All these books I'm buying are starting to be a strain on my modest budget so I'm planning to buy an e-reader — especially considering most of the books I'm interested in are available for free on the Internet in one or another anyway.
So, I'm looking for advice from people who own an e-reader. What model should I go for? It should allow me to read any sort of PDF file or e-book, no questions asked. Also it's a big plus if I can read manga scans as well.
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I assume that if you're on a budget then you'd buy the paperwhite kindle, not the voyage one like in your picture. Anyway, for the paperwhite it works completely fine with any PDFs I've found on here or in libgen. I'm not really sure how the manga would work but I'm assuming that they'd also function properly as long as the file is in PDF or EPUB. One downside of the paperwhite kindle is that when you turn it off it displays ads and you need to pay 20 dollars to get rid of them. Overall its a decent e reader that gets the job done.
I have the paperwhite and mostly read everything there. You can pretty much find pdfs and epubs of anything online and email them to your kindle. Pretty much reading for free that you don't have to sit in front of a computer for. Highly recommend it, but for big books that take a lot of flipping around and writing margin notes I would say just get an actual copy.
Don't go for Kindle, then. It only accepts .mobi files (proprietary bullshit with DRM). Get an ereader that accepts .epub (literally every other ereader). I've heard good things about Kobo (and it accepts PDF's).
Also, while you're at it, download Calibre. It lets you manage ebooks and PDF's and convert them
tablet is fine too
I bought a Kobo Aura H2O a month ago, and I'm very happy with it so far.
I initially wanted to get a cheaper vanilla Aura, but after I've learned that most e-readers can get toasted thru contact with water, I decided to spend a bit more, and I'm glad I did since I actually spilled beer on it a couple of weeks later.
The screen size is also perfect IMO. Only problem is that PDF support isn't that great out-of-the-box, but I still have read one without many problems and you can install koreader anyway.
I wouldn't recommend you to get something more expensive than this unless you plan to read chinese mangos with it (and even then, a tablet is probably better for that).
What do you mean exactly by PDF support? Because books I got from the Internet at random are actually pretty much all PDFs.
I bought a kindle paperwhite and it's been working pretty good. Only need to charge it like once every two to three weeks and I've gotten a lot more reading, especially on theory, done in the last year than usual since I never usually do it. I haven't tried any other model so I can't really compare, but It's definitely worth it if you pirate everything. It also has a pretty cool thing where you can just email yourself a pdf and convert it instantly to the ebook format. All in all would recommend most everyone to get one.
What are you talking about? I have a kindle and I pirate PDFs and read on it all the time. Maybe if it's some cheaper variant, I don't know.
The prefered format for e-readers is epub/azw3 which are easier for e-ink screend to display as it is basically just text, and you can tinker with fonts, margins, etc.
By contrast e-readers have to draw the image comprising a PDF page, which can be a bit slow and annoying when zooming. But it's not that bad, especially if a PDF is well formatted, and koreader supposedly make it better.
To find epub versions of books, use libgen, b-ok.org or mobilism.
At my used book store I was able to get a color nook for about 20 bucks. Works fine, reads everything I need, and if it's rooted is basically just another tablet.
Is it e-ink though? If not, what's the point? You might as well read on your mobile phone.
Weird, I could have sworn that you couldn't read PDF's on it, but the kindle still can't read .epub.
No dude, pdfs work completely fine on the paperwhite? Where'd you get that from
i have a kindle related question…
how come certain pdfs (particularly scans of older books) don't display properly? lots of missing letters
You have to open them on a PDF reader (as opposed to the Kindles mobi reader) but otherwise pdfs work fine
Pretty sure epubs are the same fyi
Could be talking nonsense but here's my guess: It's taken from a paper scan and the reader tries to use OCR to turn it into computerised text rather than a series of photographs of pages, but isn't getting it right.
You'll regret this purchase, I suspect. I had a Kobo Touch, screen cracked after ~six months. Open the thing up to look at replacement and the microusb is so loosely connected with solder paste it drops off. Did some checking round and apparently I'm not the only one to discover the build quality of their devices sucks. Lot and lots of compaints. I've subsequently picked up a second hand kindle touch. The device is vastly more rugged in construction than the Kobo.
With kindle you now have to pay to get rid of adds.
Kobo seems a lot better for its larger screen size in comparison to similarly priced kindles and its custimizability. Most allow for SD cards (I hear some newer ones scrapped them though) and there a bunch of apps like koreader fot reading PDFs.
In my experience though most e-readers are just shit for pdfs regardless of any superior app or such unless your shelling out $600 for a hueg screen sony e-reader. If it's the case that you're reading mostly PDFs then get a tablet and download something like moon+ reader. Also the vast majority of PDFs aren't formatted in a way that will convert well to ebook formats. (page numbers and header's will get annoying as fuck every other page. footnotes will be a fucking pain to read not being concisely on one page and things like equations and images will inevitably be fucked).
Kindle is complete garbage. Every single one of them. The fact that it's produced by Amazon should be enough to stay away from it, but it's also Riddled with DRM and advertisements, and harvests your data for marketing. I got a Nook, a simple B+W e-paper one with three buttons. No DRM, no ads, no headaches, just any e-book you can download on a display that doesn't cause eye-strain.
I don't know man. The Kindle 3 has better build quality than the nooks and kobos I've tried and I love having an actual keyboard Also it's not that hard to jailbreak and hack. See no reason to upgrade.
Ads? On a product you have already bought?
How come you haven't returned it for a refund yet?
you can buy a fifth gen kindle for $20 on ebay..
not gonna pay $100 to look at ads lmao
That's Kindle for you. It's basically a way for them to shill their store
I also want to get a cheap, but decent one.
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I was going to post a big reply but my browser crashed, let me try to summarize.
You'll want backlit e-ink, allows sideloading, can read as many formats as possible. Touchscreen is very convenient too. Check Mobile Read and Mobilism for possible cracked firmware and utilities. Maybe it's just my old Kobo Glo, but it sucks for PDFs because they're rendered at a size slightly bigger than the screen, so I have to keep dragging the page around, which sucks with e-ink.
If you wanted something to read pdf on, an android tablet with moon reader is probably the best solution I've tried. Problem is the battery life is shit and the high cost to buy in.
I'll just leave this here: stallman.org
inb4 no ethical consumption under capitalism: this is about the dangers to the buyer.
points 1-4 and 6 only apply if your a stupid fag who buys or uses shitty .azw files.
All other points are disregarded if you get a kindle 3 without 3G (no you don't need internet on your fucking e-reader), which has the best design of the bunch and can be gotten for 20 -30 dollars used.
I bought the cheapest Kindle, turned it on airplane mode and never took it off. Don't activate it or connect to the internet it's cancer.
Looking back I'd probably pick a cheap Kobo. Trust me, the extra features in the high end ones is not worth it.
PDF files are shit on ereaders, use epub or mobi.
you're my hero thanks, didn't know these!
I use old Pocketbook pro 912 and very happy with it. I only complain on long lag when i read djvu.