Looking for a bigger, lightweight, good battery life, simple reader

[Indigo121]

I currently use an old 6 inch Kindle Paperwhite. Looking for an E-Ink reader with:

1) A bigger screen, or just wider. Not sure if 8 inch inch or 10+. Is 10 too big and cumbersome to read causally?
2) For sideloaded books mainly.
3) The ability to highlight text and then see the highlights in a file, like in Kindle, is a must. And of course to be able to export it, even by file transfer.

4) Pdf support would be nice to have.
5) Writing with stylus would be nice to have, not needed.

I'm leaning towards the Onyx Boox Air 2, but I don't know much about the alternatives.
Thanks!

[salamanderjuice]

I have a Boox Note Air 1, it's a bit too heavy IMO to read casually. I also have a 7.8" Boox Nova 2. 7.8"-8" is IMO the sweet spot for reading novels. You get a good weight, page size similar to a hardcover book. PDF support is good on my Nova 2 as well and I bet the newer devices that size from Boox are good too. However if your eyesight isn't the best letter sized PDFs might be hard to read without using one of the zoom modes. 10" is good for writing and reading PDFs.

On Boox devices you can highlight snippets and export them to a file. It's just a plain text file and you can pull them off via USB.

[Indigo121]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

I have a Boox Note Air 1, it's a bit too heavy IMO to read casually. I also have a 7.8" Boox Nova 2. 7.8"-8" is IMO the sweet spot for reading novels. You get a good weight, page size similar to a hardcover book. PDF support is good on my Nova 2 as well and I bet the newer devices that size from Boox are good too. However if your eyesight isn't the best letter sized PDFs might be hard to read without using one of the zoom modes. 10" is good for writing and reading PDFs.

On Boox devices you can highlight snippets and export them to a file. It's just a plain text file and you can pull them off via USB.

Thanks. Looking at their site it seems that Nova 2, Nova 3, and Air 2 are almost identical except the Novas have a MUCH bigger battery - 3150 vs 2000 mah. But the Novas are hardly sold anymore anywhere, and not even listed on their site.

This company has some strange marketing practices- they have a ton of seemingly identical devices listed, with very minor differences mostly in android version.

[salamanderjuice]

It's not that weird. They're just older versions that are discontinued. They do bump the specs and add features. Nova 2 is from 2020, Nova 3 from 2021, etc. Nova 2 has a Snapdragon 625, Nova 3 has 636, Nova Air 2 has 662.

[Indigo121]

I realize now that I really want a device with a dark/night mode. I understand the default NeoReader app doesn't have it. But I suppose you could install other reading app on Android and use it? Though I'm not sure how much of a hassle that would be.

Seems like Kindle and Kobo have this feature out of the box.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by Indigo121

I realize now that I really want a device with a dark/night mode. I understand the default NeoReader app doesn't have it. But I suppose you could install other reading app on Android and use it? Though I'm not sure how much of a hassle that would be.

Seems like Kindle and Kobo have this feature out of the box.

It's not much of a hassle at all. That's basically what you are expected to do anyway. NeoReader is great for reading PDFs, but leaves a lot to be desired for EPUBS.

I use Koreader and Alreader X as my main readers on my Onyx devices. The latter is used as the default reading app for Onyx devices on the Russian market. Alreader X has an easy switch to read in night mode (don't know about Koreader).