Reader with disable touch + manual buttons

[sekazi]

I just got my Kobo Forma last week and if the other Kobos are the same then you can set the page forward and back to swipe only and no amount of tapping will make the page turn.

[Quoth]

Crazy, a gentle tap handier than a swipe. I notice the Kobo too has swipe & Tap, or swipe only, but no tap only. The reality is that it's just to save 25c of inventory and satisfy marketing people who care more about appearance than function (Apple puck mouse with one button, phones with no buttons etc).
The issue with no page turn buttons is the screen can get greasy.
I like on my Android phone and tablet how the physical volume buttons can be page turn. But not the Win 10 tablet (OS GUI a pile of junk on that anyway), if Debian is on the Win10 tablet, the volume keys can be page up & down, but only all the time, also touch is wrong when in Portrait mode (allegedly can be fixed)! However the bigger tablets are only good for PDFs, poorer than eink based readers for books.

[ginger_rocket]

Hadn't seen the B&N Nook mentioned. It's always had buttons and while you probably can't disable the touch functionality, the screen is set further in from the buttons and it's hard accidentally turn the page.

Originally Posted by Trask

Hi all,
Preferrably, I'm looking for an ebook reader that can disable the touchscreen and use manual buttons to turn pages.
Thanks!

[Quoth]

How many buttons has the Inkbook Prime HD? It claims the button functions can be changed, though I can only see a sort of home location button.

Capacitive touch rather than IR, which lowers contrast from ambient light. Personally I think front lights are a last resort during power cuts.
The 8G storage is good but PDF "reflow" is misleading. Very few PDFs can reflow and no scanned content (all out of copyright old manuals, magazines, text books etc). Most of Google Books and Microsoft scanned PDFs on Archive.org need a 10" or larger screen as the text layer is only OCR for search.
[Really useless for PDF: 6" 1024×768 pixels (212 dpi). So lower resolution than a 2015 Kindle Paperwhite and maybe less white with light off.] Update: They now sell Prime HD for €129 with 300 dpi and adjustable colour "temperature". 8gb storage with expandable microSD card up to 32 GB.

Not bad value @ €129. If you can do annotations and read them back with sensible location info. Kindle Annotation export is poor compared to Kobo.

I wonder how much this will be? It would do scans of PDF books, but not magazines: Explore will feature a 7.8" E-Ink screen with a 300 DPI.

[Quoth]

Update: Both the older Inkbook prime and Inkbook Prime HD do have two buttons on both sides. The touch can be turned off. Can be bought direct or on Amazon.
Irish Amazon customers have to usually buy in Sterling instead of Euros. £125 (but likely that's UK VAT). Changes to £134 at checkout! However unlike Kindle and eBooks, I can select English on Amazon.de and buy it there.

Edit: €20 more than 2018 Kindle Paperwhite, but has page turn buttons, SD card slot and much larger battery? OTH you'd need an old Kindle and Calibre to put Amazon eBooks on it (select transfer via USB and do PC download). Amazon's app is trickier for export/import to Calibre than PC download for USB transfer and also there is no Amazon app for Linux. The PC Windows app no longer works under WINE on Linux. Not waterproof, but I don't trust my Kobo Aura HD H2O original for that anyway.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by LucyOne

Well, they call it "disable touchscreen". It means that the touchscreen does not react to taps or random touch anymore, only to swiping.

Wrong; swiping does not work either. The screen doesn't react to touch, taps, or swiping. It's dead to the world.

It's sort of annoying if, like me, you didn't read the message when you enabled it and couldn't figure out how to turn touch back on since touching at the top of the screen doesn't bring up the menu. I finally turned it off with the power button (sleep mode) and then it's enabled when you turn it back on.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Wrong; swiping does not work either. The screen doesn't react to touch, taps, or swiping. It's dead to the world.

It's sort of annoying if, like me, you didn't read the message when you enabled it and couldn't figure out how to turn touch back on since touching at the top of the screen doesn't bring up the menu. I finally turned it off with the power button (sleep mode) and then it's enabled when you turn it back on.

