I own the BOOX Note 2, it's an android tablet with some E-Ink friendly modifications. It's the best electronic reading experience I've ever had:
- It's 10.3", perfect for reading PDFs like scientific papers without being too large to carry around.
- The included reader is stellar, with special modes for reading PDFs, comicbooks, etc.
- The included note-taking app is pretty good and fully featured. It integrates with the reader and there's a side-by-side mode.
- It supports every open format I've tried: PDFs, DJVU, epub, mobi and more. (Haven't tried PS.)
- I can scribble on all document types, including ebooks.
- I can install apps from the app store. In particular this means I can read my Kindle library and Wallabag feed, and...
- with Syncthing syncing is set and forget. When I download a PDF or book on my computer, I simply pick up the tablet and start reading it. Any notes I make are synced back to my laptop.
- Of course, the above is in addition to the standard E-Ink features you'd expect: It lasts for weeks on a charge, the reading experience in bright sunlight is fantastic, it's lighter than an iPad, zero eye strain, etc.
I installed only the software I need for reading and syncing, but there's a lot more you could do with it since the play store and F-droid are available. You can use it as an external monitor, for instance.
The build quality is impressive. I had it for 2 weeks, used it for about an hour daily, and set it to only poweroff after a day of inactivity.
Its battery dropped from 100% to 48% over that time. Yes, I was quite positively impressed.
However, their theft of code (which is what you do, if you do not respect the code license, eg, gpl), the fact that even a brand new model tablet was 3+ monthly Android security updates behind, and the pcaps I took showing all the phoning home, including IPs in China...
Well...
As I said, returned. Quite sad, loved the hardware.
For anyone looking for pointers to buy e-Ink devices, Voja from MyDeepGuide has a comprehensible collection of different e-ink devices and is a trusted reviewer.
Thanks for sharing this. I've been pondering getting a Boox Nova 3 in the near future (mostly because it has the yellow backlight and ends up being only $5 more than a Kindle Oasis (where I live)... and then I get the benefit of all the additional features. :-)
I recently tried the Note 3. Very cool device! My impression of the Google Play app support: it works, but the experience isn't as good with 3rd-party apps as it is with the first-party Boox apps. I tried loading the Kobo app, as well as Evernote and OneNote. In the Kobo app, text was not as clear (even on the clearest setting) and the page turning experience was off (it had to sort of re-orient the text). Neither OneNote or Evernote were usable for note-taking with the pen.
All of this is probably to be expected, but I wanted to share because the idea of being able to run any android app is certainly part of the appeal of the device.
It is still a good device, but when comparing it to other e-ink devices on the market, I'd really consider the Google Play support to be a bit more of a novelty than something you would actually use unless you have a very specific use case and don't mind a less than stellar app experience.
I have a BOOX Note (v1) and found no reason whatsoever to replace it. The auto PDF margin crop functionality Just Works, the only reader I've seen where this problem is solved to any degree of satisfaction.
I vastly prefer reading PDFs off the Note than on a computer, regardless of the paper size.
Maybe this is just way too niche, but I've been wondering why there hasn't been any e-ink based laptops with a powerful enough of a processor (e.g. 10th/11th gen core i7 would be great) and ability to put enough RAM (e.g. 16GB) to run a development environment.
Something like that would be oh so light and great/easy to carry around. And something purely used for dev doesn't need to have the ability to play videos, etc. (that would just be distracting anyway, right? =)
I know there have been a few tablet/reader-based devices that use e-ink and have the ability to run Linux, but of the ones I've seen, none of them seem to have powerful enough of a CPU (and definitely not enough RAM).
Because programming on e paper would be horrible. You can’t scroll text properly. You would be limited to page up/down. And then it takes a second or few to do that.
And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users.
Check this ThinkBook Plus by Lenovo (2nd Gen)[1]. The latest version has an updated e-ink secondary screen with bigger and higher resolution to match the main conventional screen.
I'm guessing the BOM cost of the display would be far too high.
Dasung's 13" external e-ink display costs $1200.
Boox's 10" e-reader costs $500.
I can't imagine there are enough people willing to trade color and syntax highlighting for that crisp e-paper goodness on their $3000 13" development machine.
