Looking for suggestions.

[mitseas]

I had a BQ Cervantes 4, for quite sometime, I didn't tweak it a lot for PDFs to be useful but I was happy transferring my collection of ePUBs there and consuming.
Last time I tried to open the device, it ceased functioning. Screen is not updating and the only feedback I have is from the notification LEDs. Unfortunately BQ closed and I am at a loss about where to seek for support and troubleshooting. If anyone has the device or knows anything/can help please say so.

TL;DR: I want a 8"(preferred)-10" screen, Linux customizable(preferred) or Android, with SD card internal/external (preferred) eReader that I can read epubs, mangas and last technical pdfs on it.

To my inquiry now: Screen size
I loved the 6" but from time to time I want to read some technical PDFs which are mostly zines with pictures etc. so a larger screen would be beneficial. I am looking for 8"(7.8" to be exact) to 10" with a slight preference on the 8" size mostly due to portability.

Operating System
I prefer linux ones or something custom that is snappier and lightweight. The ability to install packages or mess with the codebase would be greatly appreciated.
I would like to avoid Android mostly due to obsolence and lack of updates.
If it is rootable/customizable I would be considering Android too but Linux is preferred.

Reading Material
I mostly try to find epubs of literature online. Since I am in the market for a new one I would like to try reading Manga and some PDFs mostly e-zines. If I don't find epubs I go to other formats but haven't really got into converting one to another. It's mostly a folder in my desktop that i like to drag and drop to the eReader and be done with it. No syncing, stores, managers etc.
Again literature + mangas not so much technical pdfs

Storage
More storage is always welcome, external or internal SD card would be preferred so I can have my whole collection of reading material without the need to open a laptop or a phone and transfer files.

Color
From what I've gathered color eInk is a bit on it's infancy so they are not that great at reproducing colours. After all that will mostly be usefull on mangas and if I'm not mistaken most aren't coloured, other than specials. What is the general consensus on that as of now?

Price
I am not constrained by a budget but as always less is better. I wouldn't want to compromise on something other than color if that means getting a better suited device for my needs. I should also add that I am in Europe so that should be taken into consideration.


I would like to hear your suggestions on devices so I can curate a better list and finally pick one up.

[salamanderjuice]

Android Options:
Boyue (now Meebook?) Likebook P78 - 7.8", SD card slot, 32GB, Android 8.1, 300PPI
Boyue Likebook P10W 10", no SD, 64GB, Android 8.1, Wacom Pen
Boox Note Air- 10", no SD, 32GB, Android 10, Wacom
Boox Note Air 2 - faster Note Air, Android 11, 64GB
Boox Nova Air - 7.8", no SD, 32GB storage, Android 11

Linux Options
Kobo Elispa 10", no SD, 32GB, random pen tech
Kobo Sage 8",no SD, 32GB, pen optional
Kobo Forma 8", no SD, 8GB or 32GB
Various Pocketbook models, some have SD card, some have ancient screen
Remarkable 2 10", 8GB no SD card, wacom,only really good for PDFs and Note taking

Honestly the Android devices are significantly faster than the Linux devices. Yeah Linux is more lightweight but you need that when your device has a quarter to an eighth the RAM and a fraction of the CPU power.I don't think obsolescence is really that big a problem, Chrome and Firefox run on Android 5, the latest Kindle app needs Android 6, etc. You don't need the cutting edge version to run the latest software. If you like reading manga off scanlation sites the tachiyomi app is excellent for that. I've had Kobos and Kindles as well as Boox devices and the Boox devices are the fastest, most flexible eReaders I've used.

I personally really like my Boox Nova 2 and Note Air.

There is a few color readers from Pocketbook and Boox but they really cut contrast so IMO not worth it.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by mitseas

Color
From what I've gathered color eInk is a bit on it's infancy so they are not that great at reproducing colours. After all that will mostly be usefull on mangas and if I'm not mistaken most aren't coloured, other than specials. What is the general consensus on that as of now?

