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572 points bookofjoe | 1 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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hi_hi ◴[] No.41866622[source]
Wait, you have to pay to not have ads on a Kindle?

When did that start being a thing? I've been using a kindle for about 14 years, my current one is a few years old. I've been thinking about upgrading, but it works perfectly fine, and I've never had it display ads, and haven't had to pay anything for that "privilege".

It sounds like this will be my last Kindle device if I now have to pay extra for no ads, on a device I've already paid for, to read books I also pay for.

When will the madness stop!?

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letniq ◴[] No.41866982[source]
Actually there is a hack. After buying a kindle, you just write to kindle support and say that you are getting ads and you are not aware why are you getting them. They usually would remove them for you. Worked for me though when I bought kindle.
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gizmo ◴[] No.41867255[source]
That's not a hack. Customer support just doesn't want to argue with people who are likely to get belligerent. You can get a lot of stuff for free just by throwing a tantrum, but is that really who you want to be?
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n4r9 ◴[] No.41867493[source]
> Hacking might be characterized as ‘an appropriate application of ingenuity’.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html

It's not far off a hack. And not OP but personally I've got very few problems with getting one over on massive corporations like Amazon.

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gizmo ◴[] No.41867796{3}[source]
It's about as ingenious as littering to save yourself a 20 second walk to a trash can.
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n4r9 ◴[] No.41869060{4}[source]
I disagree. It's exploiting a weakness in customer service provision in order to work around built-in UX degradation. Not many people would think of it.
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eloisant ◴[] No.41869366{5}[source]
It's not a weakness, it's Amazon's strategy to be generous in customer support to ensure loyal customers.
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1. widowlark ◴[] No.41869668{6}[source]
not so - they will fight you on the ad removal most of the time