You can try the impromptu DIY version of such a device by just setting any android-based ereader in front of your laptop display and use VNC/RDP or similar to mirror your screen on the eink reader.
I personally went a step further and used my boox nova 3 and a BT keyboard [1] directly to ssh into my workstation for a while.
Though I agree, an eink based laptop in a X1 or MBA form factor would be amazing, just for the battery life alone.
[1] Logitech K480, comes with integrated tablet holder
I installed the reMarkable android app and I have sent so many pdfs (through remarkable's cloud) onto my device and I am so happy with it, I can draw on them ad libitum
I use Pocket with my Kobo. Works great for public web pages, but not really suitable if you want to throw bank statements or doctor's reports or whatever onto a reader.
I nearly went down this route, with an old, cheap, hacked, reader-only e-ink device with all the cleverness done on a different machine and the output pre-optimised for the specific target device.
However, when I looked into it, I found that buying a Boox with a recent version of Android on it, meant that I could replace most of that with apps on the device itself, including borrowing DRM'd books from my local library, which is handy sometimes.
And the price difference didn't actually seem that bad, once I took into account my desire for a warm backlight. Maybe if I already owned a simpler device with that feature, I'd have hacked it instead.
Having said that, I don't have quite the same aversion to short length reading on e-ink, so I also use Pocket and even a browser (Firefox mobile with DarkMode addon in "light" mode) and so I'm probably getting more use out of that side of things for my money.
I have heard very good things about KOReader, but the standard Boox reader is also pretty great, and integrates with the device well (e.g. the default launcher lists books from that reader) so I've not had reason to try anything different.
As someone else has mentioned, the only bad thing about Boox I've found so far is that they seems to be withholding their Linux modifications. Doesn't affect me directly in practical terms at the moment, but it's the principle of the thing.
Oh remembered, one other potential bad thing, there are apparently core apps that phone home. People have workarounds involving fake VPN apps that block specific urls.
Note that netguard (a vpn firewall solution) is not active at boot. It gets kicked well after wifi comes up.
My tcpdump tests showed a few seconds of traffic before it started blocking. This is a known thing, but it is time enough that I watched loads of traffic phone home on boot.
Another thing, is that the wifi connectivity test/beacon has been modified to point to the boox store url.
This is not blocked by a VPN, and thus, anything could be happening.
To be fair, once netguard was up and running, it did block all but that, and I ran tcpdump over several days watching.
Of course, if you want any part of the Boox ecosystem, you have to let it phone home.
I'm currently using an older Kindle (the Touch, which sadly doesn't include a backlight at all) with a booklight cover, but it's getting very slow thanks to what I assume is storage degradation after 12 years of use. I'd really like to upgrade to a better ereading solution, but I'm at a loss right now. Here are my requirements:
- Bigger screen than my Touch (7" would be about perfect, I suspect, but I'm not too picky)
- Backlight with warmness adjustability (my current light keeps my girlfriend up at night because it's not embedded)
- The ability to take notes on device would be a nice add, I like to annotate PDFs and such
- Ample storage to use for another 10ish years.
I don't need many bells and whistles. Unfortunately the Kobo series looks like it's a bit out of date right now, or I would just get one of those. Any recommendations?
I have an Onyx Boox Nova 3, it should perfectly fit your bill: 8", warm backlight (color and brightness are individually adjustable), comes with a pen in the box, 32gb storage (no SD card slot though), doesnt break the bank. Fast SoC and full Android as nice extras. Not affiliated in any way, just really like mine.
I can only violently agree with the author: koreader is incredible. When I look for ebook readers, running koreader is an absolute must. The nicest thing about it is how hackable it is, since most of it is written in Lua. When I got my Kobo Aura One, koreader did not yet support the colored background LEDs, and adding support for that was actually pretty easy. The koreader developers are incredibly helpful and it's just a great project.
Where does everyone get their books from? From what I could tell, all books you can buy commercially come with proprietary (Amazon) or Adobe (everyone else) DRM, making them impossible to read on koreader. It seems like you always have to buy into someone's ecosystem, or am I missins something?
I personally use Amazon. But I rarely download directly to my Kindle. I download to my PC. Use Calibre with the DeDRM plugin. Then put it on my Kindle. Or read it on my iPad. That way I’m not locked into any one ecosystem. I get to own the books for as long as I can keep the data.