No, Colour on eInk is nearly as old as eink. Either you have very pastel shades and a little darker or very dark and better colour. Recent panels sacrifice colour saturation for brightness, but still contrast and sharpeness of text is worse than regular panels.

Also either resolution is 1/3rd in one direction or 1/2 in both directions.
It's physics. It's only possible via an R G & B filter. With decent colour that gives less than 1/6th brightness as the light has to pass red, green or blue dots twice. A front light helps the brightness.

Print on paper works because it's Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black as a minimum in layers. Quality printing uses more colours. Photo slides are also CYM in layers. LCDs work because you can just have a x4 or x5 brighter backlight, light only passes once and colour LCD or OLED use multiple sub pixels.

Also eink only does nearly black, nearly white and 14 shades of grey. An LCD or OLED can to 250 to a 1000 "shades" of each pixel. Thus eink is inherently either dark or very pastel (or between the two) and 4096 maximum variations of colour / hue / brightness / greys / saturation etc instead of the 250 thousand to 16 million of LCD and 16 Million of OLED.

So only some different technology to eink can give decent colour. Physics and mathematics.

[Uncle Robin]

If color and size are both important, as for reading image-heavy PDFs, I'd suggest an OLED or LCD tablet over an e-ink device. And I say that as someone who LOVES e-ink for 90% of my reading. Horses for courses, color is not what e-ink does best.

[mitseas]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

Android Options:
Boyue (now Meebook?) Likebook P78 - 7.8", SD card slot, 32GB, Android 8.1, 300PPI
Boyue Likebook P10W 10", no SD, 64GB, Android 8.1, Wacom Pen
Boox Note Air- 10", no SD, 32GB, Android 10, Wacom
Boox Note Air 2 - faster Note Air, Android 11, 64GB
Boox Nova Air - 7.8", no SD, 32GB storage, Android 11

Linux Options
Kobo Elispa 10", no SD, 32GB, random pen tech
Kobo Sage 8",no SD, 32GB, pen optional
Kobo Forma 8", no SD, 8GB or 32GB
Various Pocketbook models, some have SD card, some have ancient screen
Remarkable 2 10", 8GB no SD card, wacom,only really good for PDFs and Note taking
...

I will take a deep dive on all of the above. Thanks on your remarks, how are those two contenders on a battery life perspective? Since beefier CPU will take it's toll. I mostly like Linux because it is what I use mainly on all my machines. If I can install applications on top of it then a huge possibility for command line utilities opens up.
I fear that the Android versions may be limited somewhat in what you can/can't do with the OS and as far as applications go, but I've never used one from an eReader company. (Like all my phones should be supported by Lineage OS, you get what I really want)

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

If color and size are both important, as for reading image-heavy PDFs, I'd suggest an OLED or LCD tablet over an e-ink device. And I say that as someone who LOVES e-ink for 90% of my reading. Horses for courses, color is not what e-ink does best.

Colour is not important at all, size is though. I don't want it to be as big as my Dell XPS 13 laptop so I am looking for something either 8" or 10". If I wanted an LCD/OLED screen I might as well as fire up the laptop. To be a little more specific what I wanted is to be able to view a PDF page even shrunk but at least visible, or turn it in landscape mode and view half a page at each given time.

Can I post a link of a pdf that I was reading that may be indicative of the ones I am mostly interested in? So that someone with an eReader that meets my criteria may be able to post a picture or two?
Thanks again for your time.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by mitseas

I will take a deep dive on all of the above. Thanks on your remarks, how are those two contenders on a battery life perspective? Since beefier CPU will take it's toll. I mostly like Linux because it is what I use mainly on all my machines. If I can install applications on top of it then a huge possibility for command line utilities opens up.
I fear that the Android versions may be limited somewhat in what you can/can't do with the OS and as far as applications go, but I've never used one from an eReader company. (Like all my phones should be supported by Lineage OS, you get what I really want)



Colour is not important at all, size is though. I don't want it to be as big as my Dell XPS 13 laptop so I am looking for something either 8" or 10". If I wanted an LCD/OLED screen I might as well as fire up the laptop. To be a little more specific what I wanted is to be able to view a PDF page even shrunk but at least visible, or turn it in landscape mode and view half a page at each given time.

