Dissatisfied Kindle user, looking for a reader I can organise books better on

[JSWolf]

I find my Kobo plenty stable. If it wasn't stable, I'd have moved on long ago. A lot of the issues people on MR are having with Kobo is trying to use features that are not authorized features but are in the firmware via a setting in the config file or using a third party program.

Speaking of bugs, what about that fun Kindle bug where sometimes a large chunk of text vanishes fro the end of the page and appears on the next page. There is discussion about it on MR. Then there is the new firmware where jailbreaking isn't going to happen. So if you don't like the Kindle firmware as is, you can't do anything about it.

[JSWolf]

One more Kindle issue. I yesterday I had to sort out. PW3 that had locked up after it went to sleep. It would not respond to the sleep cover nor would it respond to pressing the power button. I plugged it into the computer and it woke up. It would still not respond to the sleep cover or the button. It did respond to the touch screen. I ended up rebooting to get it working again. The book currently being read was one direct from Amazon.

I have never had to use the pinhole reset or reboot my H2O to get it working again.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have never had to use the pinhole reset or reboot my H2O to get it working again.

Glad for you. That said both Kobo's and Kindle's are basically low end computers and might need rebooting or resetting from time to time. I've had to do so on both brands devices.

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by pmpelfrey

I bought a BeBook ereader some years back from an ebay seller, not easy to find the BeBook or similar like Jinke, that support many, many formats. The BeBook seems to maintain some structure, with various choices in the menus of how to display the lists. It is all button navigation, no touchscreen. I was looking specifically for an ereader for my large collection of .lit ebooks, which Microsoft strangely stopped supporting. Their support ended after Windows Mobile 6.5, I believe. My first Windows 7 phone didn't have it, and Microsoft support told me they wouldn't be creating anything like the old Microsoft Reader software for it. I did discover that Calibre reader on my Windows computer will open .lit, and many other formats of course. The BeBook is not touchscreen, but is very lightweight, really long battery life, and can be read in bright sunlight, but no backlight to read in lowlight situations. It works great on a small plastic tilt stand like a Case Logic one, preventing nose injuries from falling asleep reading. I Velcroed my ereader to the stand, since there are no clips to hold the gadget on the stand. The other ereaders that are very capable of reading a huge number of formats, like the Jinke, can hardly ever be found. There is a good Wiki that has several tables showing device features.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...e-book_readers

But maybe better than a dedicated ebook reader would be an Android device, that could be upgraded as needed over time, since the Playstore has a Calibre version, and maybe it would allow searching and organizing like the Windows based one. I guess if you have added genre tags via "master" Calibre tool, those tags would transfer to the gadget if you use Calibre's tools to send ebooks to the gadget, which could then be used by reader software on the Android device. But I am a novice at that, sorry. I just recently saw that Calibre was in the Playstore. I would expect that it might exceed the capacity/capabilities of most any Android ereader software, including Calibre, to quickly display thousands of ebooks, since the working memory on most of the gadgets don't have a huge amount of memory-RAM. My 30k of Kindle books won't display on most Android devices, since the Kindle app seems to download a cover for each one, using up a lot of space, and whatever RAM is needed.

Calibre makes it easy to convert .lit to epub or mobi or almost any format you could desire. I have converted my entire collection of .lit files with only one of the files causing a minor problem with conversion.

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Concerning the ads: Do what Pablo said and write to Amazon explaining that you bought this device from a local retailer advertised as ad free and tell them that you would like it to be that way. Explain to them that you cannot make use of many of the offerings and that therefore they are of no use to you.
Regarding collection management: If you make use of the send to kindle feature you can use your phone or the Kindle management pages at Amazon to sort your books. If you use AZW3 format and copy over via USB, it is more work, agreed.
Regarding Kobo: I have one but I think the Kindle beats it hands down in terms of stability and performance. So if you are easily annoyed by software quirks, your Kindle is already your best choice. (And it has the most reliable PDF support of all ereaders, strange but true).
Plus, Kobo is currently "testing" more prominent "recommend books" ads in their firmware, the kind that you cannot disable or get rid of. So think about that too...

Keep in mind that if you are in Canada you will not be able to use your kindle to borrow library books. The Overdrive library here only supports epub.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Plus, Kobo is currently "testing" more prominent "recommend books" ads in their firmware, the kind that you cannot disable or get rid of. So think about that too...

I believe there are already patches to disable this.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by meeera

I believe there are already patches to disabled this.

Yes, at this moment you can enable or disable the new home with patches.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have never had to use the pinhole reset or reboot my H2O to get it working again.

As @AnemicOak says, lucky you. I have had to reset ALL the ereades I have owned and used in a daily basis. I can talk about Kindle because I haven't owned it but Booken, Sony or Kobo? All of them.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by meeera

I believe there are already patches to disable this.

Which will work until Kobo decides that the new homescreen is the way to go at which point you will not be able to change that.
I wasn’t pointing out so much that you might get the new homescreen now (which can indeed be fixed) but more that Kobo is actively thinking about implementing permanent and prominent “Recommendations” on their readers’ homescreens and nobody knows if they will eventually stick with that (for example, when they realize that this actually boosts sales) and if they will make it possible to change appearances in the future.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Which will work until Kobo decides that the new homescreen is the way to go at which point you will not be able to change that.
I wasn’t pointing out so much that you might get the new homescreen now (which can indeed be fixed) but more that Kobo is actively thinking about implementing permanent and prominent “Recommendations” on their readers’ homescreens and nobody knows if they will eventually stick with that (for example, when they realize that this actually boosts sales) and if they will make it possible to change appearances in the future.

Yes, nobody know it they will stick with that... neither if they're actively thinking or is a test. Nobody knows if, in a future, Amazon will only support KFX, or the hardened epub DRM will be implemented.... In hardware/software, if you work with the things the future can get instead of the current facts... well, it's the same than a cristal ball.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Which will work until Kobo decides that the new homescreen is the way to go at which point you will not be able to change that.

Yes, they could decide to do that. Any device bought before such a decision could still be reverted, if you factory reset/install the appropriate firmware version.

[Pajamaman]

Unlike Amazon, Kobo does not force users to upgrade to the latest firmware, so unwanted updates and changes to functionality can be avoided.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Unlike Amazon, Kobo does not force users to upgrade to the latest firmware, so unwanted updates and changes to functionality can be avoided.

Maybe not force, but if you use wifi, it will upgrade (I believe).

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by John F

Maybe not force, but if you use wifi, it will upgrade (I believe).

If you sync to the shop it will upgrade. Just using WiFi won't do this, but, it's a little harder to avoid a sync when using WiFi than it was in the past.

[John F]

Originally Posted by davidfor

If you sync to the shop it will upgrade. Just using WiFi won't do this, but, it's a little harder to avoid a sync when using WiFi than it was in the past.

Right. I should have said sync.

But to me, they both "force" you: if you want to sync ( what a "normal" user wants), than you'll get updates eventually.*

*Full disclosure, I'm not overly familiar with Kindles.