I can't upgrade my PW4 - what now?

[Ridcully]

I've, amazingly, run out of space on my PW4. I've been there for a while -- I think some PDFs from archive.org account for the biggest jump -- and focused on finishing what I've left unread, but it's time to get some more space as I'm loath to throw out books I'm also tempted by the new options with warm backlight these days.

I can't buy the latest PW, though. I don't want to let my ereader sync my private notes to Amazon because I can't sideload their book and have to connect to wifi instead. The other problem is PW is now sold through resellers in my country and it is priceyyy! I think I paid $140 for PW4 without ads and now I'm looking at over €200/$220 with. I can't blame world politics on this, the prices were just as high when I first checked last autumn.

My Mom has a Kobo Clara BW. It seems well priced and I love the screen and the backlight Even without backlight, it looks a good bit nicer. Lowest backlight with night mode is also much better on Clara BW. The big bezels are something I'd like to keep from PW4 (as opposed to PW6), although I'd prefer PW4's flat screen. The back is much nicer, PW4's rubbery back feels cheap to the touch and comes off easily.

My problems with Clara BW are no functioning landscape view (absolute must for reading PDFs) and it couldn't open a 50MB PDF (the pages rendered white until I zoomed in, but reading a whole book like that is unworkable). PW seems better at this, although it mostly fails completely at >100MB sizes. I'm a little surprised since they both seem to have a single 1GHz CPU. Any idea if this all works better with KOReader?

Clara Colour has a better CPU and having color is nice, but I've read the black-white contrast is not as good as Clara BW. How does it compare to PW4? (Carta 1200?)

I also had a look at Tolino Shine 5 -- it seems to a sort of cheaper Kobo rebrand but people say it's slower (worse CPU?) which would probably pose a problem with the PDFs. Also no landscape.

I don't have a clue what other manufacturers have on offer at all (nor Kobos beyond Clara). There must be something I'd like not far from BW's price. Surely under $220.

[Quoth]

A Nxtpaper 14, or maybe the Nxtpaper 11 (not pro) as it has SD Card slot. I have both. Far superior for PDFs to my Kobo Sage or Elipsa, or reMarkable.

I read reflowable novels and PDF instruction books/manuals that are small enough on the Sage.

The Archive Org content, magasines, illustrated fixed layout novels etc need a big tablet and the NxtPaper 14 is 3:2 and the best thing I've ever had for PDFs except my 23″ 4K LG monitor, which isn't portable.

The Colour eink by Amazon or Kobo use 300 dpi mono panels with a 2 x 2 dot pattern for colour that isn't removable. Mostly Kaleido 3 on a Carta 1300, which is marginally better than Carta 1200. It's OK for comics that fit. It's much darker than regular eink, only pastel shades and poorer contrast.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ridcully

My problems with Clara BW are no functioning landscape view (absolute must for reading PDFs) and it couldn't open a 50MB PDF (the pages rendered white until I zoomed in, but reading a whole book like that is unworkable). PW seems better at this, although it mostly fails completely at >100MB sizes. I'm a little surprised since they both seem to have a single 1GHz CPU. Any idea if this all works better with KOReader?

You might want to give KOReader a try on a Clara BW. It seems to render PDFs in landscape on a Clara HD decently enough.

[Ridcully]

Originally Posted by Quoth

A Nxtpaper 14, or maybe the Nxtpaper 11 (not pro) as it has SD Card slot. I have both. Far superior for PDFs to my Kobo Sage or Elipsa, or reMarkable.

I read reflowable novels and PDF instruction books/manuals that are small enough on the Sage.

The Archive Org content, magasines, illustrated fixed layout novels etc need a big tablet and the NxtPaper 14 is 3:2 and the best thing I've ever had for PDFs except my 23″ 4K LG monitor, which isn't portable.

Yeah, I could always use a SD slot But Nxtpaper is IPS (LCD), right? My current phone is OLED and my previous one was also IPS and they get hot quickly on summer afternoons, even in the shade on an ereader stand. I prefer to put books on Kindle because I don't have to plan around this.

Originally Posted by Quoth

The Colour eink by Amazon or Kobo use 300 dpi mono panels with a 2 x 2 dot pattern for colour that isn't removable. Mostly Kaleido 3 on a Carta 1300, which is marginally better than Carta 1200. It's OK for comics that fit. It's much darker than regular eink, only pastel shades and poorer contrast.

Does it have problems with whites? I tend to flatten grayscale/sepia PDFs of books from Archive.org to black and white only, since the "white" gray renders as a definite gray on Kindle. If I don't do it, pages take longer to turn and the text is hard to read. FWIW that PDF I tried to open on the Clara wasn't flattened.

[Quoth]

Nxtpaper models are variously LCD or OLED. QLED is possible. Older phones & tablets I had got hot from CPU. Current ones don't.

Kaleido 3 on Carta 1300 needs the front light on to be as white as Carta HD or Carta 1200 with light off and decent ambient indoor light. It's darker than Pearl eink. it's inherently poorer contrast due to reflections from the coloured dots. Certain fonts and images can have coloured stripe artefacts at 300 dpi. It depends on your perception.

