>>608 I have not looked at any of those devices. The idea of open firmware is nice but off-brand Chinese hardware is really unappealing. But I have been in the market for an eBook Reader for some time, although the hardware has always left me disappointed. I had a first-generation Nook that was surprisingly open to hacking, but was underwhelming in reading experience since it was more of a tablet. Lately, I have been considering the Kobo line of readers. The Japs have always been ahead of the curve on eBooks. And while I am not aware of any open source firmware replacements, it is a popular enough platform and there are open source readers which support it, such as OcherBook.

Its been years and i still haven't decided what e-reader to buy and now when color e-readers are just around the corner i might wait few years more. I like them big screen Onix Boox e-note takers, specifically Note Pro and the newer Note 2, but they are expensive as fuck.

>>611 Final solution of ereaders https://hackaday.io/project/7443-e-ink-display-adapter and sbc of your choice, or port the drive to stm32 bluepill for an universal display.

>>611 A few years ago I decided to wait for color e-ink and it never materialized. What a shame. I've heard rumors of multiple products allegedly working with them, but have been unable to purchase any screens myself. I actually wanted one to make an open source Pebble clone some years back. Last time I checked it was not possible to buy a color e-ink screen. Seems to be vaporware until I see a product use it.

>>612 Is there ereader firmware for arduino or must I write my own?

>>621 Second this. einkpot still going or no?

>>629 If you mean openinkpot, no, openinkpot stopped with the 3 devices they've supported and I haven't seen there to be new developments. https://fread.ink/ seems to be developing open firmware for e-ink devices, but its been set back by winnie the flu

>>608 I own a Tolino Shine 3, which is a E-Book created by booksellers in German speaking Europe and I am quite happy with it. Its open to hacking, but I am not aware of any open firmware projects for it.

I managed to find "loonreader", which is a cute little project but it's pretty much built for a single hardware configuration. https://github.com/mapmeld/loonreader I will continue to look for a general-purpose open source e-reader which I am certain exists in some capacity.

Literally right after posting I came across "Open Book". They're open sourcing both the board and the firmware. https://github.com/joeycastillo/The-Open-Book

>>619 I want this too. It's stupid that it isn't in production because colored e ink does exist.

>>694 It does exist but every product with one has been produced in small numbers, never been marketed, and then failed. Seems like they've failed to manufacture it in decent numbers. Possibly it just doesn't scale for mass production? Seems odd, but people keep dumping money into developing it only for nothing to come of it. You'd expect, at the very least, for Amazon to buy one of these companies gone bust and produce a Kindle with it. Make a grab for control of magazine and children's books. It could be a big market.

OP here, off of some forum and word of mouth reccomendations, I've decided to go with a PocketBook. It's by this swiss company. Today they pride themselves on privacy, but what I really cared about is their older devices which appear to be open to hacking and lack any DRM shit. It was also pretty cheap so I went for it.

>>756 Looks interesting. Let me know how it works out for you

>>757 Okay, after a few days of use I think I can give my opinions. What I heard about it being hackable does hold true to some extent. It runs linux and you are able to access kernel sources for the device (https://github.com/pocketbook-free/kernel_613) and this site (http://users.physik.fu-berlin.de/~jtt/PB/) claims you can run some other programs on these devices. I just want this for reading so I probably wont bother but its nice to have. For storage, there is no account requirement like there is on I think newer kindles and kobo e readers, you can just mount the e reader as mass usb storage. SD card slot is also on the outside so you can easily insert and swap expandable storage. Battery life, well on a few days I can't say much but its only dropped about 5% this past week. Keep in mind the battery is probably 5-10 years old at this point, doesnt seem like anyone has opened up the back of this device. For reading itself, its a bit slow to start books but it's snappy once you load it. Tested formats are CBZ, PDF, MOBI, EPUB, and DJVU and PDF is the only one thats shitty. However thats normal for ereaders. It's overall not a bad machine for like the 10 bucks I got it for.

