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572 points bookofjoe | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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pfooti ◴[] No.41864842[source]
I have a pretty old paperwhite. When it started deleting books i had side-loaded via calibre, I decided to get a kobo. I have a libra color, and I have to say: price notwithstanding, it's a great device. I don't have a lot of experience with more recent devices, but compared to my 2nd gen paperwhite, it is _amazing_.

Color is good enough to read comic books on it, the google drive integration means it's not too hard to get my CBR/CBZ files on directly. The annotation / notetaking featureas are nice (I haven't leaned into them yet, but they work well even on the small screen size), plus all the regular stuff with normal book reading. Also, since it's kobo/rakuten, the libby integration is better (search and select library books right from the device).

The actual reading app is maybe 90% as good as reading on the kindle (or a more specialized reader like perfectviewer on android). There's some annoyingly fiddly features- font size is kind of weirdly variable, when going through CBR files there's no "read next in the folder" gesture nor is there a "this is read/unread" state in the google drive ui, so you always have to remember which book you are finishing when opening the next in the series.

I tried out one of those boox readers with the android apps, which would be even better software-wise, but the boox hardware seems like garbage (for an N=1 at least). My display came with several rows of stuck pixels, and apparently it's a good thing that I ordered from amazon instead of the boox store, because the reviews indicate getting an RMA from boox directly is a pain.

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al_borland ◴[] No.41865600[source]
I switched from a Kindle to a Kobo (monochrome), and simply having the book cover as the lock screen makes me like it so much more. I always paid to not have ads on the Kindle, but it would show a bunch of generic images. The book cover is the obvious choice. Kobo gets it.

The reading experience is a little more bare bones, but good enough, and still offers things a physical book does not.

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kaonwarb ◴[] No.41865696[source]
Just FYI, this is now a Kindle option too. https://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=23435466011
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WalterBright ◴[] No.41866528[source]
Finally! But what I'd really like is the last page read is the screen saver.
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eloisant ◴[] No.41866937[source]
That would be weird, it would make it hard to know if the device is on or off.
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chrisandchris ◴[] No.41866987{5}[source]
With these displays, there's not really an "off" because as long as there's no change on the display there's no energy usage. Of course, that dies not account for the OS.
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eproxus ◴[] No.41867051{6}[source]
The problem is, once you want to flip page you’ll try to press the touch screen and nothing will happen since you haven’t turned on the device with the power button (you don’t want the touch screen active always since it will drain the battery).

I guess they could add some indication on the screen it’s in ”sleep” mode though, like a frame or icon somewhere…

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TeMPOraL ◴[] No.41867179{7}[source]
Honestly, I think they should optimize the time it takes a powered off device to boot up and turn the page after the user presses a button[0]. Sure, those readers tend to be full-blown Linux computers with nontrivial boot time, but approximately none of the features this stack provides are needed for simply turning the page.

I'm sure I'm underestimating the complexities of the problem, but the first idea that pops into my head is to add some flash storage that's, say, 5x the size of the framebuffer, and always keep in it the current page + next two and previous two pages (swapping pointers to avoid unnecessary writes), and have an extra microcontroller that would wake on button press, read the appropriate page from the flash buffer, and send it to the display controller. The whole process could take a fraction of the second (+ screen redraw time), all while the main OS wakes up (or boots up) in the background, and the user would experience no delays if all they're trying to do is read their book page by page. Once ready, the OS would update the flash buffer and stay active for a short while, in case the user decides they want to flip pages quickly.

--

[0] - Gosh, I keep forgetting the readers only have touchscreens now. Another reason for superiority of hardware buttons for page turning.

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1. RandomThoughts3 ◴[] No.41868062{8}[source]
> Gosh, I keep forgetting the readers only have touchscreens now. Another reason for superiority of hardware buttons for page turning.

Kobo still has a reader with buttons thankfully. I don’t understand how people tolerate touchscreen on e-readers. It’s extremely distracting compared to just pressing.

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2. vundercind ◴[] No.41870243[source]
I stopped using one ereader we had because the damn touchscreen kept flipping the page if e.g. a blanked brushed it while I was reading in bed.

Buttons were absolutely perfect for this use case, on a dedicated e-reader—less so, say, an iPad mini that also does other stuff, but also those nicer touchscreens don't accidentally trigger as often so it's not as big a problem. Touch screen is nice for navigating menus but should be disabled when reading.