[Ridcully]

I've been mulling over this the last few days, checking out various stuff, watching how to use KOReader, having an information overload on YT... I didn't know Pocketbook also makes non-Android ereaders, any idea how it compares to Kobo in lightning, CPU, screen, software etc?

It's good to hear NxtPaper has OLED models, but I'm wary of getting anything non-eink and Android because it does get pretty hot here. The other day it was 38C, the rest of the week it's 30-32C which is about average for the summer. I have a decent 2024 phone and it got pretty hot. If I put it in an ereader stand in shade in those temps, I can use it for longer, but I still need to turn the screen off from time to time to let it cool down. That's impractical when reading a book.

It seems the device that would fit me the most is something Kobo isn't making currently, something like a Libra Colour but with Clara BW's Carta 1300 black-and-white screen and a frontlight that can be made as dim as Clara BW's.

150€ ~ Kobo Clara BW, tried it, nice design, nice screen and nice for bedtime reading, NO landscape mode without KOReader
170€ ~ Kobo Clara Colour, also seems to have no landscape mode. No Carta 1300
235€ ~ Kobo Libra Colour, has landscape mode but it's too expensive, also no Carta 1300. No clue about lighting
175€ ~ Tolino Vision Color, this is a Libra Colour rebrand? It has the same specs AFAICS
180€ ~ Tolino Vision 6, I assume this is the b/w version of Vision Color, but apparently has Carta 1200?

110€ ~ Pocketbook Verse, resolution suggests it's not as good. Only has 8GB storage
150€ ~ Pocketbook Verse Pro & Pro Color. The Color version has 1GB RAM and quad core
200€ ~ Pocketbook Era, just barely within budget

160€ ~ NxtPaper 11. NxtPaper 14 doesn't seem to be available here

[Quoth]

Eink may have a lower max temp than LCD, which copes with heat better than OLED.

OTOH our max temp this year is about 31 °C

The colour eink screens are likely more easily damaged by sunlight due to the printed R G B dots heating up. They are also massively darker in ambient light. I don't know how fade proof the colour pattern is.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Ridcully

I also had a look at Tolino Shine 5 -- it seems to a sort of cheaper Kobo rebrand but people say it's slower (worse CPU?) which would probably pose a problem with the PDFs. Also no landscape.

I currently own a Tolino Shine 3 (Clara HD-like) and it still had page rotation. It also has a nice, warm screen and it seems to do okay with PDF documents. It also saves your rotation choice on a book by book basis. So, if you're reading an ePub and a PDF, it will remember your settings for each. I can't believe the rotate feature has been removed in the Shine 5, but I see nothing about rotation in the 5's manual.

At any rate, you might want to look for a Shine 3 either used or new, old stock. I don't think there was a Shine 4, so the 3 would be one generation back.

[DNSB]

Just a nit but the Clara Colour, Libra Colour and Tolino Vision Color do have Carta 1300 screens under the colour overlay.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Ridcully

I don't have a clue what other manufacturers have on offer at all (nor Kobos beyond Clara). There must be something I'd like not far from BW's price. Surely under $220.

You might also want to look at the PocketBook Verse Pro (or perhaps even the Verse). These both have "warm" screens and rotate to landscape mode — the Verse has a lower resolution, 212ppi instead of 300ppi and fewer LEDs. I can't vouch personally for the Verse Pro, but I have its predecessor, the Touch HD 3 and it has a very nice screen. I don't know if it's still the case in Europe, but in the U.S. I can still borrow directly from my library (via Overdrive) or buy books from places like ebooks.com since the Pocket HD 3 has a cut down version of ADE installed. This is the main eReader I'm keeping, I'm getting rid of (or have gotten rid of) most of my other readers. For a few years I collected and tested them but I'm simplifying things as I get older.

[Ridcully]

Thanks for the replies!

@Quoth yeah it can get pretty hot here and also muggy on the cooler days, but I just don't like going out to sit indoors in the summer particularly after covid bankrupted almost everything with spacious indoor seating. I rarely expose Kindle to direct sunlight, I usually tend to sit somewhere in the shade first. I can't be that particular with the phone, obviously, but as said, it tends to heat up over time even in conditions acceptable to ereaders. I buy a flagship and keep it going for several years until it's completely EOL, so I'm unwilling to chalk it up to shoddy manufacturing.

@rcentros, yes I checked the manual too. As far as I understood Shine 5 is a Kobo Clara BW clone and Clara BW doesn't do landscape, which is a must for me. It seems logical Kobo would do that to help sell a 7" b/w ereader, but they don't have any...

I tried to look for a used Libra (which would be the source of Vision 6), but the usual website in my country is absolutely dead. Apart from the Kindles, there's a single person selling an Ellipse 2E for 500€ (go figure). Not too surprising since it's a small country and local ereader pickings are slim (we only got Kobo this year). I tend to order electronics from bigger EU countries and have it reshipped.

IIRC, Pocketbook Verse lineup keeps night mode on in the menus? I've noticed Clara BW doesn't. Having it stay on would be nice.


On the whole, Tolino Vision 6 or Vision Color seem to be good buys and Pocketbook Verse Pro and Verse Pro Color too. Interestingly, they're all almost the same price.