>>786 Sorry, I only posted one of the kernel sources, that was for the 613 which I do not have. Here's the one for mine https://github.com/pocketbook-free/kernel_622 and for what seems to be an upgraded model https://github.com/pocketbook-free/kernel_623.

>>786 >>787 Thanks for returning with a review, OP. I'm still weighing my options (and in no rush to purchase anything). They're a little small and it's disappointing that it's only running a 3.10 kernel. Seems like they're pushing out a (rather cheap) color e-reader, which is neat. And I like that they're basically generic mass storage. Wish they made a slightly larger one, though. Seems like this might be a good portable book reader, but not so good for PDFs, textbooks, etc. Is there a backlight? How good is it?

>>788 No problem. Some of them like the pocketbook pros are 9" if that is more your style. 6" is my happy medium for reading so I will stick to it but that is an option from pocketbook. PDFs are just something that e readers are not really good at anyways but i would say its particularly poor here. Black text on white background is passable if you change contrast settings, but magazine scans for example https://archive.org/details/aoyscansAnimericaVol.3No.8/mode/2up are poor and unreadable unless you zoom in. No backlight on the 622.

e-readers are gay as fuck. Just set colors to white on black on your goyphone or goylet.

>>792 Since I'm not a homosexual I have neither and its nice to have a device dedicated to reading with a good aspect ratio and screen built for it.

>>804 And since I'm straight and white I read things on my computer.

>>805 You first were the one suggesting to read items on mobile botnet devices, I doubt your claimed race and non homoness.

>>810 I don't have goyphones or goylets.

Further most e-readers run android too. How is that not botnet?

>>811 As I said, neither do I. >>812 I will grant you that given we're talking about modern devices, many ereaders run android now, but as was posted previously, there are those that do not. You don't have an option to have a cellular device that doesn't triangulate your ass at every step. However you're moving the goalpost, my point is there is utility for a device made specifically for e reading. I do read technical documents and text books on my computer but an ereader is nice for say fiction. I think we should just leave it here and stop shitting up the thread.

>>815 >my point is there is utility for a device made specifically for e reading Yeah but only if you don't already carry any other portable goyshit around. I can agree on that.

>>821 The benefit is easier reading. Staring at a glowing screen is harsher on your eyes and offers no real benefits when out and about. And battery life is a concern. Something that lasts all week versus something that you need to keep plugged-in. That being said, I have mostly shed other devices, so I find it useful regardless.

What's an ereader with >e-ink >(Micro) SD slot >can read public domain and stolen e-books with minimal fuckery

All this thread reminds me of those idiots who pride themselves on running Doom on pregnancy tests o whatever new shitware comes out of technosphere because yay for teh science I fucking love technology and hacking. What you don't understand, is what those e-readers are in principle and why you have to battle against their software. Well, the answer is simple. An e-reader device sole purpose is selling parent bookstore books, tracking your interests, seeling them to third party advertisers and selling you more books. Those shitty female novels about werevolves and vampires for wine aunts, it's the most selling shit on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, whatever. Women read these novels like you read hentai doujins and watch porn, these """books""" are the woman's porn, and e-reader is the fastest way of delivering them. Imagine if someone sold a locked-down single-function spyware device specifically for coomers branded by MindGeek or whatever porn conglomerate is out there, and we'd have a thread about side-loading exhentai databases instead of this one. E-reader is not a device for any serious reading, serious reading requires actual physical book, a notebook for notes or at least a full page spread on a wide screen, ability to do quick searches and jumps and a note-taking window, it's not a tablet for graphical software since those require adequate touch sensor-image latency, it's slow, slower than a old computer or even smartphone due to hardware limitations. Everything there is slow: the electrophoretic display is slower than LCD, cheap underclocked processor and Android OS slapped on top by lazy developers, to be honest, Amazon devices actually are the fastest e-readers out there simply because they can afford to develop custom Debian, so it's still probably the best choice for people looking for e-reader that doesn't shit itself on turning pages, you still can use it offline and side-load mobis or whatever webshit wrapper they're using these days.