Can I post a link of a pdf that I was reading that may be indicative of the ones I am mostly interested in? So that someone with an eReader that meets my criteria may be able to post a picture or two?
Thanks again for your time.

Battery life with my Boox devices is comparable IME, MyDeepGuide has battery life videos for some of these devices on YouTube.

With Android and Termux it's really easy to get a working Linux chroot (well proot if you don't have root) with programs like Vim, Emacs, gcc, etc. It's possible with a bit of work to even get an X11 server running if you really want. There's some limitations there like there is no way to access an SD card but honestly it's easier than trying to cross compile random programs onto a Kobo. If you have an Android phone grab it off F-droid (a repo of FOSS Android Apps) and see if you like it.

The Boox and Boyue devices let you sideload APKs and getting Google Play Store is pretty easy.

It's also possible to root the Boox devices if you want. I haven't bothered as it does everything I want without it.

[mitseas]

After some consideration and the fact that I have to scratch that reading itch I need to speed things up. The option that comes down to is the Kobo Sage and the Forma, out of which I believe the forma will be better, only if the screen quality is good out of the two. For measure I had a BQ Cervantes 4 and I quite liked it. Maybe both of these will be an upgrade. The PocketBook Inkpad 3 (not pro since it has SD slot) and I prefer having everything on it instead of transferribg stuff around. Last is the Nova Air by Boox which is the most expensive of the lot, which since it runs Android will be easier to download and read manga too.
These are the eReaders I can find somewhat easily here, but not in the same store so I could test them all easily. How would you, that own one or more of these devices would rank them for screen, battery, ease of use, longevity?
I haven't looked much in the Booye, Quaderno and others because they are not easy to source in EU and especially Greece. If you believe that there is a better choice in the others I will try to find it.

Something offtopic is there a thread to discuss electronics, hardware? I need to see if the motherboard or the screen of my Cervantes 4 has a problem and I would need some help from someone more knowledgeable.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by mitseas

After some consideration and the fact that I have to scratch that reading itch I need to speed things up. The option that comes down to is the Kobo Sage and the Forma, out of which I believe the forma will be better, only if the screen quality is good out of the two. For measure I had a BQ Cervantes 4 and I quite liked it. Maybe both of these will be an upgrade. The PocketBook Inkpad 3 (not pro since it has SD slot) and I prefer having everything on it instead of transferribg stuff around. Last is the Nova Air by Boox which is the most expensive of the lot, which since it runs Android will be easier to download and read manga too.
These are the eReaders I can find somewhat easily here, but not in the same store so I could test them all easily. How would you, that own one or more of these devices would rank them for screen, battery, ease of use, longevity?
I haven't looked much in the Booye, Quaderno and others because they are not easy to source in EU and especially Greece. If you believe that there is a better choice in the others I will try to find it.

Something offtopic is there a thread to discuss electronics, hardware? I need to see if the motherboard or the screen of my Cervantes 4 has a problem and I would need some help from someone more knowledgeable.

Re the Sage and the Forma: the Sage has a better screen, a newer processor (which makes it faster) and a note-taking ability. The Forma weighs less and has a plastic-backed Mobius screen, which makes it somewhat less prone to breaking than most other ereaders.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Re the Sage and the Forma: the Sage has a better screen, a newer processor (which makes it faster) and a note-taking ability. The Forma weighs less and has a plastic-backed Mobius screen, which makes it somewhat less prone to breaking than most other ereaders.

The difference in battery life may need to be considered, depending on what's important to the OP.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=343407

(I don't own either, so can only go by what I've read.)

[Quoth]

On the April 2022 FW the Sage battery life (no frontlight, wifi or BT on) seems fine. Maybe not as good as my Libra, but better than PW3 and especially Boyue Mars.

