Not enough people wanted them, the hardware compaines decided to go with bleeding edge tech to appeal to the neiche.
Tldr: capitalist efficiency
There is a neat piece about the OS side; worth reading.
I still have my kindle thats over 10 years old.
I got a Kobo and its awesome as well. Ironically, because wallmart couldn’t be bothered to use good components they made it extremely repairable.
The best place to find a good working ebook reader is to either use an old phone (which is not really eink, but without wifi modern phones can last a bit). Or go to a thrift store and find a decent one for 10$ or less. Just make sure it turns on and you should be good!
I like the authors recommendation of something VERY cheap like a 10$ reader…but its probably not viable if Im honest. Sounds like a lot of e-waste that would occur.
Kobo is made by Rakuten, a big Japanese tech company. I think Walmart just resells then.
Its important to note that some models of Kobo are now fully repairable using parts from ifixit, down to motherboard and display.
Heh yeah… I was part of the linux port for fun for a bit. Certain models are just pop the bottom off and now you have access to the SD card(!) that they use for the linux kernel. AND they published the linux kernel info on GH so we even knew what they were customizing under the hood. Not a whole lot if im honest. The battery/SD card/screen/buttons are all kinda cheap, but also super easy to swap out. So you just put https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill on it and boom linux eink device.
I think osme of their newer models have less repairable parts as the product line has become more popular.
I’ve had a Kindle for a long time and considered upgrading to a non-Kindle device but was concerned that they don’t seem to get manufacturer updates for very long. This could make that more attractive!
If they go online, then yeah updates are a good thing.
Personally, I just dont make it go online. Calibre is so good that updates only make it worse.
Still, e-ink is so much better than a regular screen. If one is really strapped for cash sure, but for one’s eyes sake I’d say e-ink is a worthwhile investment if one likes to read. A phone can’t compare.
Actually quick question, how did the author pull in all those resources on the comment section? That is pretty awesome!
There is a hint of how he did this here: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/06/12000-comments/
“I moderate heavily. If someone is rude or abusive, their comment isn’t published. Unless it’s really funny.” :-)
Still using my Nook Glowlight Plus 2015. Haven’t needed to change the battery as battery life is still exceptional. I will be sad when I have to swap the battery one day as I’ll need to break the water resistant seal they manufactured this with.
Haven’t felt any desire to upgrade as this device does exactly what I need: store a shitload of books without distractions.
E-ink bought a lot of competitors and alternatives up and thus why it’s expensive.
Has anyone tried any of the wacky e-ink readers on aliexpress?
I doubt they’d connect to the amazon ecosystem, but might be ok offline devices.
I use a 2018 Paperwhite I hacked about five years ago, still does me fine with Koreader and zlibrary ebooks.
When it dies, I’ll just do another one for cheap. Ebook tech hasn’t done anything worthwhile and color is a meme. Comics look better on oled imo.
I still use my Pocketbook Lux 3. It must be about 10 years old now and still works beautifully (even the backlight). One battery charge usually lasts me weeks, even with heavy backlight use. They are made in Europe (Switzerland) and run some flavour of Linux. They‘re not rock-bottom bargains, but the cost of the entry-level model seems quite fair in my opinion (€107). https://pocketbook.de/
Tbh, the current ones are pretty fantastic - and I find 100€ for the B/W verso and 140€ for the colour one still “reasonably cheap”.
So far they have eaten anything I gave them to read, work with calibre web (sadly only for download,not sync, but that’s not PBs fault), support the German Onleihe (public library ebooks… fantastic system getting you hundred thousand of books,often for less than 20€/year or even free) and the battery is rock solid.
So,I don’t really understand the point of the discussion. I am an absolute early adopter with E-readers and can’t remember any cheaper offers on readers that weren’t Amazon’s “bait” ads to sell you kindle unlimited,etc.
On a related note, I’ve had trouble finding high quality 8" tablets in the last few years. They used to be easy to find, but maybe with the flagship smartphones getting larger, sales on smaller tablets died off? Unsure.
I struggled with this. All I wanted was an eight inch tablet with a stylus. I eventually settled on the Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 5, which I managed to source from my cell carrier. It’s rugged, meaning it’s approaching 9 inches with the thick bezel. Not one of my desired features, but I have small children so this is still a plus. All the pictures on the Samsung website are dudes wearing hard hats and reflective vests, and you can buy a rack for charging five of them at once, that’s how aimed at construction workers it is. Also it has a push-to-talk key which I’ve bound to turning pages instead. Anyway, it fits in my (admittedly very large) pocket and I use it everyday. Oh, and you can easily replace the battery (if you don’t live in Canada) but battery life isn’t great. Performance is great though.
