When it comes to an eBook reader, the choices are limited. The market is dominated by Amazon’s proprietary Kindle along with a few other options like Kobo, Nook and Onyx.
An interesting news for open source enthusiasts is that a developer, Joey Castillo, is working on creating an open
“When it comes to an eBook reader, the choices are limited.”
?
Limited to every other smart phone and tablet on the planet?
Having a good, dedicated e-reader is a hill that I would die on. I want a big screen, with physical buttons, lightweight, multi-weeklong battery, and an e-ink display. Reading 8 hours on my phone makes my eyes go twitchy. And TBH it’s been a pain finding something that supports all that and has a reasonably open ecosystem.
When reading for pleasure, I’m not gonna settle for a “good enough” experience. Otherwise I’m going back to paper books.
I don’t buy the need for e-ink. I’m on normal LCDs for… way more hours than I’d care to admit. No strain.
Have you used an e-ink reader? The difference is remarkable. My Kobo battery died this morning, so I finished the book I was reading on my iPad, which was fine, but much less pleasant.
Besides, it’s not just about the screen. The lack of distractions in a device that serves only one purpose is just as important to me.
I’ve looked at e-ink readers multiple times since they first came out and they are all garbage. Low resolution, trash images, garbage refresh rates, slow page turns, awful white levels.
I literally see no reason to ever use one over a nice phone or tablet display which, by the way, can be used for other content options besides text.
Did you not see the bit about not actually wanting other content options? My Kobo is a single use device that is incredible at what I want it to do. I don’t care about refresh rates or resolution, literally all I care about is that it displays text comfortably without being glaring. And it does that.
So does my phone and tablet and laptop.