I still use the Libra for proofreading / annotation, but use the Sage for non-work recreational reading, or notes while reading on Libra (using Elipsa pen).

The Elipsa is to read big PDFs generally and also proof check PDFs for our own POD, stuff like words mysteriously at wrong size or page mirroring / page numbering gone wrong. The actual content proof / annotate is done on epub version.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by rcentros

The difference in battery life may need to be considered, depending on what's important to the OP.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=343407

(I don't own either, so can only go by what I've read.)

Yeah, I knew I forgot something. As I don't own the Forma, I have no idea how big the difference in battery life is. Also the latest firmware supposedly improved the Sage battery life.

[MGlitch]

I haven’t read on the Sage long enough since the April update to say for sure, but the prior update while it had some issues also improved on the Sages battery.

I’ve said it elsewhere multiple times, even the initial battery life was okay. It was more than enough to get most people through points in time when they were reading to times when they literally couldn’t be reading and could charge up easily before they’d be in use again. This has only gotten more and more true with each successive firmware update.

[mitseas]

My concern is mostly the battery life between the forma and the sage. It's not that the Sage is bad, maybe with the latest uodates it is decent but since I don't really care about the note taking capabilities. For examole if tge Sage gas 80% the battery life of the Forma and both have better screens than my Cervantes 4 which was decent for me, I would get the Forma.
Even though I give much weight in capacity. I am a user that will sideload all WoW literature, a bunch of CS books and series of novels and don't delete anything if I don't have to, esoecially with Manga volumes which tend to be in the hundreds.
But what seems more important right now is to check these 3-4 eReaders with picture pdfs and manga.
Would anyone be willing to showcase one or both of these so I can make a more informed decision? Unfortunately in Greece all need to be ordered, there is no stock and it will be quite exoensive buying all of them just to choose first hand which one seems better.
I will look into return policies and try to use them before purchase somehow.
Thanks again, if anyone wants to help me decide, a couple of Manga pages and/or google for the "IBC of aquaponics" pdf would be great as examples of documents I would want to read eventually.

[MGlitch]

So really the Sage is probably around 70-80% of the Formas battery from what I’ve seen around the forums. Personally I’d place it at 80%+ with the April firmware.

However you’re not going to get a brand new Forma at this point. You’re getting certified refurbished which means the battery may or may not be at 100% of what it should hold (it’s going to be decent let’s not rehash that debate).

And I’m not sure for Greece, but for the US the only Forma available from Kobo is the 8GB version, the Sage meanwhile gives you 32GB. Now you’d be able to easily fit the WoW novels even the Chronicles I-III pretty easily. But start adding more and more manga and those 8GB will disappear real quick.

I don’t have any books that would do the screen differences between the Forma and Sage justice, I also am not convinced that a photo would capture the difference properly anyway. But I can tell you the Sage had darker black than the Forma. Which I imagine would be beneficial for manga.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

So really the Sage is probably around 70-80% of the Formas battery from what I’ve seen around the forums. Personally I’d place it at 80%+ with the April firmware.

However you’re not going to get a brand new Forma at this point. You’re getting certified refurbished which means the battery may or may not be at 100% of what it should hold (it’s going to be decent let’s not rehash that debate).

And I’m not sure for Greece, but for the US the only Forma available from Kobo is the 8GB version, the Sage meanwhile gives you 32GB. Now you’d be able to easily fit the WoW novels even the Chronicles I-III pretty easily. But start adding more and more manga and those 8GB will disappear real quick.

Kobo is still selling new Forma's here in Australia. We never had the 32GB model.

And for anyone down-under wanting one, Kobo has the Forma on sale now at $AU379.95 instead of $AU429.95. And the Sage is at $409.95 instead of $439.95. Looks like Kobo think that mums like the larger ereaders. Or maybe "deserve" would be a better word.

Now, the question is, can I sneak a Sage into the house for myself? I could get it delivered to the office, but, then I'd have to actually go into the office to get it.