Yeah the iPad mini is the only one I’ve found that doesn’t suck. I wish Android would offer something decent in 8” but they’re all made to be bottom barrel with extremely low end hardware.
Samsung tab a9 is legit good and its 8" and costs like 100$. I use it as an e-reader with a matte screen protector and it’s awesome!
Pretty much. It was decided that tablets should be little laptops and not big phones. Phones got bigger, so tablets had to get bigger, plus because they were “laptops” they had to get bigger to support larger and larger keyboards. It’s really annoying.
My phone used to be 4.7 inches, now it’s 6.7 inches. So my 7 inch tablet, long since dead, doesn’t make sense. So now my tablet is 10 inches and honestly it’s too big to be comfortable as a tablet.
It’s my mission to build one at some stage (when I’ve learned how). ESP32 powered and phone sized. The idea is it’s supposed to feel a little like scrolling your phone while reading a book. Devices like this exist but they’re prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.
Side note -
I literally have the reader pictured in the thumbnail. It is a Kindle keyboard from 10+ years ago at this point. It still works fine. At one point the original battery went to shit, and it cost very little to get an aftermarket replacement and install it myself.
I keep it offline and read 100% sideloaded .epub books from various sources. The lockscreen ads don’t even try to display anymore.
Sure it isn’t backlit or waterproof but it still functions flawlessly as a generic reader. Old tech like this is awesome. Why not get a decade of use (or more) out of something that still works?
I have a similar model I picked up at a garage sale for 5 dollars. Best bang for buck tech purchase I ever made. They really don’t need wifi or software upgrades to function well when all I do is transfer epubs over usb once a year.
Exactly, I’m considering grabbing the Voyage as I loved the one I had back in the day
Keeping it offline is 100% the right call. My 250€ Kindle Oasis (1st Gen) became unusably slow after the last major update. Constantly freezes. This was marketed as a premium device, and you can’t even upgrade because Amazon killed the line. My next e-reader won’t be Amazon, but it sucks that I’ll lose all the notes I’ve had on there since I got my first Kindle in 2009.
Might there not be a way to extract them?
I had the exact same experience with that model. The screen eventually cracked (I think I had it in a backpack that I was a bit too rough with). It was easy enough to replace the screen with one I found on AliExpress, but unfortunately the replacement then cracked a few weeks later. I don’t know whether it was because the replacement screen was poor quality or because once I had taken the device apart the screen was less protected, but I figured I wasn’t going to throw good money after bad. I ended up getting a second hand Kobo Aura on eBay which has served me well.
eReaders have gotten some new features like backlights but I don’t think the technology has fundamentally moved on all that much.
It’s definitely iterative but the newer eInk screens are higher res and color. Dunno how refresh rates compare on the color screens.
Much faster and less prone to ghosting.
That said, I never took much issue with it. I didn’t have any of the very first e-readers so I’ve no idea if they’d bother me, but my first e-reader, a Kobo Touch from 2011 worked just fine and the refresh rate and ghosting wasn’t a problem.
I think the biggest pro with modern devices (to me personally) is that they’ve gotten more compact. I like how slim and comfortable my Boox Color 7 is.
It’s crazy. I bought the then-current basic model Kindle for $90 NZD in 2012, which still works. I recently started looking for a new eReader with USB C and without the rubberised coating that slowly turns back into oil. The cheapest I’ve found is over $200.
The current ad-supported basic Kindle is $109 USD, which is just $12 more expensive than it was back in 2012, adjusted for inflation (it was $70 in 2012, which would be $97 today).
It could be cheaper today, but Amazon has clearly pulled back from selling them at a loss hoping to get the costs back from ebook sales.Yeah, I didn’t consider that the exchange rate in 2012 was really good. With the new price and today’s exchange rate, it would be $180 NZD, which isn’t the end of the world, but feels kind of wrong because electronics generally get cheaper the longer they’re on the market.
That being said, it isn’t just Kindles. Kobos used to be ridiculously cheap, and now they’re the same price as Kindles if not more.
The kobo colour goes for less than $160 regularly. It is water proof, has front ligths, usb-c, and it can display color. I’m considering it for an upgrade from my, bought used 8 years ago, kindle. With Kobo, and ereaders track record in general, it will probably last twice that and still work. I consider that extremely cheap, specially in a market that usually expects people to dump a thousand dollars every two or three years for a phone. E readers have some of the best cost to utility ratios of electronics.
Yeah, I just paid $140 for a Clara BW, and I’m considering the Libra Color the next time it goes on sale (my kids like comic books).
Found a kindle something or other and a Paperwhite gen 1 for approx. 5 USD. They both remain offline 100% of the time, and they work flawlessly for sideloaded epubs. The Paperwhite even came with some preloaded books (not in my interest genres, but still cool for approx. 5 USD).
