How does Android feel as an eReader compared to a dedicated device?

[organized_chaos]

I like my Kobo Clara 2E but I want to upgrade to something with a color screen and has expandable storage options. The Linux devices I can find with a Kaleido 3 screen all have soldered eMMC storage. My Kobo has an internal microSD card that I could upgrade but it doesn't have a color screen.

I want something that I can put a 128 GB or 256 GB card into to hold my entire collection of graphic novels on one device.

I use Android on my phone and tablet but I like my eReaders to feel like an appliance, not a general purpose computing device. Do the E Ink Android devices come with dedicated comic book/graphic novel apps? I don't want to have to pay for an app after buying the device and I don't want free apps that contain ads.

Additionally, do any of the Android devices have a home screen that just shows the collection of books on the device or do they all require opening an app to get to the book list? Again, I'm aiming for a device that feels more like an appliance and not a tablet.

[nana77]

As for the sorting, you can give a look at: https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/, filtering by "MicroSD card reader", and "color display".
I guess each company might have its policy, as for how locked or wich features may have its Android version.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by organized_chaos

Do the E Ink Android devices come with dedicated comic book/graphic novel apps?

I can only speak about Boox but no, it doesn’t. It does come with a fairly decent reader app of its own but it’s a regular reader app, nothing specifically there for comics. (It also only works with DRM-free files.)

Originally Posted by organized_chaos

Additionally, do any of the Android devices have a home screen that just shows the collection of books on the device or do they all require opening an app to get to the book list?

Both my Boox devices open at the “Library” screen (list of books). IIRC it was the default for Boox Go 7; Boox Go 10.3 is a bit more multi-purpose device and opened at the general app launcher screen but it’s easy enough to set “Library” as the default home screen instead. (If you have multiple reader apps installed, you can also long press a title and choose whether to open in the default reader, Koreader or something else.)

[Gormagon]

Originally Posted by organized_chaos

Additionally, do any of the Android devices have a home screen that just shows the collection of books on the device or do they all require opening an app to get to the book list? Again, I'm aiming for a device that feels more like an appliance and not a tablet.

You can use the app MacroDroid to start a reader app right after booting the device. On the other hand it's just a tap on the start screen after booting to start a reader app. Each app that starts automatically like MacroDroid consumes energy and has an influence on the battery. So I would just tap on the reader app on the start screen.

Some apps offer widgets where you can display a certain number of recent or favourite books. Librera can display up to 50 books in the widget. As far as I know there's no widget for KOReader though.

These changes are something you can try on every Android device.
If you download Librera from F-Droid or github there are no ads displayed. Otherwise you can use a firewall like NetGuard to block every app you like to access the internet.

[Quoth]

TCL Nxtpaper for Colour + Android. Sadly none in the ereader sizes. Either a phone or Nxtpaper 11 (those take SD cards). The Nxtpaper 14 is good for PDFs, coffee table books, illustrated / graphic novels etc but no SD card. The TCL Nxtpaper 40 and 50 phones are better than a Sony PRS-350 for reading.

Kaledo 3 is miserable. Poorer than mono eink for text and only 1930s quality limited colour.

I've an eink Android and it's pointless compared to eink Kobo, though it can sort show books rather than apps.

Kobo is simply the best for library / metadata based browsing and search, so I deleted KOReader once Kobo added PDF crop.

[organized_chaos]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Kaledo 3 is miserable. Poorer than mono eink for text and only 1930s quality limited colour.

I thought Kaleido 3 was the best color e-ink panel available. Is there a better one I should be looking for? "1930s" color is better than forcing the graphic novels to grayscale in my opinion.

I really like my Kobo. If the color models had internal SD cards I would buy one with no hesitation. I just want more than 32 GB of internal storage though.

I'm going to play with some of these Android suggestions on my tablet and see if I can get a setup that I'd be happy with on an eink screen.

