I’ve been a book reader for a long time, but never got into eBooks. I want to try it out next, but don’t want to use any privacy vilotating devices or software. So, those “10 best” lists I found while searching are out, all of the Amazon crap is out.
What’s left? What’s a good device to buy so I can self-host my own eBook library and get into eReading. I would prefer suggestions for devices which just read books and comics and such. I don’t need access to the app stores on it, I think.
Thanks for any ideas.
ETA: I have a Linux PC and an Android phone, if those things matter.
ETA2: Thank you all for these replies. You’ve given me a lot to think about and I appreciate the help!
You must log in or register to comment.
I have a Boox Go Color, but most Boox ereaders are good devices. You can have a Calibre library self-hosted and use the Android app “Calibre sync” to access it on your ereader.
I have a good experience with PocketBook.
I’ve had an e-ink device, and read ebooks on a number of devices. Some notes:
-
If it’s a casual read and I can get the book in epub or mobi format, I might just have it on my phone and use Librera.
-
I did not like e-ink displays at all. The text itself doesn’t appear easier on the eyes to me, and if anything the jarring refreshes on each page turn make the overall experience even more straining. For this reason regular Android tablets have become my preferred way to read books.
-
For tablets I suggest one that is at least 10 inches. A lot of ebooks are still only available in pdf format, and I’ve found that anything smaller than a 10 inch display makes for bad pdf reading.
-
Following from all that, I would suggest the Pixel Tablet, because from a privacy perspective, you have the option to install GrapheneOS on it. From there you can get F-Droid, install any of those ebook apps, and now you have a reasonably secure and private ebook reader - and the best part is, because it’s a general purpose tablet, you’re not accumulating unnecessary single-purpose devices. You never know if the tablet might have other important uses down the line.
Super helpful, thank you!
Or for other options you can checkout LineageOS. Filter by tablet to see which ones are supported, and that can help narrow choices of tablets that can be made privacy-respecting. Just make sure to use a version that does not have gapps on it. Once you use LineageOS’s site to find a supported tablet, you can go to the MicroG for LineageOS site to download the MicroG version of the OS. This comes with a set of alternatives to Google spyware so you can use your tablet completely free of Google.
-
I really like my era. Pocketbook allows me to have the website of a local bookstore as the “shop” button on the home screen, so I can support them. It is comfortable to hold and the front light is pretty good.
In the summer months when I don’t use the backlighting, I need to charge it every 2 weeks with very heavy reading or even 2 months with light reading (~20 mins a day)
I use a Lenovo M9 tablet and Readera as an e-reader and Smart Audiobook player and am very happy with it. Both apps are free without ads but also have a paid version with a couple extra features. I hop on wifi and connect to calbre-web download all the books I want and then turn wifi off for maximum privacy
I use a Kobo with Calibre! I use it for fiction and theory alike.
I got the color one for my daughter who can’t stop reading manga, and we have no more shelves to put physical books. Calibre want super intuitive, and I edited the series name, but the kobo still didn’t group things correctly, but it got sorted. Over all a high recommend
Yep! I used to go years without reading any books, now I’ve gone to reading 30-50 a year. Huge improvement for me!
Same here, its very nice. I got one with the forwards and backwards buttons, which I really like.
Same! It’s a game-changer for me, I don’t block the screen by holding it and I love the tactile feedback!
I was on your point 4 years ago. After some research, I’m using Kobo + Calibre-web with Kobo Sync integration:
https://brandonjkessler.com/technology/2021/04/26/setup-kobo-sync-in-calibre-web.html
im still amazed the e-ink so expensive. you can get an androiud table for 40 quid.
Oof, I get you about eInk, but how crappy is that tablet?
It would last about a week if you’re careful ! The whole thing, not the battery !
I don’t have experience with any readers until recently. Did some research and went with. Kobo colour. It has met expectations and I’m using it with no issue.
I wanted physical buttons.
I didn’t want an Amazon device.
I’m very surprised the top answer isn’t pocketbook. Their entire business model is reworking Chinese e ink tablets to make them GDPR compliant and privacy respecting. I’d recommend the pocketbook verse pro if you want a lit screen and USB C, but they have a cheaper model without those features.
Here is a good spec comparison table for ereaders in general. I’d point out basically all e-readers have great battery life.
I have a Kobo sage and its pretty good. Just avoid the color ones.
Why avoid color ones? I have Clara Colour, works great with Koreader firmware…
iirc, they are a bit more geared to selling you stuff, and the screens are sometimes a bit dodgy.
Yeah, kobo is what I’m planning on upgrading too.