>>693 There's immense potential, although it's for those who know how to solder. Most of the components can be bought here: https://kitspace.org/boards/github.com/joeycastillo/the-open-book/open-book/

The reMarkable tablets are pricy and not super open-source, but very open to hacking (even gives you direct SSH access). Plus, if you're a nottaking fag like me it's pretty cool

I have a Kobo Aura H2O gen 1, okay yeah mostly a botnet product but I've been happy with it for a few years. At least you can use it without logging in to their service. Recently I upgraded to a 32GB microSD from a 16GB and it keeps crashing. Can this just not handle that size or think my card is shite? I'll have to look at these other more "open" ereaders. >>1813 nigger

>>1813 What you said is spot-on about some 90% of the e-reader market. >E-reader is not a device for any serious reading The requirements for serious reading you mentioned are true for technical or academic reading, and things of that sort. These devices can work well for doing serious reading of real poetry, for example, and novels other than garbage YA genre fiction.

>>1868 >>1813 Tablets are on the same boat, as there's barely any that are ideal for reading books, doujins, etc. Free software development for them has aged like milk, too.

>>1900 I'd say for a PC tablet like the ThinkPad, for the tablet part of it at least, GNU/Linux works pretty well. There is a libre Wacom driver. But nobody would never do real art on those, they are too clunky, and you can just get a entry-level Wacom tablet with better digitizer resolution for $50ish. Otherwise, I see more people using iPads for art these days. So, a shame for free software. >>1813 In regards to e-readers, I think they are still nice to have, if you read things like novel or autobiographies or something. The availability of actually interesting free ebooks is pretty astounding, and it really is much better to read it on e-ink than an eyecancer LCD. If you need to take notes from a book like that, there is always the option of... getting a notebook and taking notes on the side. But yes, e-readers are very much not suited for a big academic book or encyclopedia or something.

I hope that there's more low-powered displays like the Pixel Qi panels utilized besides tablets. The hardware would make more sense on a laptop over a measly tablet.

Anyone know >>1812

>>1812 >>2029 Kobo Glo? It's possible to install Debian on it, although it's outdated: https://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Debian_Linux_on_a_Kobo

>>756 i have an older pocketbook which my mom gave me (she's a librarian so she prefers physical books; won it at some competition or something) and it's pretty good. can't recommend it enough. the only issue i have with it is that my model only supports sd cards up to 32gb but i suppose i can just switch cards when i need to.

>>2064 Which Pocketbook model is it? There's surprisingly several of them that have a MicroSD slot, and with the 32GB limit. Even the new one with color E-ink has MicroSD.

>>792 E-ink displays are pretty amazing technology for prepping/innawoods shit. Having a device that can display basic information while consuming virtually zero battery life is invaluable. Have fun getting your chinkpad running one a single charge for months at a time.

>>2082 >E-ink displays are pretty amazing technology for prepping/innawoods shit. Having a device that can display basic information while consuming virtually zero battery life is invaluable. If it's amazing for innawoods, does that mean they don't phone home or send telemetry to amazon? I assume these devices have botnets in them.

>>2085 Not every e-reader is owned by Amazon, but some Amazon e-readers have cellular connectivity so they could hypothetically send telemetry even if you don't connect them with wifi. But there are plenty of other companies that make e-readers that don't have that issue. Kobo seems to be the most recommended, but I don't have experience with any yet to say for certain.

>>2070 Are there any downsides to color e-ink readers besides being more costly? This is the first I'm hearing of the tech. Watching a quick video talks about how you need to refresh the screen more often because of ghosting, so I guess that might lower battery life a bit.

>>2095 Color E-Ink has a lower resolution (100ppi) due to the limited RGB array of color used compared to the B&W array in E-Ink Carta.

>>2070 Genuinely considering a pocketbook colour to read mangoes and hentai and maybe some judge dredd.

I use a a Kindle Paperwhite (not linked to an Amazon account).

