[Ebosu]

I’m looking to replace my old Pocketbook Pro 912 because it’s really heavy. Over 500g! I lug it around everywhere, which causes strain on my shoulder. That’s started being a problem now that my new job also causes strain. That’s why I’m looking at lighter alternatives. As far as size goes, I’m used to a big 9,7 inch screen, so 7 inch screens feel tiny to me. However, I think I could tolerate downsizing to 8 inches, so that’s where I’ve focused my research this far both for weight and price reasons.

I’ve run into a bit of a problem with researching reviews, because my most important feature isn’t shown well or at all in them. Specifically, file organization. I currently read only fanfic, which means author and fic names aren't a good way to organize my library. I can remember maybe my top 10 of each, but beyond that I don’t use them much for finding and identifying works.

I’ve organized my files into folders and subfolders based on fandom and then important identifying information, such as primary character or subject. So for example I have a folder for Marvel, which has subfolders for Loki, Team Iron Man, Supernatural crossovers etc. It’s absolutely necessary that a new device can display this folder structure easily and conveniently, otherwise I’ll be completely lost.

Of course, it would also be nice if a new device supported tags or similar equivalent for situations where a work fits into more than one folder, like Supernatural crossover heavily featuring Loki. Currently I have some trouble with picking just one folder for those cases, so tags could really help with that. However, my device has over 2 000 files, so adding tags to them would be a big task and take a while. That’s why I need to be able to see the folder structure from the start. Note that I don’t use Calibre, which I’ve heard can do something like this with collections. So any feature like this would need to work on the device only.

Another related thing is that I want to be able to browse the library in a list form, preferably with as small entries as possible to fit more entries per page. As an example, the Team Iron Man folder has 108 entries so browsing them 5-10 per page would be rather unwieldy. Any displays relying on covers obviously won’t work well, since fanfic has no covers.

On the tech side, 99% of my library is EPUBs and the last 1% is Word documents where I collect series in one file. Support for those file formats is necessary. I also have a few PDFs kicking around, but converting those won’t be a problem if a device isn’t that great with PDFs. Quick page turns are important and customization would be nice, such as making sure I can always see the clock and battery.

I don’t need any extra features, such as light, drawing capabilities, internet or access to stores. I sideload all my fics and basically only use the ereader to read them, nothing else. I guess a dictionary or note taking capabilities would be useful on some rare occasions, but otherwise I really don’t need anything else.

The two devices I’ve found most interesting from reviews are Kobo Forma and Onyx Boox Nova Pro. I’d really love some feedback on how they handle the library organization and other features. If you have any suggestions for a different ereader that would suit me better, I’d be happy to consider other alternatives too.