[nana77]

I was to think that, when using (e.g.) the Kindle app or Google Books on an Andoid-based ereader, the books bought in there can be read only within the application, and in case it can be possible to export them but it would need dedrm and acsm plugin/conversions.
After having spam it several times, I'd tempted myself and, when saw a good offer, found a Color Note second hand. I'll see how it is in regard of that. It has a microSD slot, and the OS is locked to what it seems the essentials features (it can also disable Google Play Store).
If I'd understood that was a project work done together with Bigmi?
https://goodereader.com/blog/electro...owner-of-bigme

As part of our ongoing collaboration, Pocketbook has not only become a shareholder and co-owner of Bigme but is also actively involved in mutual product development. This collaborative approach, which includes cross-sharing of R&D teams,

What interested me was the colors, for comics and graphic novels (that already I own, on an HD since 2012 but didn't fully read); the mobius screen that seems to give to Kaleido 3 some more nits lighting (116 nits); and as for the specs on DPIs, it really got me on that video showing how on paper it's mentioned as having just 74 dpi on colour, but on real life them 113.

Spoiler:

Pardon, I know I've posted it so several times .
It's the only video explaining it.

Edit: omg the order has been cancelled. Just saw now the mail. OMG.
Probably I'll back to the Pocketbook Inkpad 3 Color (despite it has not MicroSD card reader, but OTG), thought not that sure 8" would be enought for some graphic novels.

[organized_chaos]

Originally Posted by Gormagon

each app that starts automatically like MacroDroid consumes energy and has an influence on the battery.

I guess this actually leads me to another question which I hadn't considered yet. What is the battery life like between Android eink devices and Linux devices? The battery life on my Kobo lasts a LONG time.

Originally Posted by Quoth

Kaledo 3 is miserable. Poorer than mono eink for text and only 1930s quality limited colour.

Is there a better color eink display? I know color screens in general are dimmer and lower PPI than mono screens but attempting to read a color graphic novel on a grayscale screen is painful.

Originally Posted by Quoth

TCL Nxtpaper for Colour + Android. Sadly none in the ereader sizes. Either a phone or Nxtpaper 11 (those take SD cards). The Nxtpaper 14 is good for PDFs, coffee table books, illustrated / graphic novels etc but no SD card. The TCL Nxtpaper 40 and 50 phones are better than a Sony PRS-350 for reading.

The TCL Nxtpaper devices look like backlit LCD tablets to me. And why are you comparing these to a Sony PRS-350? That device is over 15 years old. Sorry, I don't think you understood what I was asking about.

To clarify: I am looking for a device with a colour e-ink screen that has a slot for a microSD card (either inside it like my Kobo or accessible from the outside). It seems like these are limited to Android e-ink devices nowadays so I am trying to understand how it feels to use something like a Boox or Bigme device.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by organized_chaos

I guess this actually leads me to another question which I hadn’t considered yet. What is the battery life like between Android eink devices and Linux devices? The battery life on my Kobo lasts a LONG time.

This is heavily dependent on the device battery, whether it’s BW or colour (the latter means a need to use the frontlight a lot), how much wifi & bluetooth you use, etc.

On my Boox Go 7 Colour Gen II, used only for reading, wifi off (apart from when actively connecting to download a book), frontlight around 50% because for my use it’s too dark otherwise, I’ve got around 13-15 hours of reading time.

On my Boox Go 10.3 (no frontlight) … I got mine three weeks ago, it was charged to 87%. I updated the OS twice, looked around, downloaded a couple of apps, tweaked the settings, connected it once via USB cable to computer to add some fonts (so it charged a couple of percent), and read six full novels on it until finally charging it for the first time yesterday (it was down to 23% at the time but there was a new system update and I figured I wanted to charge it).

Anyway, as for colour screens .. the only other commercially available option for e-reading is Gallery 3, and I think the only devices currently using it are a couple of ReMarkable models, which aren’t really intended for reading anything but PDFs, as I understand. It’s supposed to be better than Kaleido 3 in some ways (more colours, brighter) but has its own downsides, like slower refresh.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by organized_chaos

The TCL Nxtpaper devices look like backlit LCD tablets to me. And why are you comparing these to a Sony PRS-350? That device is over 15 years old. Sorry, I don't think you understood what I was asking about.

To clarify: I am looking for a device with a colour e-ink screen that has a slot for a microSD card (either inside it like my Kobo or accessible from the outside). It seems like these are limited to Android e-ink devices nowadays so I am trying to understand how it feels to use something like a Boox or Bigme device.

