Need a new reader :-(

[jduvall]

Edit:

It occurs to me I should really break down what I'm looking for in a reader

Collections, I loved this on my sony, I could put all my books (Say The Dresden Files) into a collection and it kept them in order so I knew what book came where.
Quality, I want a device that isn't going to feel cheap and is going to last for several years to come, my sony lasted me 2 deployments back to back and kept working up until my toddler dropped it off my counter
Battery Life This seems largely irrelevant they all seem to have good life
Glare I read outside sometimes or in bright rooms, my sony struggled with this, the glare making it really hard to read sometimes.
Interface the interface on the sony was pretty good
ads I'm buying this device I'd like to keep ads off of it, I understand amazon has two price points 1 with ads and 1 without (annoying IMO and unacceptable) Does the kobo have ads? Does buying the kindle without 'offers' really mean an ad free experience? I understand they are designed to 'not be intrusive' but I'd rather they just not exist period.

Things that are less important
Warranty I will purchase one through square trade whom I highly recommend
store I really don't care which "store" I purchase books from, I buy them where ever they are cheap and rip the drm off them anyway
price I plan to keep this device for several years (until it breaks or no longer meets my needs) so I plan to pay a premium for it
networking Part of the reason I love the memory card reader is not having to worry about running out of things to read if I'm away from a network.


So my old sony ereader died and sony no longer seems to make readers, which is a shame I liked mine.

With that said, I'm in the market for a new reader, after looking around I have some what interested in the Paperwhite and the Kobo H2O.

The Paperwhite is nice but it lacks the memory card slot and epub which means my current library will have to be moved back to a computer and then converted from epub to kindle (Mobi? AZW?) and saved to the limited space on the device (I have roughly 6 gb of books currently so that could be an issue)

The kobo is larger(and more expensive) but has a memory card slot and support for epub (and is water proof which is a plus since I sometimes use my ereader to look at recipes while I cook) I've never seen a kobo in person, and looking around it looks like they tend to require more tweaking out of the box than say the kindle does, is this really the case or can I just stick a book on it and read right away? Will I need to convert my books from epub to a specific kobo file type or will it read epubs just fine?


Anyone who has owned/used both devices care to weight in on this? I'm kind of leaning towards the kobo but not 100% sold on it yet so I can be talked out of it, I tried searching but it seems that people tend to either be 100% kindle or kobo and that just tends to bias a search.

Thanks!

[eschwartz]

Disclaimer: I am a Kindle lover. I will try to keep the bias to a minimum though.

Do not worry about the memory. To quote myself on a different thread:

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And since the 3.5GB in the Kindle Touch can hold about 3,000 average-sized books, you don't need expandable memory. If you read 100 books A DAY you will still have one month of reading on your Kindle. At a more reasonable but still exorbitant 3 books a day, you will have nearly 3 YEARS worth. I'm sure somewhere along the way you can get to a computer and swap them for new ones.
(Same logic applies to every other eReader, including the Kindle Paperwhite which has (shudder) a measly 1.5 GB and about a year's worth of books.)

And since then, the PW2 got upgraded silently to the same storage as the Touch.

The Kindle is extremely simple, with a clean interface I prefer over pictures I have seen of the Kobo home screen.
Ads are competely and utterly non-present on non-SO Kindles. Even on SO Kindles, the ads are only there on the lock screen and a small footer banner on the home screen. Hardly noticable and you definitely won't see anything while reading, which is where I usually spend my time.

The best way to order books in collections will be in calibre, not the ereader. Use a plugboard to dynamically insert the series into the title, then do a title sort -- regardless of ereader.

One last thing. You may want to think about getting a 3G Kindle. Even away from a network you can still sync with your Kindle Store purchases, and Amazon foots the bill for the connection -- all part of the service.
It does cost more for the hardware.

[eschwartz]

The Kobo can read EPUB just fine, although certain features require KEPUB. calibre has plugins to do that automatically.
But it isn't a big deal to convert to AZW3, just leave calibre running overnight doing a batch conversion.

[JSWolf]

I would suggest the Kobo Aura H2O (it does handle ePub). It does have collections and a lot of user settings. The screen is 6.8" and the light is said to be better then the Voyage.

[khalleron]

I recently converted about 600 epub books to kepub in anticipation of my H2O's arrival, and it took about an hour. Converting is not really a problem.

I was weighing the H20, Kindle Voyage and Boyue T62 and settled on the H2O because of the larger, clearer screen (than either the Voyage or T62), IR sensors instead of capacative touchscreen (less crap to get in the way of the screen) and longer battery life than the T62 (which from all reports is pretty abysmal, although the T62 runs Android apps, which is still kinda tempting if the battery life wasn't so terrible).

The only thing that really appealed to me about the Voyage and T62 that the H2O doesn't have is side page turn buttons, but I decided the other pluses outweighed that.

Oh, and my experience with Kobo Customer service has been terrible, so I'm hoping I don't have to deal with that again - just another thing to weigh in the balance.

So that's how my decision-making worked, but you need to figure out what matters to you.

[meeera]

I suspect the reason you read more about Kobo tweaks here is not because Kobos need to be tweaked - you can just chuck an epub on there and read - but that they are open to the tweaks, no jailbreak required, so they attract tweakers and hackers and people who want to finely optimise the display.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by meeera

I suspect the reason you read more about Kobo tweaks here is not because Kobos need to be tweaked - you can just chuck an epub on there and read - but that they are open to the tweaks, no jailbreak required, so they attract tweakers and hackers and people who want to finely optimise the display.

