Searching eBook Reader with Physical Page Turn Buttons

[Genjin]

Hello everyone! I got pointed here from Reddit. So until now I was having an "Kindle Keyboard" and it is an amazing device, but after 3-4 years of use it is literally breaking apart and since I love reading I want to have an alternative before it is too late. I wanted to go with another Kindle, but unfortunately I had to discover that they changed them entirely to the opposite of what I'd want. I'm now turning to you in the hopes of finding a nice alternative, so here are my requirements:

- Physical Page Turn Buttons (very important!), preferably on the Sides just like with the Kindle Keyboard but I'll consider others too
- No backlight / backlight can be turned off (because they give me Headaches)
- eInk Display (at least as good as the Kindle Keyboard)
- No Tablets
- Preferably no Touchscreen, but if there is one I need to be able to "lock" it so it does not flip pages to accidental taps or swipes because I accidentally touch the Display a lot whenever I read in bed
- Long Battery Life
- Can change font size and spacing
- Has to be available in other countries (specifically Germany), not just US only. That means no BN Nooks at least.
- No Sony products
- Can be bought new (I want warranty), so no used / out of production models.

On Reddit I got a recommendation for "Pocketbook Touch Lux 2" though it has a Touchscreen and may be a little low contrast when the backlight is turned off, and I'm trying to see what else is there that you guys might know about that fits closest to my requirements.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to post your recommendations

[eschwartz]

The Kindle Voyage has page turn buttons, and any frontlit ereader can turn off the light.
But you cannot disable the touchscreen. TBH touchscreens are where everything is headed... I do remember @baf made a hack, "Kindle Untouchable", which disabled the touchscreen on the KT and use the home button instead. Possibly something could be worke out for the Voyage as well... if only we had a non-serial-port jailbreak.

The Voyage is capacitive touch, so if you wear gloves and use a stylus it won't register your touches.
Whether that is what you want, I do not know -- but I seem to remember someone else asking more or less the same question and being satisfied with that suggestion.

[Genjin]

Thanks eschwartz, I know about the Voyage but I heard nothing good about the pressure buttons. Compared to proper buttons they seem to take longer to press and sometimes fail to register at all. I don't think the Voyage is a good fit for me.

As for the touch-screen, yes unfortunately it looks like it's becoming a standard. There have to be some models that consider the readers that don't want that gimmick and just read though? I have zero need for a touch screen and I definitely don't want it to get in the way because of accidental presses and it takes longer to do page turns than a physical button already resting under your thumb the way it does on the Kindle Keyboard. I don't totally hate it, it's useful to navigate the library for instance, but during reading it just gets in the way. Until a few days ago I thought the Kindle Keyboard is already overkill due to its keyboard, but I was really out of the loop on further developments and am still a little shocked on what happened with readers. To me it feels like they try to be like a Lite version of Tablets and I find that contrary to the purpose of a dedicate reading device and it's not how I want my reading experience to be like as well. If it comes down to it, all I really need is a good unlit ink display and buttons to go up, down, page turn and confirm - for anything else I'd use a actual tablet. It seems increasingly unlikely to find this to 100% satisfaction these days though. Is it just me, am I a weird dying breed of digital reader? They were perfect (to me) a few years ago, that's why I got myself the Kindle in the first place and never looked back. But now...

I'm still hopeful someone knows a fully satisfying model that isn't only available used on eBay though.

[AnemicOak]

IIRC some Onyx Boox models have buttons & there are a couple of Pocketbook models with buttons as well. Don't know if any of them are non-touch or the touch can be disabled though.


As far as lights, most are going that direction along with touch. Keep in mind it's not backlit so you may or may not have the same reaction that you do to a backlit display. I personally leave the light on my Aura HD off all the time.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Genjin

Thanks eschwartz, I know about the Voyage but I heard nothing good about the pressure buttons. Compared to proper buttons they seem to take longer to press and sometimes fail to register at all. I don't think the Voyage is a good fit for me.

As for the touch-screen, yes unfortunately it looks like it's becoming a standard. There have to be some models that consider the readers that don't want that gimmick and just read though? I have zero need for a touch screen and I definitely don't want it to get in the way because of accidental presses and it takes longer to do page turns than a physical button already resting under your thumb the way it does on the Kindle Keyboard. I don't totally hate it, it's useful to navigate the library for instance, but during reading it just gets in the way. Until a few days ago I thought the Kindle Keyboard is already overkill due to its keyboard, but I was really out of the loop on further developments and am still a little shocked on what happened with readers. To me it feels like they try to be like a Lite version of Tablets and I find that contrary to the purpose of a dedicate reading device and it's not how I want my reading experience to be like as well. If it comes down to it, all I really need is a good unlit ink display and buttons to go up, down, page turn and confirm - for anything else I'd use a actual tablet. It seems increasingly unlikely to find this to 100% satisfaction these days though. Is it just me, am I a weird dying breed of digital reader? They were perfect (to me) a few years ago, that's why I got myself the Kindle in the first place and never looked back. But now...

I'm still hopeful someone knows a fully satisfying model that isn't only available used on eBay though.

Although I disagree with your analysis I wouldn't call you weird... a number of other people have been through here looking for the same thing you are.

I personally find my Kindle very easy to read with the touchscreen, and don't suffer accidental page turns.
If you haven't tried one before, maybe give it a try? You could be pleasantly surprised...
If you are positive touchscreen ereaders are not for you, then you may be in for a search -- even the ones which do have pageturn buttons don't seem to offer the possibility of disabling the screen.

