I love Kobo ereaders but I’m fed up with the DRM encryption on their ebooks, quite inconvenient. I followed this Kobo DRM removal tutorial and tried out these three methods. They’re actually pretty good. Especially BookFab Kobo Converter – unlike the other two methods, it doesn’t require you to install so many plugins or input any code. You can directly convert your ebooks to DRM-free EPUB format. It also has a built-in browser that can directly access the official Kobo website, so you don’t have to switch back and forth between different software. If you’ve been dealing with the same headache, give the method I mentioned a shot!
I hope the reason they took so long is that they were waiting on a really good color e-ink screen, but I doubt it. That said, I love my Kobo Sage and my LazyLibrarian + Calibre-web + Kobo Sync workflow, and if you can do the same on these, then they’ll probably be a good buy.
Keep in mind that only one company makes eInk displays. They’re all using the same displays.
Only one company in the entire world makes e ink displays?
Yeah, E Ink is actually a brand. AFAIK there’s no one else producing suitable displays for ereaders at scale.
All the panels used by all Kindle, Nook, Kobo and Boox eReader models are made by Carta.
There might be other companies that make those other kinds of small updatable eink displays used in stores, or the tiny ones on microcontrollers.
Sure. I don’t see how that affects what I said, though?
Any chance you could share your docker-compose.yml for your stack?
I can, but I’m not happy with it. If you containerize this setup, each container needs it’s own Calibre instance and it’s very inefficient. I run it on Proxmox and plan to either package it all in a single Docker image or roll it into my Ansible playbook on a different VM.
If you want pretty good color screen, try the Boox Tab Mini C
I use a kobo libra 2 with calibre and it’s great. If you buy a kobo either make sure you really like it or buy it from Amazon. Their customer service is absolutely horrible.
That’s kinda hilarious. Buying a product from its own competitor.
I had a good experience with their customer service.
My Kobo bricked a few days after the warranty expired (it’s possible I broke it installing koreader improperly or something) and they replaced it no problem.
Took a few weeks but I was happy they replaced it at all.
I’m glad you did! I ordered a device from them and wanted to return it and it took multiple chats over multiple days (maybe weeks?) to get it done. Was quite a headache.
I really REALLY love my Kobo Libre 2, it’s a fantastic reader. I would like to move the Color version, but they didn’t actually show anything like a graphic novel, guess I’ll be waiting for reviews, not sure why they wouldn’t show the most common use for one of these unless maybe it’s not great at it.
I’ve had a Libra 2 for almost 2 years now and just yesterday I was thinking “it still looks great!”. I don’t feel the need to upgrade and colour isn’t a must for me, so I’ll just wait for a couple of generations until the colour technology is more mature and they add some kind of feature my Libra 2 doesn’t have besides that.
Yeah, sadly a good color e-ink screens seems like one of those techs that is always a couple years away. It seems like maybe the demand just isn’t there for R&D with everyone having large form factor phones these days.
I thought e ink was just in patent hell with only one company developing it and charging high fees on everything they can related to it and they aren’t that good at r&d but they are good at milking something for all its worth
I thought color DES was decent?
Sorry, I haven’t made the jump into an e reader of my own yet, so I may be missing something, but could the same not be said for phones and B&W e readers? Phones can basically do everything an e reader can on its face, but there’s still a niche to be filled by e readers, so I’m not sure lack of demand would exactly be the problem?
Ooohhh, this is huge! And also an upgraded Kobo Clara (in black and white)!
BW e-readers are sufficient for reading but colors are awesome for image content in books, such as graphics and maps and whatnot. Hopefully some reviews show up soon.
What e-reader should I buy, when I don’t want to use amazon (or similar) services to log in/buy/transfer books to the reader?
I have plenty of free old PDF books I simply want to copy there and be able to read them without ads and online bs.
I don’t need web browser, mp3 player, spotify, google translator or other such nonsense. I need simple controls, backlight (adjustable) to read at night and that’s basically it.
Thanks for any input.
PDFs are usually terrible for reading in this screen size. If they are plain text, you might be able to convert them to proper ebooks in Calibra.
OK, thank you for noting that. Never thought about it. My local library hands out free e-books of classic old literature so it might be available in other formats too. I grabbed some PDFs, because it was easiest to open in PC or android. Will check it out.
I agree with the other reply that pdfs are terrible for e-readers. That being said, Pocketbooks can open them (which is not that common) and it is possible to read them, although it isn’t so comfortable, especially for A4 pdfs. It can also open wide range of other formats and I’m quite happy with it in general. You can connect it to a computer and simply copy your books there, among other means of getting books there. But I have to say I have no first hand experience with competition.
Thanks for the input. I wrote PDFs, but it might be possible to get another format. Check the other comment.
As for Pocketbook, which model do you have? Is there anything you dislike about it? Would you buy it again or seek alternative? Thank you.
I see. You can open just about anything, something like 18 formats, it’s on their website. I prefer epub, but it can open Kindle’s mobi etc. That’s why I bought it, I got a large library of pdbs.
I have Touch HD 3, I had some Touch Lux before. I had it for a while, don’t know their newest models. But yes, not only would I buy it again, I already did, just bought a newer version. Unless I was looking for something for hand note taking, I wouldn’t change. What I dislike is that when you break the screen, it’s expensive to replace, so I just bought a new one instead. Nothing you wouldn’t be used to from phones. And I’d very much like to have an option to disable the touch layer of the screen by long press of one of the physical buttons, but it’s a minor issue. What I like is the tunable intensity and colour temperature of the light and I’m quite happy with everything else. You can upload books by sending them as an attachment to a special email. If you don’t like the interface for reading the books, you can even quite easily replace it with Cool reader. I tried it before, but I didn’t do it in the newest one. You can use dictionaries, some are preinstalled, or use notes and highlights, but I don’t have experience with that.
I use a Kindle, but never bought a single book from them. I mostly use their transfer method for convenience instead of looking for a cable. As for books, I downloaded a few gigs of ebooks in html/RTF/doc format well before e-ink was invented, and use those with calibre to convert to epub. Pdfs are rather suboptimal for ebooks.
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the day will eventually come that I need to replace my kindle and I assume e-ink will be full HD by then.
Honestly if an e-reader doesn’t last you decades you’re doing something wrong.
I agree with your sentiment, but the resolution on e-readers has been better than HD for about a decade now.
so I can read full colour comics on an e-ink e-reader then?
My kindle oasis (1st gen) cover disagrees with this statement. Somehow my Kindle Keyboard outlasted my oasis by a decade.
“Kobo announces they’ll finally spend a couple more bucks in each unit so they can ship same display any other Chinese company doing e-readers ships”. - There, title fixed.
Kinda surprised they even still exist. Bought one for my mom years ago. She used it a lot but thought 10-15 bucks for an ebook was too much. So i had to download a bunch of public domain stuff for her. Kept her occupied for a good while
You can also sideload epubs, borrow books from libraries on Overdrive and read articles online, etc. It’s way easier on the eyes than screens that rely on refresh rates (which also make them better to use before sleep), they have long battery life. And it’s a lot lighter than carrying books around.
They have a lot of advantages over other platforms for reading.
Why at you surprised? You can have 10000 books in the space of a single folder.
I know. Mama was very picky though
Looks like Kobo’s primed for the top spot since Jassy gave up on innovation
Whilst this is nice. I’ve had a color ebook reader for maybe four years. It’s not a new technology.
