No Stupid Questions

Without question the Kobo Libre Colour. I have owned multiple e-readers and the Kobo Libra H2O was my previous one. It was so much better than anything I had used before that I have probably told a hundred people and will be passionately buying Kobo from here forward. Good luck and read East of Eden if you haven't even if it doesn't sound like your thing. 👍

Kobo. Fuck Amazon.

I have a Kobo. My wife has kindle. Kindle is better if you want kindle unlimited. Kobo is better for everything else as far as I'm concerned. Especially if you want to sideload your own books via calibre or just dropping them onto the device when plugged into your computer. My kobo hooks up directly with overdrive/libby for borrowing books from the library and does everything i need it to.

I don't have a specific model to recommend though. Mine is nearing 8-10 years old and still working

boox makes good e-ink stuff, from what I've heard.

I personally have an actual tablet that I use for reading, the oukitel titan rt7. Don't remember what I paid for it, but I think it was about 300usd. its a bit heavy, but I only have to charge it like one or twice a month, and has a big enough screen that I dont have any issues reading stuff on it.

I have a kobo Libra 2. Its the first ereader I've bought and it's super nice. I use calibre to load my books. Looks like kobo only has refurbished units of it now, though.

Regardless of what reader you go with, look into KoReader, a custom reader app that you install on top of existing firmware. Offers a lot of features that stock firmware doesn't, like OPDS catalog connections

Hi!

Just recently was setting up my whole family with ebooks. Ended up with Kobo Libra Colour for myself and Kindle Oasis (jailbreaked) for family.

I am quite happy with both readers. Kindle would be a bit better in quality, but Kobo is color and non-amazon. Both of them have physical side buttons, which were my main requirement.

I store all my books in calibre and uploading it via USB on my kobo reader. It makes it much easier to manage and confirm metadata. I didn’t bother with readarr, as I already has a decent collection that still need to finish.

For family - they were already familiar with Kindle, so I got them Oasises from ebay, jailbroke them to prevent Amazon from messing up with them and just send all necessary book to their readers wirelessly via Send to Kindle.

Off topic, but check out Trmnl if you want a passive eink display on the wall that shows a few things at a time. Without a subscription. Repairable and byod friendly. Let me know if you want a discount code for 15 off.

I like the Kobo options a lot, I have a device from them that was the Kobo Aura HD from Ebay that was $50 dollars in great condition. Kobo has better support for loading whatever you want on it without any annoying issues and it is running linux under the hood and has a lot of expand-ability because of it. These days I use a kindle paperwhite 4 and honestly, it just isn't as well thought out. It is waterproof & has a higher resolution display but I found the Kobo OS was faster & the device with buttons had a much better design overall. So, I wish I had gone for an up to date Kobo alternative when I upgraded. So, go Kobo, don't look back, & get second hand if you want to save some $$$.

I saw Boox called out, but not the Boox Palma². I just got it and it's been pretty nice. The major draw is the form factor though as it's phone sized making it pretty portable.

It runs android and I've set it up to work with AudioBookshelf and Komga

AudioBookshelf, while designed for audiobooks, allows you to download books for offline reading and seemed the best all in one for books self hosting. It also has a native android app.

Komga seems pretty amazing for manga and comic books (haven't settled on an app, just using the browser now). The e-ink display isn't the best for reading this medium, but it's not terrible for black and white comics.

Since both of those are self-hosted solutions they could integrate with readarr pretty easily (although audiobookshelf's folder structure can be frustrating).

Kobo was on my short-list not long ago. They seemed like the most polished non-amazon option to me. I haven't switched for now because my old kindle 2 is still clinging to life and because of it being long out of support from amazon I just keep it disconnected from the internet and sideload whatever I want.

With that said though, now that some decent kindle jailbreaking options are available, an old second hand kindle from eBay might actually be a very good option.

On more vote for Kobo. I have currently a Clara Colour, works 100% offline with Calibre

+1 to Kobo as well, although I'm admittedly unfamiliar with the pirate apps (arr).

no issues downloading books and adding/editing my library with calibre and you can connect it to your library card to rent ebooks if you're feeling frisky.

or you can bypass the login steps and change out the firmware and add games and other utilities. it's as customizable or not as you want.

lots of refurbished options through rakuten and ebay

PocketBook also has nice readers and as far as I know they run an embedded Linux as OS.

Portability is key for me. Others here have recommended the Boox Palma, but for the price difference I'd have to go with Moann's Inkpalm Plus.

Arr stack integration for e-readers is going to be Readarr linked to a Calibre instance, as described here.

Box is fantastic for what you're looking for, OP. It's probably the least locked down of them all due to running android and being able to put your own apps on it.

I'm reading One Piece colorized version right now on it and don't think I'd be able to with any other reader.

I see you're coming from a .de domain so chances are you might have a Thalia (store) in your area. I've bought a Tolino Shine about 6 years back and I really like it. Sure, you can buy them online too, but I liked the option to try it out before I buy.

I just bought a used kindle and jailbroke it a few weeks ago for a similar use case

No idea about internet integration or "arr", but the Inkplate series are completely open. I got an Inkplate 10 because of an app that I wanted to write for it at the time. The hardware is nice, software is lacking, but I'd buy it again if I wanted a basic e-reader. It has an epub reading app and I'd just download epubs to it from my PC by wifi or USB.

I have a Kobo n437, I swaped the internal sd card with a 32gb one and installed InkBox/Quill OS.

You'll need a bit of linux skills to use a bigger storage solution to its full potential. The project is currently on hiatus as they port the OS over to the pine64 e-reader.

Worth noting otherwise, currently pictures in epub formated books don't load (at least on mine don't know about other models) so youll want to convert them to pdf.

I bought my first e-reader a month ago, it's the Boox Go 7 and I'm really pleased so far. The fact that it's also an android tablet let's me download apps for Mangas, music, etc.

The reader should mount as a USB drive, you put files on it like epub, PDF, or HTML in your own directory structure, and you can browse this and read the files. Nothing else needed.

Except for being locked down, the amazon kindle is great device. Mine is 12 years old (1st gen Paperwhite) and I'm happy with it. And the form factor of their Kindle Oasis with asymmetric center of mass makes me want it more than any other device. Never tried it though. Are there alternatives for Oasis to use reader with one hand?

Nexus 7 with FBReader connected via OPDS to Caliber, and I get books via Usenet, most of which I've physically bought but hate reading physical books now. I have several extra Nexus 7s because I like the size, old Android doesn't have a lock screen which annoys the fuck out of me when I read in bed and they work fine.

I recently somehow broke my Boox page, and I replaced it with a PocketBook Era. It's my favourite device, great battery life, integrated with calibre like a dream and the OS is really nice to use after fighting android on the Boox.