What is the current go to Calibre friendly E-Reader?

[chazholiday]

My old Kindle is tired. I will run Calibre on Linux and already have an extensive library. I may "acquire" more text in the future from my friend "Hanna" who has a vast archive. I don't care about the manufacturer's store.

What is the current go to E Ink hardware for Calibre?

[DNSB]

My personal opinion is the calibre and a Kobo ereader are the best choice.

Though perhaps advertising that you are planning to 'may "acquire" more text from your friend "Hanna"' is not is not the best opening move. MobileRead does not condone ebook piracy so statements that such as yours which tend to suggest piracy are not acceptable.

[theducks]

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔
I have 2 (Aura 2 and Libra 2). Both work, but I wanted buttons, so I added the L2.
FWIW my Kindle 4NT still works, all I did was give it a new battery. Amazon lost 'points' when they dropped download and transfer (allow me to decide where I was going to read it on) and the current plan that HIDES if a book is available in EPUB is unacceptable. Sell Books and let the buyer choose.
Many were just happy with a K only garden (it was a brilliant way to get into the market), but some of us like choices.

[Sirtel]

Having used Kindles, Kobos and a Nook, my opinion is that Kobo devices work best with calibre. There are several automatic things you can have calibre do on your Kobo which aren't possible to do on Kindles and Nooks, for example. Kobos display series info and synopsis for sideloaded books. You can have automatic collections, automatic metadata management, customized subtitle field. You can back up and restore your reading progress (useful when you have to factory reset your device for some reason or change devices).

[tomsem]

PocketBook also does series, collections, etc:

- Pocketbook Collections
This plugin allows to sync collections, completion statuses and favorite marks between the Pocketbook device and Calibre custom columns. Syncing is made manually by calling "send" and "load" commands from the menu. You can send and load all at once or do collections and statuses separately.

- PocketBook Tools
GUI plugin that offers tools for PocketBook e-readers.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by tomsem

PocketBook also does series, collections, etc:

I've seen posts in the Pocketbook forum where people complain about it not working, and no help or suggestions have been offered. I don't know how often this happens, though.

It always works with a Kobo.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I've seen posts in the Pocketbook forum where people complain about it not working, and no help or suggestions have been offered. I don't know how often this happens, though.

It always works with a Kobo.

At least just having series metadata is enough to get that to work. The other things I don't really have need of.

It seems the collections plugin has issue with 'symbols' but might otherwise work.

[Ghostcat]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I've seen posts in the Pocketbook forum where people complain about it not working, and no help or suggestions have been offered. I don't know how often this happens, though.

It always works with a Kobo.

Originally Posted by tomsem

At least just having series metadata is enough to get that to work. The other things I don't really have need of.

It seems the collections plugin has issue with 'symbols' but might otherwise work.

I have only had a quick look at this plugin but I found it does not meet my usecase. I have two columns that I use for collections on my Kobo:

• One is "Column built from other column behaves like tags".
• The other is "Text but with a fixed set of permitted values",

In neither case will the plugin accept them. It wants pure "Text" columns.

That said, the Pocketbook does have a solution, As well as COLLECTIONS they also have a GENRE field. This is populated from TAGS. I have created a METADATA PLUGBOARD, which uses the same code as my Collection custom column to output to tags.

What the above means is that you do not have to plug your reader into USB twice to get your collections, which you have to do with the Kobo.

That said, this is not meant to be a glowing recommendation for the Pocketbook as the Kobo Utilities plugin is far more versatile and, on the whole, provides far better integration.