I’ve heard DeDRM also works well with Adobe’s protected epubs. But I don’t have direct experience.
If Amazon ever makes it impossible to strip the DRM, then I’ll probably switch to buying physical books and getting files from LibGen. Or just using the library more.
If it's a book that's only available DRM, I buy it on the Kindle. I'm not fond of buying DRMed books, but most are only available that way, and Amazon is the most likely to still be around in the future.
For non-DRM:
Tor Books are no longer DRMed.
Baen Books -- https://www.baen.com/ -- don't have DRM, and you can buy directly from the publisher, and manage your library on their site, and download as many times as you like. You can also often purchase eArc versions, and they have a monthly subscription bundle were you can read parts of the book as it comes out, and then you get the complete book when it's done.
If you're interested in translated Japanese light novels, there's J Novel Club -- https://j-novel.club/ -- for a monthly subscription, you can read book parts for free as they're being translated. Once they're fully translated, you can then purchase the final epub directly from their site.
Books are interesting in that they both are and aren't fungible. If, say, I want to read the next Martha Wells Murderbot book, or the next Julie McGalliard Rougarou book, I have to buy that particular book.
But if I'm just looking for another book to read, I always check Tor, Baen, and J Novel Club first.
AIUI the RM2 still only has the official OS, which has no promises not to break APIs. There's Parabola-RM (ported by Davis R, see www.davisr.me) which gets you e.g. Xfce, but I don't know how well it works with the hardware (e.g. battery life, proper use of the RM screen's partial refresh) or unofficial RM apps (rmkit.dev and libremarkable-baswd apps right now AIUI).
If you're looking for non-RM alternatives, I'd start by evaluating (I haven't) the Quirklogic Papyr.
Personally, I don't think the RM is a good long-term partner for the Free Software community - half the reason the modding community exists is because the RM team refuses to provide some basic features in the name of "simplicity". They'll never want to support a wide variety of use-cases, they want to be like Apple. I imagine the solution here is making an RM-specific distro (and community explicitly segmented from the "RM OS with mods" community), adding support for other ewriters, then deemphasizing the RM.
I can't read anything long on a computer screen, so I use a Firefox plugin to send articles to my Kindle to read later. It also gives me an excuse to break away from the office and screen to do some in-depth reading on whatever I'm working on.
I've long wrestled with myself whether to buy a remarkable (2) and have finally decided against it because I expect that I will own another technical device that will be obsolete and an expensive door stopper in a couple years time (made that mistake with a 1st gen Kindle). Also, while it's extremely sleek, my main use for paper & pen these days is for editing and it's just no fun without a red pen ;-)
My expectation (and sincere hope, ngl) is that we will see a major innovation push in e-Ink displays and devices over the next year(s) and I have now resolved to buy a remarkable 3 (or 4) which will hopefully be available in color (and fully usable without any mandatory public cloud tethering). And maybe with some saner pricing options. I mean, a cover for $150? That makes it clear that this is a veblen good, not a workhorse for a wide audience (like schools, students etc.) - or it's Apple-monitor-stand-style consumer rip-off, who knows. I'd much prefer a faux-leather option anyway (not too comfortable with wrapping my tablet in dead cow skin, but don't like the $79 grey option either) but they unfortunately don't offer that.
[+] [-] karthink|5 years ago|reply
- It's 10.3", perfect for reading PDFs like scientific papers without being too large to carry around.
- The included reader is stellar, with special modes for reading PDFs, comicbooks, etc.
- The included note-taking app is pretty good and fully featured. It integrates with the reader and there's a side-by-side mode.
- It supports every open format I've tried: PDFs, DJVU, epub, mobi and more. (Haven't tried PS.)
- I can scribble on all document types, including ebooks.
- I can install apps from the app store. In particular this means I can read my Kindle library and Wallabag feed, and...
- with Syncthing syncing is set and forget. When I download a PDF or book on my computer, I simply pick up the tablet and start reading it. Any notes I make are synced back to my laptop.
- Of course, the above is in addition to the standard E-Ink features you'd expect: It lasts for weeks on a charge, the reading experience in bright sunlight is fantastic, it's lighter than an iPad, zero eye strain, etc.