Exactly what meeera said. Another vote to go with Kobo. Kindles are pretty much locked out of any customization at this point once they upgrade to the newest firmware, and even when you could jailbreak them on previous firmware, it was a LOT more complicated than doing tweaks on the Kobo or Sony readers. So for the Kindle, that means you can't load your own fonts and you're limited to the 6 installed on the reader, and none of them have the ability to darken or increase contrast (that's my biggest irritation about the Paperwhite).

For myself I prefer the Kobo Glo for the light, size and infrared touch. But you won't be disappointed with any of the newer models.

[darryl]

I think the best value around at the moment is the Paperwhite. If you install Duokan, a very easy task, you will be able read just about any format without DRM. You can still read Amazon books with DRM on the original Kindle Software, which is not affected by installing Duokan.

The Android readers, basically the Onyx and Boyue, are good, but the battery life per charge is that of an Android tablet rather than the usual dedicated e-reader. This generally means it is measured in days, not weeks. In the case of the Onyx, many have problems with screen accuracy which it appears may be a hardware problem which cannot therefore be fully remedied by a firmware upgrade. Also, the screen quality of these devices seems to be about that of a Paperwhite 1, which is still very good but does not compare with the Koba Aura H20 or the Kindle Voyage.

Although I like the Android readers very much I am moving to either the H20 or the Voyage, mainly for the better display quality. There are compromises, but Apprentice Alf can help mitigate the worst of these (provided, of course, that his remedies are not illegal in your jurisdiction).

I would suggest an H2O or a Voyage are the best choices in your circumstances, or a Paperwhite if you are looking for the best value for money.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

Exactly what meeera said. Another vote to go with Kobo. Kindles are pretty much locked out of any customization at this point once they upgrade to the newest firmware, and even when you could jailbreak them on previous firmware, it was a LOT more complicated than doing tweaks on the Kobo or Sony readers. So for the Kindle, that means you can't load your own fonts and you're limited to the 6 installed on the reader, and none of them have the ability to darken or increase contrast (that's my biggest irritation about the Paperwhite).

I am happy to say you are totally -- well, mostly -- wrong.

NiLuJe just updated the jailbreak, MKK and MR Package Installer hacks to function properly on the 5.6.1 firmware. And the jailbreak is known to survive the update. The PW2 is, in other words, fully hackable even on fw5.6.1

Although that does not help on the Voyage or KT2, since the jailbreak must still be carried out on fw<5.4.5, which for obvious reasons the KV and KT2 cannot be downgraded to...

However, we are hopeful that a new exploit will be discovered. All the infrastructure is there to handle 5.6.1, we just need some way of injecting it onto the KV and KT2 without using a serial cable.

Hey, once upon a time no one had discovered the rigged-name.bin exploit.
Another one will venture along, given time.


tl;dr -- if you buy a PW2, it will likely still come with fw<5.4.5 in which case assuming you jailbreak immediately you are golden.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by darryl

I think the best value around at the moment is the Paperwhite. If you install Duokan, a very easy task, you will be able read just about any format without DRM. You can still read Amazon books with DRM on the original Kindle Software, which is not affected by installing Duokan.

I would strongly recommend avoiding Duokan and using KOReader. It runs under the KindleOS and is unofficially the official recommended alternative reader around these here parts.

No need to dual-boot which is a pain in the neck...

[kacir]

I have always been a vocal supporter of PocketBook.
However, ... I would have a really detailed look at Onyx Boox e-ink readers with full Android with Google Play if I was looking for a new e-ink reader right now.
They have 6" model and also 6.8" model with screen similar to Kobo H2O.

There are other manufacturers that offer e-ink readers with Android. This is not about playing Angry Birds on it, or using it for browsing, this is about configuring the reader the way you want.

Disclaimer: I have never had an opportunity to test any of Onyx Boox devices in person.

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Even on SO Kindles, the ads are only there on the lock screen and a small footer banner on the home screen. Hardly noticable and you definitely won't see anything while reading, which is where I usually spend my time.

Yes, you hardly ever see an add on 'Special Offers' Kindle.
Except for Every Single Time you open your sleep cover, or switch it on using button and have to touch the screen to unlock the device.

[Barbara1955]

Buy another Kindle.... The new Basic will be $49 at both Staples & Best Buy Thanksgiving & Black Friday! 4 gig of space! 3000+ books & World Wide Downloads off Amazon... which I betting you knew this from your PW!

[HarryT]

Having owned both a Kobo H2O and a Kindle Voyage, I settled on the Voyage as my preferred reader, for reasons I've described in some detail here.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jduvall

ads I'm buying this device I'd like to keep ads off of it, I understand amazon has two price points 1 with ads and 1 without (annoying IMO and unacceptable) Does the kobo have ads? Does buying the kindle without 'offers' really mean an ad free experience? I understand they are designed to 'not be intrusive' but I'd rather they just not exist period.

Why is it "annoying and unacceptable" that Amazon would offer you a $20 discount in return for having ads?

The ad-free Kindle is completely and utterly ad-free.

The Kobo, on the other hand, is not ad-free. It always displays its "reading recommendations" to you on the home page, and there doesn't appear to be a way of turning that off.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I would suggest the Kobo Aura H2O (it does handle ePub). It does have collections and a lot of user settings. The screen is 6.8" and the light is said to be better then the Voyage.

But it also has ads, Jon, which the OP specifically states he doesn't want.