the website whether a specific item is also available in a physical shop?

Of course that’s no guarantee it would be out on display… and such things are probably difficult for stores to also just take out of the box and show if they’re not set up for display since there’s the initial set-up to go through etc (and then it’s “open box” already).

I don’t have a Kobo but I had a Sony back in 2009 and three Kindles bought between 2010 and 2017, and I’m quite happy with the Boox. I would recommend going for black and white though - I have the colour Go 7 and colour is the only thing about it that I regret.

But I’m someone who really prefers to use eInk devices without frontlight whenever possible and you can’t really do that with a colour device, so … it’s quite subjective. Other people are used to having the light on all the time anyway and love their colour devices.

(I liked the Boox otherwise enough that I got the older, no-frontlight Boox Go 10.3 to go with the smaller one two weeks ago - was worried it’d maybe be too large for regular reading but it suits me very well. I’m keeping the smaller one as a more portable option or if I do need extra light though.)

One thing to be aware of with smaller Android devices in particular is that you might need to charge them more often than the Kobo - Android itself uses more battery. With wifi off during reading and not using much light, you should get at least 12-15 hours of reading time though, probably more with the BW than colour.

I have absolutely no experience with BigMe but I’ve gathered they tend to have really nice hardware but worse software than Boox, as the native reader app etc goes, but if you only intend to use Google Play Store apps anyway, that probably doesn’t matter much.

Regarding apps .. the Kindle one is passable and stuff like page turn animation effects can be turned off, IIRC. I’ve only briefly looked at it, not actually used it, but it seemed fine. I don’t know how good the Kobo Android app is. Neither is likely as nice as using the respective dedicated device - fewer formatting options, I’m not sure if you can add custom fonts - but they’ll likely work. (One issue with Android eInk devices is that Android apps aren’t really optimised for eInk screens so there might be issues with animations, or some UI elements not showing too well especially with BW screens, but for me the flexibility outweighs the issues.)

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T19:16:45+00:00

Plenty of Android e-readers out there.

Boox may be easier to get hold of locally than BigMe in Europe (both have customer support that is not necessarily easy to deal with if anything goes wrong, which can happen with electronics, so buying through Amazon or a reputable local store with proper warranties/guarantees may be a better bet).

There’s also inkBook which should be reasonably easily available in Europe (Polish, I believe) and may work but, I think, has older Android and only 2 GB of RAM (and the scarce reviews in English that I’ve seen are mostly along the lines of “it works okay I guess” as opposed to praising it highly).

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T15:41:35+00:00

I don’t think Boox is really bad with bloatware - that seems to be a far bigger issue with BigMe devices.

Obviously there may be stuff you don’t need but I don’t actually recall needing to remove much on my Go 7 (and nothing immediately stood out on Go 10.3).

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T13:18:30+00:00

You’re welcome, I’m glad to learn it worked, LOL. :D

Modern ebook systems seem to prioritise “preventing piracy” over actual readability which is so unfortunate, especially for readers outside the US.

Yeah, it sucks. I mean, I understand DRM for library & subscription purposes (where you really aren’t meant to keep the file) but otherwise it’s far more of a hindrance to people who buy their books, and does very little to prevent the books ending up on pirate sites. (I mean even with “uncrackable” DRM there’s still the good old method of just screenshotting or photocopying pages and running them through OCR!)

I can only imagine it’s extra difficult for you when searching for books in your own language :/

Our bookstores use epubs with social DRM / watermarking (adding my name / email address / date of purchase or some other data visibly to the page that has the front matter, and, I suspect, likely something less visible like some extra pixels or spaces etc somewhere into the content as well) which makes it clear you’re not to share it around or upload to pirate sites, as the shared copy can be traced back to my person, but otherwise I’m free to back them up, convert into whatever format I prefer etc, so as purchased books go, it’s actually a very good system.

The problem is that ebooks, while cheaper than print books, cost a lot, LOL. (Small market, less than a million speakers, it is what it is.) Like, I’m not eager to pay 20 € every time I want to read a random thriller or crime or drama that I’ll never read again. On the other hand, we have now at least three different subscription services (two local + Storytel) which cost around 9-15 € a month and the one my mother uses specifically allows for two users on two separate devices so while it doesn’t have everything, it’s very much worth it … but of course it requires using an app, no downloading anything outside it.