PineNote (Pine 64) or reMarkable (Pro if you have budget, 2 or even 1 otherwise)
Both work on Linux proper, the reMarkable comes with Linux out of the box whereas PineNote comes with Android but one can install Linux on it.
They are mostly to sketch but it is also good to read. You can pretty much use whatever you want on them, including developing your own software. I don’t know if they have Calibre clients because whats I do is… just
scpmy ePubs or PDFs on there.Here are my tinkering notes on both https://fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink but feel free to ask any clarification.
PS: the Bookeen Diva also does not require any software, namely you can plug it on Linux, it gets detected as a filesystem and you can copy DRM-free content on it. It’s a totally different form factor (much smaller so IMHO not great for comics) and I don’t think there is the same open-source community as the other 2.
Also a good moment to clarify that DRM sucks, but as a user, or even a consumer, you don’t have to be worry of them (at least technically) because it’s trivial to remove. For example you can use this super convenient script https://pypi.org/project/DeGourou/ to straight up download content that should in theory be “just” for you. The online public library I use, namely https://www.lirtuel.be/ does offer ePub and PDF so I was overjoy… only to realize they meant with DRM. As I had already registered and was honestly pissed at them for not disclosing it from the start I tried DeGourou and… it just worked and is very convenient (you just give it the .acsm then it downloads and remove the DRM, so you get a proper file after). So… yeah, obviously don’t buy any DRM content if you don’t have to but if somehow you must, it’s not that big a deal technically speaking.
Just… Another kobo. I don’t actually use calibre though, i just get the books in epub format. Then when you hook the kobo to the PC, it shows as mass storage anyway. Just dump your files, and after ejected it does its cursory file scan, and it shows them properly listed in the device.
Of course Calibre offers a lot more functionality, so if you want to have a proper library it might make sense to manage your books from there. I’m basically saying no conversion is needed a it natively reads epub.
Kobo is the answer. It used to require some finicking to get it so you didn’t have to sign up with Walmart, but now that’s supposedly no longer an issue (I’ve had my Kobo for a long time). Install Calibre and the Kobo extension for Calibre. You now can borrow epubs from your local library, purchase them from your favorite online ebook store, or sail the high seas if you don’t give a fuck.
…and then my Kobo Clara briked itself into a bootloop after i connected it to WiFi.
Also beware how you buy ebooks from kobo’s store or you won’t be able to un-drm them (i.e. they get locked to the kobo).
All in all they do tend to be nice hardware and my usual recommendation.You can de-DRM books purchased from the Kobo store, I do it frequently. Use Apprentice Alf tools in Calibre.
Sorry to hear that. I’ll admit I don’t buy ebooks. Yoho yoho and all that. And yeah, I also never turn on wifi. Have you tried a hard reset?
The problem with all hard resets is that the reset button’s either:
a) at the lower back of the device
b) under the coverWhereas mine seems to be c) these is none.
At least they’ve partenered with iFixit, better late than never.
I use my (likely knockoff) Kobo that I got cheap from a shady online shop. Adding EPUBs is so damn easy.
Kobo. Simple as that. 😊
Is rakuten more private? I only know them for the smart tv app.
Whats the experience like for buying ebooks with a kobo? Is it easy to do, are there lots of books, are there lots of ads?
No ads. Easy to buy. It you’re really concerned about privacy, just flash KOReader on it which is an alternative backend. The easier alternative is to never connect to the WiFi and manually transfer ePubs to the device through Calibre.
I got a Kobo and just use the networking to sync Pocket articles. Stock system.
I don’t even think an account is available in my country. Just been syncing over Calibre. It’s not perfect (it uses a community plugin) but once you get the quirks of the Calibre-to-Kobo transfer it’s easy enough.
Now the hard part. Actually reading.
Lol. An e-Reader was actually one of the best purchases I’ve done. Started reading waaaay more than before. Also great that one can start digesting all those old out-of-copyright ebooks from like standardebooks.org, on a screen that resembles paper. I can never read a book on an ordinary screen.
I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.
And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.
Agreed on all points!
Thank you. Ive read that you can get ebooks from puplic libraries in uk with kobo but not kindle. Looking at getting one for my mum. Shes not tech literate, she can buy and read an ebook but shes always accidentally subscribing to amazon subscriptions on the kindle
Yeah if the library supports Overdrive, it’s possible. I’ve used it and it seemed to work fine.
Just don’t connect it to a network. Calibre to manage your library, transfer books via USB, done. Kobo+Calibre works fine on Linux.
However, in rare cases Kobo devices can be a bit funny with displaying covers properly without internet access to fetch/correct them “automatically”. This is not privacy friendly, obviously.