I installed only the software I need for reading and syncing, but there's a lot more you could do with it since the play store and F-droid are available. You can use it as an external monitor, for instance.
[+] [-] b112|5 years ago|reply
The build quality is impressive. I had it for 2 weeks, used it for about an hour daily, and set it to only poweroff after a day of inactivity.
Its battery dropped from 100% to 48% over that time. Yes, I was quite positively impressed.
However, their theft of code (which is what you do, if you do not respect the code license, eg, gpl), the fact that even a brand new model tablet was 3+ monthly Android security updates behind, and the pcaps I took showing all the phoning home, including IPs in China...
Well...
As I said, returned. Quite sad, loved the hardware.
[+] [-] FlyingSnake|5 years ago|reply
You can watch the comparison of all the e-Ink tablets here on this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkK_HQRf6xg
[+] [-] jdshaffer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperpallium2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pyrophane|5 years ago|reply
All of this is probably to be expected, but I wanted to share because the idea of being able to run any android app is certainly part of the appeal of the device.
It is still a good device, but when comparing it to other e-ink devices on the market, I'd really consider the Google Play support to be a bit more of a novelty than something you would actually use unless you have a very specific use case and don't mind a less than stellar app experience.
[+] [-] wellthisisgreat|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] girvo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lovedswain|5 years ago|reply
I vastly prefer reading PDFs off the Note than on a computer, regardless of the paper size.
[+] [-] rbobby|5 years ago|reply
I remember looking at an e-ink reader years ago and thought it was unusable because of the weird page refresh/slow page turn.
[+] [-] bartvk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jay-anderson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeho1999|5 years ago|reply
Something like that would be oh so light and great/easy to carry around. And something purely used for dev doesn't need to have the ability to play videos, etc. (that would just be distracting anyway, right? =)
I know there have been a few tablet/reader-based devices that use e-ink and have the ability to run Linux, but of the ones I've seen, none of them seem to have powerful enough of a CPU (and definitely not enough RAM).
[+] [-] PurpleFoxy|5 years ago|reply
And then the e paper panel costs a bunch so what would be a $1000 laptop becomes $4000 and is strictly worse for the vast majority of users.
[+] [-] teleforce|5 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.engadget.com/lenovo-thinkbook-plus-gen-2-i-e-ink...
[+] [-] tyler109|5 years ago|reply
with this latest release (Raspberry PI alternative board which supports eink): https://www.makeuseof.com/quartz64-e-ink-sbc/
and this solar powered, power first open source (eink) laptop project: https://hackaday.io/project/177716-the-open-source-autarkic-...
Vola!
[+] [-] MengerSponge|5 years ago|reply
Dasung's 13" external e-ink display costs $1200.
Boox's 10" e-reader costs $500.
I can't imagine there are enough people willing to trade color and syntax highlighting for that crisp e-paper goodness on their $3000 13" development machine.
[+] [-] awiesenhofer|5 years ago|reply
I personally went a step further and used my boox nova 3 and a BT keyboard [1] directly to ssh into my workstation for a while.
Though I agree, an eink based laptop in a X1 or MBA form factor would be amazing, just for the battery life alone.
[1] Logitech K480, comes with integrated tablet holder
[+] [-] wpm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drcode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gravypod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] locusofself|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epakai|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|5 years ago|reply
However, when I looked into it, I found that buying a Boox with a recent version of Android on it, meant that I could replace most of that with apps on the device itself, including borrowing DRM'd books from my local library, which is handy sometimes.
And the price difference didn't actually seem that bad, once I took into account my desire for a warm backlight. Maybe if I already owned a simpler device with that feature, I'd have hacked it instead.
Having said that, I don't have quite the same aversion to short length reading on e-ink, so I also use Pocket and even a browser (Firefox mobile with DarkMode addon in "light" mode) and so I'm probably getting more use out of that side of things for my money.
I have heard very good things about KOReader, but the standard Boox reader is also pretty great, and integrates with the device well (e.g. the default launcher lists books from that reader) so I've not had reason to try anything different.
As someone else has mentioned, the only bad thing about Boox I've found so far is that they seems to be withholding their Linux modifications. Doesn't affect me directly in practical terms at the moment, but it's the principle of the thing.
Oh remembered, one other potential bad thing, there are apparently core apps that phone home. People have workarounds involving fake VPN apps that block specific urls.