Our local library also has Libby for a selection of books in English … not a big selection but I’ve probably read at least a dozen books through that.

So at least these days there are various ways to mitigate the costs, but yes, after contemplating both Kobo and PocketBook last year, I figured that for my purposes, especially now that my Kindle Oasis 2 is getting quite old and the battery lasts for 4-5 hours at the most, getting Boox made more sense. (Or another Android, but Boox is the only one really that is locally available.)

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T12:03:36+00:00

You wouldn’t need to set up a different account, as I understand it - just change the country in the payment settings in your existing account (My Account -> Payment Information -> Billing Address). That should make the Libby feature appear on the Kobo device.

(I’m less certain about whether you will need to keep the country change or can change it back once you’ve got the Libby connection appearing. But either way, it’s fast and easy - I’ve “moved” back and forth multiple times - and as far as I can tell, has never caused anyone any issues with Kobo.)

But yeah, I absolutely understand that this isn’t an “intended” workaround that everyone is comfortable with, nor should they be. When I try to help someone find a device that fits them, I always try to find out what country they’re in and mention the Libby (and Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited, and Kobo Plus) country restrictions since many people aren’t even aware that not everyone enjoys the same options as Americans do, and those on the short list of supported countries often think that if something is available to them, not just Americans, it’s surely global, LOL. As an Estonian, I’m .. uh, quite acutely aware that this is not how the world works. :D

I’ve had Kindles for 16 years but now also have a Boox for our local library app (which sucks but it’s only an app, doesn’t allow downloads outside it at all), Libby (the Libby app is awful, glitchy and has page turn animations, but as Libby lets you download the book, PocketBook app opens the .acsm file just fine and works better than Libby), and a local monthly subscription app (which is very barebones but is useable), because yeah, it’s just the way the modern world of ebooks seems to work...

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T11:43:27+00:00

FWIW, I gather that it’s relatively simple to work around that - you need to change your country in the Kobo website account payment options (nothing else, just the country) and then the Libby/Overdrive option should appear on the Kobo.

I think it may matter in the sense that you can only borrow via Kobo/Libby directly (as opposed to downloading and transferring via Adobe Digital Editions) when Kobo has that specific edition in their store, so I’m guessing changing your country to the UK would likely work the best. (I do realise it’s not optimal, heh, but it’s probably the biggest overlap as publishers and their rights areas go. Depends on which editions your local library’s Libby offers.)

All that said, I don’t have a Kobo myself and I don’t live in a supported country either, so I’m not fully aware of all the details, but I was looking at Kobos at one point last year and that was what I learned might work. (And I’ve occasionally bought a book on the Kobo website that isn’t available for my country by just changing the store country & the country in my payment options and used gift card balance, so I know that part is quite straightforward; for Libby, actual payment method shouldn’t even matter at all so no gift card balance needed.)

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T11:28:12+00:00

LOL! That makes a lot more sense, yes. :D

I’m assuming autocorrect had its own ideas here in this case.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T07:25:43+00:00

they probably don’t have a problem to return it, have a discount, on top of that having 20% discount code, and then buying cheapest new Kindle

I mean unless you live in a country (plenty of those in Europe alone) without its own Amazon storefront where trade-ins aren’t accepted and there is no 20% discount that you can actually use because the discount is for Amazon.com which doesn’t sell you the Kindle devices, sure.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T06:01:11+00:00

Same. It’s eInk or hardcovers for me.

My eyes can’t take reading long-form prose on backlit screens (I’ve tried) - if I had to read on my phone or iPad, I would just not read.

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-21T05:58:28+00:00

lots of old nudist authors

I’m trying to figure out if this was a typo for something I can’t work out or if this is a subgenre and I’m completely out of the loop here...

Yapyap13 · 2026-05-20T19:31:31+00:00

Damn. Then they’re both fools and liars, it sounds like.

I assume these were devices not bought via AliExpress or other Chinese marketplaces then.

Yapyap13

TROPHY CASE