YMMV with this issue, but regardless if you choose a Kobo or not, I’ll drop some handy tips for you below just in case you care to polish your experience via Calibre.
I can’t give credit for below cause this is copied from my notes and I don’t know the author/source. Enjoy.
Calibre is so powerful and customizable that it has a bewildering amount of options and ways to do things. I wanted to scrape good metadata and covers for my ebook library in the simplest way I could. Here’s my procedure:
PREPARING THE MEDATA SOURCES (This only needs to be done once)
-
Go to Preferences -> Get plugins to enhance Calibre -> find and install the ‘Kindle hi-res covers’ and ‘Goodreads’ plugins. Reboot Calibre.
-
With your library open in Calibre, choose a selection of ebooks -> Ctrl+D to download metadata and covers -> configure download.
-
On the lower right hand side, I set ‘Max. number of tags to download:’ at 4. This is personal preference.
-
The only sources to have check marks (with their corresponding cover priority) should be:
-
Goodreads: 3
- almost always has the best metadata, and is best for tags, which I limit to 4
-
Google Images: 2
-
While selected: Configure selected source -> [Choose your preferred cover size and max number of covers to retrieve - I up it to 10]
-
If you end up choosing the covers individually Google often has good covers the other sources don’t
-
-
Kindle hi-res covers: 1
-
It usually has the best covers but can be a pain because it often picks a foreign cover and you have to go choose the cover individually afterwards.
-
I change the maximum number of covers to get from 5 to 10, but that’s not necessary.
-
-
PREPARING THE EBOOKS FOR SCRAPING COVERS AND METADATA
I clear all the ‘Rating’, Tags’ and ‘Series’ fields because the data may be from all over the place (tags are often particularly awful), but Goodreads metadata will standardize it (as far as it can be for my liking, anyway - they seem to have a finite and well-ordered number of tags unlike many other sources). You can clear other fields but I only do those three.
-
Select your books -> Right-click -> Edit metadata -> Edit metadata in bulk
-
For ‘Rating:’ select ‘Not rated’ from the dropdown and then check ‘Apply rating’ on the right
-
Also on the right side, check ‘Remove all’ on the ‘Remove tags:’ row and ‘Clear series’ below it.
TO GET COVERS
-
Select the ebooks you want to scrape and press Ctrl+D -> Download only covers.
- If I choose ‘Download both’ I usually have to reject many because the cover is foreign or something, and then I end up scraping the metadata separately anyway.
-
When the job is done -> Review downloaded metadata -> Check ‘Mark rejected books’ (this option will stay selected in the future) then go through the books, pressing ‘Reject’ for any books that don’t have a satisfactory cover.
-
After finishing the selections, the marked books will show. Select them all -> Right click - > select ‘Edit metadata individually’
-
Press ‘Download cover’, select a cover, and press ‘Next’ until finished
-
Select all the rejected books and press Ctrl-M to toggle the marked (pinned) status to off
- I put the ‘Mark books’ icon in the main toolbar with Preferences -> Toolbars & menus -> select ‘The main toolbar’ from the dropdown and move the ‘Mark books’ icon to the column on the right
-
Press the X at the end of the search bar to clear the selection and get back to the main book list.
- If you don’t see the search bar add it by pressing ‘Layout’ at the bottom right and toggling ‘Search bar’ to ‘Show’.
Rather than using the above steps, if I have some free time I like to select ALL the covers manually, because it can be fun to look at the different choices. Sometimes I’ll pick a foreign cover because the art is better. (Also many of the larger covers - especially from Kindle hi-res - are actually much blurrier than some smaller choices and you can’t tell from the thumbnails so I like to right-click and compare them at full size) To do it this way, instead of doing step 1 above:
-
Select the ebooks you want to scrape -> Right-click -> Edit metadata -> Edit metadata individually
-
Do Step 4. That will be the last step
TO GET METADATA
-
Select the books you want to scrape and press Ctrl+D -> Download only metadata.
-
When the job is done -> ‘Review downloaded metadata’ OR ‘Yes’
- If I DO review the metadata, I usually only check the comments, because I can usually trust the metadata from GoodReads
-
OPTIONAL: If any of the metadata you reviewed is unsatisfactory, ‘Reject’ it when reviewing, then do step 3 from the ‘TO GET COVERS’ section, then go to step 4 but select ‘Download Metadata’ instead of cover and follow the instructions from there.
You should now be finished selecting metadata for your selected books!
Thanks, very detailed. I was looking to get my mum, whos not tech literate at all, off the kindle; have seen she could get ebooks at a library with the kobo (uk). But with this info I think I might want one for myself too to use offline as described
-