But that makes no sense. Why have the option to disable the touchscreen on a button free device? If nothing works, no tapping, no swiping, how would you turn the page?

The new Paperwhite does have the option according to the user manual. It disables tapping to turn the pages...you must swipe. I suppose the point is to lessen accidental page turns.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

But that makes no sense. Why have the option to disable the touchscreen on a button free device? If nothing works, no tapping, no swiping, how would you turn the page?

The new Paperwhite does have the option according to the user manual. It disables tapping to turn the pages...you must swipe. I suppose the point is to lessen accidental page turns.

Sorry, I was talking about the Kindle Oasis. It has two buttons on the side.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by LucyOne

Well, they call it "disable touchscreen". It means that the touchscreen does not react to taps or random touch anymore, only to swiping.

Sorry, in my previous post I was talking about the Oasis, but I see that you are talking about the Paperwhite, which I have no experience with.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

Sorry, I was talking about the Kindle Oasis. It has two buttons on the side.

Ah, ok. LucyOne had been talking about the new Paperwhite. I have the Oasis, and checked out the setting to disable the touchscreen. I don't like the buttons, and rarely use them. I'd have been happier if they weren't on the device in the first place. I bought it for the larger screen.

I'm a fast reader, and the constant clicking would drive me batty. I use them at times when navigating the home screen, especially when I have too many books not in collections. But for reading, hardly ever.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Ah, ok. LucyOne had been talking about the new Paperwhite. I have the Oasis, and checked out the setting to disable the touchscreen. I don't like the buttons, and rarely use them. I'd have been happier if they weren't on the device in the first place. I bought it for the larger screen.

I'm a fast reader, and the constant clicking would drive me batty. I use them at times when navigating the home screen, especially when I have too many books not in collections. But for reading, hardly ever.

When reading a book I tap the right side to turn the page; swiping would be too much movement. But when in the book list I have to shift gears and swipe up or down, and for some reason that minor inconsistency annoys me so then I use the buttons. Obviously you couldn't tap when you're in the book list because that selects a book. And then I've had books where the table of contents is wide and tapping the right side selects one of the toc entries and jumps to it. So for me having the buttons is helpful. My previous kindle was the first gen Touch, which I never really liked.

[Quoth]

However I found that on the Kobo ereaders I have that hyperlinks are hard to use, to impossible if page turn = "Tap or swipe", setting to swipe only helps that and text selection for highlight/annotation/dictionary.

[Waiting4somethin]

I dislike touchscreens also. They do not suit my style of reading, which is to carry, hold and operate the device sort of unconciously without the distraction of accidental touches.

I tried faster ereaders but lately i found that the kindle keyboard and kindle DXG are quite suitable for reading normal text and various textbooks. They save a lot of money, and the kindle keyboard has an official amazon-made case, from which a light extends out over the device, and as such does not shine in your eyes but directly at the ereader (I personally missed out on the kindle craze so this case was novel to me). The DXG is a bit slow but it reads whole pages of pdfs and fits to width in landscape mode, no reflow required.

It might be worth mentioning that certain android apps (there are many) disable touchscreen so you might be able to do that on an android ereader with buttons.

[Michal Jancik]

Originally Posted by ps67

I don't know if there is a reader with the possibility of disabling touch.

Kindle Oasis has a 7" screen and Kobo Forma has a 8" screen. And as far as I know they are the only readers with buttons (among those still in production). Unfortunately they are not cheap.

You also could follow the advice of the previous post of chromedome and look for something that is not no more produced.

- I use PocketBook Inkpad 3 (740) it also has the button and it is on sale.
* 7.8 Screen, Dual-Core CPU + 1Gb RAM. https://www.pocketbook-int.com/fr/pr...tbook-inkpad-3

- In addition, I find, ke PocketBook as best file explorer.
- Cost less than FORMA.
- Very good quality, and level of contrast too. No need to invest in Kindle Oasis or Kobo Forma.

[Michal Jancik]

sorry duble-post