Questions About the Best E-Readers for New Users and Jailbreaking Options

[bovemaxx]

Hi, I'm new to this scene and had a few questions:

What are some of the best e-readers available right now?
Is the Kindle ColorSoft a good option, or are there better alternatives?
Are any e-readers worth jailbreaking, and if so, which ones currently have jailbreaks available?

Thanks!

[Sirtel]

Only Kindles and Nooks need jailbreaking/rooting, to be able to modify them. Kobos and Pocketbooks don't need it; you can modify them out of the box.

There‘s no such thing as the best ereader. It all depends on your tastes and preferences. Some prefer Kindles, some Kobos, some Pocketbooks and some Onyx devices. And some use more than one brand.

In short, what do you expect from your device? What do you read (ordinary novels, manga/comics, PDF documents) and where do you get (or are planning to get) your reading material?

[bovemaxx]

Ok, that's good to know.

I enjoy reading novels, novellas, and manga. For my reading material, I intend to source it from official platforms and through EPUB formats.

[BionicGecko]

Just to add to Sirtel’s comments, at the moment it is not possible to jailbreak Kindles on firmware versions released in the past year or so (so basically any new Kindle), as no working jailbreak method is available for those firmwares. I do not know the situation for Nooks.

Also to answer your specific question about the Colorsoft, it is a very new product that was released less than a week ago, and there are reports of quality control issues with the units shipped so far. Hopefully this will be solved soon, but it’s perhaps worth taking into consideration.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by bovemaxx

I enjoy reading novels, novellas, and manga. For my reading material, I intend to source it from official platforms and through EPUB formats.

Then any 7-8" ereader would probably suit you. It doesn't need to be color, unless you want to see your book covers in color. As Kindles can't read the EPUB format natively (you must send your epub through the Amazon conversion service or convert it yourself), I wouldn't recommend a Kindle.

Pocketbook Era, Kobo Sage or Libra Colour. Also some Onyx Boox devices (those are Android, so you can install apps on them, but for pure reading experience they're not necessarily better than others).

[Sirtel]

One thing more: if you like to read in bright sunlight, then I'd certainly recommend black and white ereaders over color ones. Current color eink devices have a drawback - their screens are darker than those of b/w devices. Indoors it doesn't matter as much, because you can increase the screen lighting to compensate, but outside in direct sunlight color screens don't look as nice as b/w screens.

[bovemaxx]

Ok, thank you so much for your input, I appreciate it!

[bluepeter]

Another factor that you might want to consider is the user interface - what are you presented with when you boot the device, and how easy is it to get from there to doing whatever you want to do? Unfortunately, it's not terribly easy to evaluate this quickly. You need to be able to use a device for a while to get a good feel for it.

My opinion, for what little it's worth, is that the Kindle UI used to be quite good (about 12 years ago, when I got my first one), but has got worse and worse over the years. I find it now all but unusable. For example, trying to get the Library page to display a list of my collections is very difficult. And when I do so, I find that each item in the list takes an unnecessarily large space because of the enormous image on the left. A page on my 6" Paperwhite is only big enough to show four collections at a time. That UI is the primary reason that I no longer use Kindles, and have switched to Kobos.

The Kobo UI hasn't always been great, but has gradually improved over the years. IMO, it's now the best available in this country (the UK).

I have no experience of the Nook: B&N pulled out of this country in (I think) 2016.

The Onyx Boox UI is pretty decent (though not as good as Kobo's). Its biggest flaw is that its sorting on authors' names is done by forename, not surname. Its greatest strength is in the excellent formatting control that it offers within books. For the 6" screens that I favour, my Boox device is smaller and lighter than my Kobos or Kindle. I also find that the internal clock of my Boox drifts dreadfully: it loses the better part of a minute a day. (This isn't an issue if you're happy to turn wi-fi on frequently, because it does reset when connected.)

[JSWolf]

B&N's nook UI is abysmal.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

I also find that the internal clock of my Boox drifts dreadfully: it loses the better part of a minute a day. (This isn't an issue if you're happy to turn wi-fi on frequently, because it does reset when connected.)

That's surprising. I've had three Booxes, Poke3, 5, 6 (Go6) and none of have ever seen a NTP (time) server. They keep time to the minute over a week. When I sync my library I also sync the time to the desktop time over USB ADB. "adb shell date" only works if "adb shell" gets you a "#", although I suppose you can do "su" if that's supported.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Renate

"adb shell date" only works if "adb shell" gets you a "#", although I suppose you can do "su" if that's supported.

I have absolutely no idea what you just said: that went straight over my head!

[Renate]

adbtime.exe is a little program of mine. Just like this it sets the time to a fraction of a second. The text that comes back is the confirmation of the Android what it thinks the time is.

C:\>adbtime
Tue Nov 12 22:19:01 UTC 2024

If your device is really rooted, you can directly get a root prompt (#).

C:\>adb shell
#

If it isn't you get the shell prompt ($)

C:\>adb shell
$

If you are using Magisk (or something related) you can:

C:\>adb shell
$ su
#

[bluepeter]

OK, thanks. I don't think that's relevant to me.