It’s not necessarily about the devices. Kobo books are very easy to remove DRM from, and don’t require owning a physical Kobo device or their app to do so. All it requires is two Calibre plugins. And EPUB is not a proprietary format, unlike AZW3 and KFX.
Also, I might be wrong, but it seems Kobo has a lot more DRM free books in general, compared to Amazon.
Kindle has always required either the Kindle app or an actual physical Kindle to de-DRM.
Not arguing with your point, it’s valid. But I wanted to make it clear from OPs point about book DRM that this is not an issue with Kobo. The books themselves as mostly DRM free and you can put whatever you want on the device.
Unless Kindle prices came way down, Boox are comparable in price, nicer in features, and allow side loading any eBook or Android APK (including the Kindle APK, if you can still get a copy of it.)
I don’t think you’ve used anything but a Boox in a long time, and have forgotten what the standard is.
Boox has 1/10 the battery life, takes forever to wake up, and doesn’t support deep sleep properly (so it either drains battery when sitting idle, or shuts off entirely taking 5+ minutes to power back on). It’s decent hardware with very badly designed software.
Neither Kobo or Kindle devices have these problems, they have battery that actually lasts, deep sleep when idle for any length of time, and power back up, even from deep sleep in 10 seconds or less.
Agreed, the battery life is way worse. I find the features of full unlocked Android to be a worthwhile trade.
But my point is that the prices of various eInk Android tablets aren’t unreasonable anymore.
Edit: Although, for anyone worried - I literally don’t remember the last time I charged my Boox. It was sometime last month - and I read with it most days.
The battery life can be fine, when configured with conservative screen refresh settings.
But I think there is still a difference - when I binge-read something for many hours multiple days in a row, I’ll notice that I need to recharge my Boox sooner than my Kindle needed.
Oh yeah definitely. It’s a slow EInk Android tablet on a very old version of Android. If you need more than just an EReader it’s the only reputable brand.
I am honestly surprised it took this long! Kindle has been around a long time and it’s not like Amazon was any less evil back then. It makes me wonder if the competition has been starting to make them nervous!
I don’t know why people buy an stuff like this and get surprised when this happens.
Plenty of other electronics that you have full control over.
Plenty ? Really ? And what are those ?
Four times the prices and from four years ago ?
Kobo e-readers are 1-to-1 alternatives that allow you to easily transfer epubs or PDFs to it with a USB cable.
As far as I can tell, Kobos are bootloader locked now https://old.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1ewadpc/kobo_is_now_using_secure_boot_on_at_least_one_of/
It’s not necessarily about the devices. Kobo books are very easy to remove DRM from, and don’t require owning a physical Kobo device or their app to do so. All it requires is two Calibre plugins. And EPUB is not a proprietary format, unlike AZW3 and KFX.
Also, I might be wrong, but it seems Kobo has a lot more DRM free books in general, compared to Amazon.
Kindle has always required either the Kindle app or an actual physical Kindle to de-DRM.
You can still transfer epubs and most books on the kobo store are sold without DRM (publisher choice)
That’s a far cry from
mentioned in the first comment
Not arguing with your point, it’s valid. But I wanted to make it clear from OPs point about book DRM that this is not an issue with Kobo. The books themselves as mostly DRM free and you can put whatever you want on the device.
Unless Kindle prices came way down, Boox are comparable in price, nicer in features, and allow side loading any eBook or Android APK (including the Kindle APK, if you can still get a copy of it.)
https://shop.boox.com/
I don’t think you’ve used anything but a Boox in a long time, and have forgotten what the standard is. Boox has 1/10 the battery life, takes forever to wake up, and doesn’t support deep sleep properly (so it either drains battery when sitting idle, or shuts off entirely taking 5+ minutes to power back on). It’s decent hardware with very badly designed software. Neither Kobo or Kindle devices have these problems, they have battery that actually lasts, deep sleep when idle for any length of time, and power back up, even from deep sleep in 10 seconds or less.
Agreed, the battery life is way worse. I find the features of full unlocked Android to be a worthwhile trade.
But my point is that the prices of various eInk Android tablets aren’t unreasonable anymore.
Edit: Although, for anyone worried - I literally don’t remember the last time I charged my Boox. It was sometime last month - and I read with it most days.
The battery life can be fine, when configured with conservative screen refresh settings.
But I think there is still a difference - when I binge-read something for many hours multiple days in a row, I’ll notice that I need to recharge my Boox sooner than my Kindle needed.
Oh yeah definitely. It’s a slow EInk Android tablet on a very old version of Android. If you need more than just an EReader it’s the only reputable brand.
You can read books for free on just about any general purpose computer.
My wife doesn’t let me bring the Thinkpad to bed anymore
I am honestly surprised it took this long! Kindle has been around a long time and it’s not like Amazon was any less evil back then. It makes me wonder if the competition has been starting to make them nervous!