I imagine the best answer you are likely to get is along the lines of baf's work here: http://www.fabiszewski.net/kindle-untouchable/
It would require installing third-party software on a device (with root access, that eliminates the Voyage unless you like hardware modding) to grab touch events and destroy them.

[crossi]

I prefer non touch with buttons and have no use for a light also. I've heard people say that the buttons were eliminated because they break but I don't believe it. You see posts about screens breaking and frozen software but I don't think I've ever seen a complaint about the buttons not working posted. And a simple mechanical button has got to be cheaper than a touch screen to manufacture.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Genjin

Thanks eschwartz, I know about the Voyage but I heard nothing good about the pressure buttons. Compared to proper buttons they seem to take longer to press and sometimes fail to register at all.

I don't know who told you that, but personally I think the haptic page turn sensors on the Voyage are excellent. Better than physical buttons, because you can rest your fingers on them with no risk of turning the page accidentally, and adjust the pressure needed to activate them.

Have you actually used a Voyage? Might be as well to try it before ruling it out.

[tqk]

The Onyx Boox M96 may techinally meet the specifications you gave (unless you consider it a tablet because it runs Android). However, I assume that you're looking for something closer in size to the Kindle.

shopereaders.com seems to still sell some presumably-out-of-production models, like the Icarus Pocket, and they claim to offer a one-year warranty (see the end of http://www.shopereaders.com/terms.asp). The prices are in Canadian dollars. I don't know if they ship to Germany.

[rkomar]

If you look at the Products page at http://www.pocketbook-int.com, you'll see some devices that may suit your needs. The Basic 2 and the Mini have buttons (but near the bottom rather than at the sides), no light and no touch screen.

My PocketBook 902 is many years old now, and the buttons and D-pad are as good they every were.

If you have Amazon MOBI ebooks with the DRM in place, then you won't be able to read them on those devices. It wasn't clear from your post whether you were aware of the problem or not.

[bob_obo]

Originally Posted by Genjin

- Physical Page Turn Buttons (very important!), preferably on the Sides just like with the Kindle Keyboard but I'll consider others too
- No backlight / backlight can be turned off (because they give me Headaches)
- eInk Display (at least as good as the Kindle Keyboard)
- Preferably no Touchscreen, but if there is one I need to be able to "lock" it so it does not flip pages to accidental taps or swipes because I accidentally touch the Display a lot whenever I read in bed

I've gone from a kindle keyboard, to a paperwhite 1, to the voyage. In order of preference I'd rank them best to worst - voyage, keyboard, paperwhite.

I was dubious of the pagepress 'buttons' on the voyage, but I find that I have less accidental presses with them than I did with the physical buttons on my kindle keyboard.

The front-light won't give you a headache. Turn it down, until you can't tell that there's a light, then turn it down a notch further. Used sparingly there's no light bleed, no glow, it just makes the background a little whiter.

The eInk is at least as good as the keyboard. The extra resolution offsets the loss of fidelity caused by the touchscreen layer (the paperwhite didn't look as sharp as either).

Touchscreen... it'd be nice to be able to turn it off. But you can't. It's useful for navigating the home screen, during reading you'll get used to not touching the screen easily enough, and if you're reading in a strange position in bed - and can't reach the buttons, tapping the screen to switch pages can be helpful.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bob_obo

Touchscreen... it'd be nice to be able to turn it off. But you can't. It's useful for navigating the home screen, during reading you'll get used to not touching the screen easily enough, and if you're reading in a strange position in bed - and can't reach the buttons, tapping the screen to switch pages can be helpful.

It's also far, far easier than a keyboard in terms of things like activating hyperlinks for footnotes, looking up words in the dictionary, highlighting text, etc.

[Genjin]

Thank you all! While the Onyx looks amazing and I'd be willing to reconsider the Voyage, they are both above my budget. It looks like I'll go for one of the Pocketbook models or I'll bite the bullet and buy an older used model like another old Kindle or perhaps the "TrekStor eBook Reader Pyrus" which looks like just what I want.

Thanks everyone for the help. Hopefully one day they'll release new models more like the older readers again.

Originally Posted by crossi

I prefer non touch with buttons and have no use for a light also. I've heard people say that the buttons were eliminated because they break but I don't believe it. You see posts about screens breaking and frozen software but I don't think I've ever seen a complaint about the buttons not working posted. And a simple mechanical button has got to be cheaper than a touch screen to manufacture.

Yeah I wouldn't believe that either, my buttons are just like on the first day despite heavy reading since day 1. Buttons usually hold for millions of presses, just like on keyboards. It's the casing of the device itself that is breaking apart for me (cracks in the plastic) and not the buttons Without having proof for it I'd expect a touchscreen to give out long before any buttons ever will.

[DaleDe]

You might try a Boyue T62+. You can view it in our wiki.

Dale

[GERGE]

You should try to buy something with light. You can close it if you don't like it but there are greatly different than the backlight of tablets. It is certainly possible that they won't cause headaches. You should at least try one from a friend before making a decision.

I recommend Boyue T62. Or if you don't want to import, this one: http://194.33.112.113/~icarusre/open...ory&path=82_86

[MickiTee]

Having spent a lot of time recently looking for a replacement for my Sony PRS-T1 there are three other sites that are worth a look:
Cybook Muse: http://www.bookeen.com/en/
ImCoSys: https://www.imcoshop.ch/
Onyx BOOX: https://onyx-boox.com/

If memory serves, they all have models with physical page turn buttons on either side of the screen.

I ended up buying a Sony PRS-T3 & a Pocketbook Touch Lux 2 (used but very good price). Initially I found the front light made the Pocketbook very difficult to read on, but the more I use it the easier it is becoming.