The Nxtpaper are using LCD or OLED (depending on model), but correctly adjusted brightness & sRGB (not Vivid or epaper modes) they look like mono eink or real colour coffee table books. They do not at all look like regular LCD or OLED.
OTOH I've seen two models of colour eink based on Kaledio 3. They are less sharp and much darker (due to coloured printed R G and G B in a 2 x 2 pattern on the 300 dpi mono pixels, white, black & 14 greys). They have very poor colour rendition and limited colours only suitable for "pulp" paper printed comics. They are almost unusable without the LED front lights!
The Gallery 3 is brighter and more colours as it uses C Y M & white per cell, not an R G , G B printed colour filter array. Unfortunately it's 10x slower at full colour and eink is already 100x slower than anything else if doing the full 14 shades, black & white rather than pure black & white. That's needed for colour, so in colour eink is slow. Compare page turns with mono text only and page turns with a full grey scale image on each page on a mono eink!

I have an Android eink. The eink makes app compatibility, even when there is no animation, very poor and many ebook apps for DRM based ebook shops need the Playstore/Google Framework.

I do have or have used Kobo Touch, original H2O, Nia, Elipsa and also the 300 dpi Libra, Libra 2 & Sage. The NxtPaper 11 & 14 are superior to the Elipsa & Remarkable (which came back when person I gave it to got a Sage).
I've had Nook Simple Touch, iRiver Story (not HD) and these Kindles:
DXG, K3, Basic (early and later versions), PW1, Pw3, Oasis 2 (and used a borrowed PW4)
Only the 300 dpi mono eink are better than Nxtpaper, and only if the the frontlight is off. About the same when frontlight is on. The four Nxtpaper devices I have are all better (less strain, decent contrast, sharpness etc) than all the eink models less than 300 dpi and FAR better than colour eink even for mono text.

I manage ebooks with Calibre.
Reading PD ebooks on Laptop since 2000 and on eink since 2012. Maybe 2 to 5 books a week.
I also use eink to proof read on (PW1, DXG, Original Kobo H2O, Libra, Sage).
With the front light off (decent ambient light) I read & annotate (text only, abandoned notes after getting Nxtpaper) on the Kobo Sage, which better battery life than most phones/tablets, but poorest ever of any eink. The Nxtpaper 40, 50, 11 & 14 have as good reading time as a PW3 with the light on, if only used for reading.
I use the Nxtpaper 11 for notes and many PDF datasheets & text books(SD card) and Nxtpaper 14 for coloured content, PDF magazines, PDF two page layouts. No SD card, but 256 G flash.

The 32 G Sage has 10,000 ebooks & some smaller PDFs and looks like it could take 18,000. Sadly the Sage is unavailable.

So currently for 7" and larger at best mono eink the Pocketbook models look best. I played with them & actually read content in the local shop. Kobo now only does a decent 6" model. The Libra Colour is pointless as is the Elipsa 2.

A couple of other Chinese companies do paper-like micro etched screens. In tests the Nxtpaper beat them and the premium Apple matte screens (which are madly overpriced).

The Nxtpaper 11 isn't an ideal shape, but under €180, 10.9" screen, sd-card etc. The Nxtpaper 14 is over €300, but 14.25" and closer to 3:4 (I forget aspect) so better for pesky multi-column magazine PDFs. Both (and my 40 & 50 phones) are very compatible.

Add "USB Camera Standard" and a €9 HDMI to USB3 video capture dongle and then the Nxtpaper tablets make great HDMI paper-like video screens. The pro versions are really aimed at gamers/people that want to spend more etc and IMO not worth it.
The bought version of MyWrite/Nebo does handwriting to text on PDFs, the cut down version of the same SW on the Kobos is garbage in comparison, due to eink. On eink you have no real time preview. There is on real Android or iOS version.

The Google Gboard handwriting to text works in real time with Jota text editor etc even on quite old Android with a finger. Great on Nxtpaper with ot without a stylus. Unusable on eink Android.

The mono eink at 300 dpi and ambient light such that LED front light isn't needed is great. Colour or interactive is rubbish.

The epaper modes on Nxtpaper, or the Lenovo or Huawei poorer clones are a gimmick. The sRGB is better.
TCL are one of the top panel makers along with Samsung, of panels for phones, tablets & TV. They do actually make LCD, OLED, LED, hybrid LCD-LED and QLED panels. They have always made Alcatel phones and make some other brands. The Nxtpaper 40, 50, 11 & 14 do work in direct sunshine. The earlier models are not as good.