[+] [-] b112|5 years ago|reply
Note that netguard (a vpn firewall solution) is not active at boot. It gets kicked well after wifi comes up.
My tcpdump tests showed a few seconds of traffic before it started blocking. This is a known thing, but it is time enough that I watched loads of traffic phone home on boot.
Another thing, is that the wifi connectivity test/beacon has been modified to point to the boox store url. This is not blocked by a VPN, and thus, anything could be happening.
To be fair, once netguard was up and running, it did block all but that, and I ran tcpdump over several days watching.
Of course, if you want any part of the Boox ecosystem, you have to let it phone home.
[+] [-] Erlich_Bachman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dont__panic|5 years ago|reply
- Bigger screen than my Touch (7" would be about perfect, I suspect, but I'm not too picky) - Backlight with warmness adjustability (my current light keeps my girlfriend up at night because it's not embedded) - The ability to take notes on device would be a nice add, I like to annotate PDFs and such - Ample storage to use for another 10ish years.
I don't need many bells and whistles. Unfortunately the Kobo series looks like it's a bit out of date right now, or I would just get one of those. Any recommendations?
[+] [-] awiesenhofer|5 years ago|reply
Reviewed here for example: https://goodereader.com/blog/reviews/onyx-boox-nova-3-review
[+] [-] f1refly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amval|5 years ago|reply
Mine is a couple years old and has an embedded light that automatically adapts warmness throughout the day.
[+] [-] deng|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iFreilicht|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dunnevens|5 years ago|reply
I’ve heard DeDRM also works well with Adobe’s protected epubs. But I don’t have direct experience.
If Amazon ever makes it impossible to strip the DRM, then I’ll probably switch to buying physical books and getting files from LibGen. Or just using the library more.
[+] [-] ulysses|5 years ago|reply
For non-DRM:
Tor Books are no longer DRMed.
Baen Books -- https://www.baen.com/ -- don't have DRM, and you can buy directly from the publisher, and manage your library on their site, and download as many times as you like. You can also often purchase eArc versions, and they have a monthly subscription bundle were you can read parts of the book as it comes out, and then you get the complete book when it's done.
If you're interested in translated Japanese light novels, there's J Novel Club -- https://j-novel.club/ -- for a monthly subscription, you can read book parts for free as they're being translated. Once they're fully translated, you can then purchase the final epub directly from their site.
Books are interesting in that they both are and aren't fungible. If, say, I want to read the next Martha Wells Murderbot book, or the next Julie McGalliard Rougarou book, I have to buy that particular book.
But if I'm just looking for another book to read, I always check Tor, Baen, and J Novel Club first.
[+] [-] qnsi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captn3m0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tepix|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captn3m0|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannyw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggm|5 years ago|reply
Or maybe onyx boox?
[+] [-] Qwertious|5 years ago|reply
Avoid Onyx Boox, they explicitly refused to honor the GPL. https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
If you're looking for non-RM alternatives, I'd start by evaluating (I haven't) the Quirklogic Papyr.
Personally, I don't think the RM is a good long-term partner for the Free Software community - half the reason the modding community exists is because the RM team refuses to provide some basic features in the name of "simplicity". They'll never want to support a wide variety of use-cases, they want to be like Apple. I imagine the solution here is making an RM-specific distro (and community explicitly segmented from the "RM OS with mods" community), adding support for other ewriters, then deemphasizing the RM.
[+] [-] adiM|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tyler109|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bcoughlan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryzvonusef|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6K53j1k1vY
[+] [-] hemantv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1MachineElf|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imagine99|5 years ago|reply
My expectation (and sincere hope, ngl) is that we will see a major innovation push in e-Ink displays and devices over the next year(s) and I have now resolved to buy a remarkable 3 (or 4) which will hopefully be available in color (and fully usable without any mandatory public cloud tethering). And maybe with some saner pricing options. I mean, a cover for $150? That makes it clear that this is a veblen good, not a workhorse for a wide audience (like schools, students etc.) - or it's Apple-monitor-stand-style consumer rip-off, who knows. I'd much prefer a faux-leather option anyway (not too comfortable with wrapping my tablet in dead cow skin, but don't like the $79 grey option either) but they unfortunately don't offer that.