I think an e-ink reader the size of a small notepad (i.e. it fits into your pocket) is a great idea. I like to take a book with me when I go places, but it can be a bit unwieldy carrying a big heavy book. If I had a reader that I can just keep in my pocket then I could read much easier when I'm out and about. Haven't seen any products like this, though. Maybe you do just have to make your own, but from what I saw like that open source thing someone posted, it's really expensive.

>>792 Indeed. The whole point of some overpriced e-book reader is to trick the goyim into not copyright infringing books via an (((android))) or even a mp4 player, or one of those emulator toy computers that can read txt files. There's no reason for these things, though people claim they have battery life and a better screen to look at when you could use black background and white text and then it's fine, keep the thing down low and in the dark while pressing a bluetooth button to change pages and it's stellar. Also android applications can use ebook readers for plain text. Cheapest androids are almost cheaper than any type of computer if not for the mp4 players of which probably don't have a search text feature nor bookmark feature anyway. >>608 They're a pretty dated concept and just meant to get people to buy books as though the Internet isn't a magical library with free and infinite copies of everything. Not that anyone wants to buy a tiny mp4 player either, I was just saying, these ebooks cost far too much. I was tempted to buy one along with some new linux handheld device rather than an android or *gag* system on a chip computer I throw together myself to do both things and at the end of the day the pi option sucks and costs the most and these ebooks cost far more than they should too. 30 usd plus 25 usd for android gaming and books, or 50+ gaming device that's shittier and an 60+ ebook, the cheapest are probably above 50 if I recall. I was tempted to get a pocketgo for 30 usd and a 20ish usd mp4 player but thought better. As it is the pocketgo type devices probably read txt files to begin with, so what even is the point of these ebooks? Over an mp4 they WOULD make sense if not for it's music capability. I only listen to midi files though so android it is for me. About batteries, for about 30-50 usd you can get some real nice tiny solar equipment. I have a 33 usd 9 watt folding solar panel 5v 20 amp hour battery in my (((cart))) right now myself. I'm buying it with a mini android, 1.6 inches wide, 3ish inches tall, shit battery but I could run that thing while having it read books to me aloud forever with a folding solar panel. Games, I'm planning on wearing bifocals. It's the most efficient route. It's only 50ish usd where I'm buying it. I hope it's good for gba emulators I use. Even though the battery will be small and shit the panel with it will make it THE MOST efficient computer in town. I'm buying it with the tiny jewtendo controller too, the 8bitdo things that are key chain sized. I have one of those neck things to hold the phone before you wonder how that'd work. I might get cock eyed so I'm wearing an eye patch as I see better with one eye than the other. I'm a pirate anyway.

I have a Boyue Likebook Muses, a Chink Android tablet with E-Ink. It's recently updated to Android 8.1. >7.8" display >1404×1872, 300ppi >E-Ink Carta >adjustable contrast >Wacom Layer; EMR wacom pen support >Rockchip RK3368 8 core 1.5 GHZ >2GB RAM >32GB storage >adjustable front light, warm/cool LEDs >back button on front >USB-C >power button below, right of USB-C port >smooth drawing on Notepad app; can export as PDF or PNG >A2 Mode makes E-Ink snappier, but leaves more ghosting >sideloading F-droid + Tachyomi = comfy manga/doujin reading <no MicroSD support <has internal speakers which sound like trash and are unnecessary <back button cannot be remapped <pen usage limited to only the default note taking app due to limited optimization + eink is slow <Android OS has no root support nor bootloader unlock <longterm OS support uncertain because China <limited availability because China <Boyue documentation is poor because China Overall, I like my Muses, although the better model for manga/books is the Likebook Mars; the Mars has MicroSD support for up to 128GB. Bezels are also slightly wider for better one-handed use for the Mars when compared to the Muses. The Wacom layer on the Muses has some potential for drawfags, but it's restricted to basic sketching through only the default note app. Any other drawing app has annoying lag. I was lucky to get one for less than $200, and it included a case. Of course, due to little to no hacks done for freedoms (very few E-Ink devices have an OS that's FOSS), you will have to deal with Chink bloat.

Are e-ink readers any good? The Onyx Boox Max 2 seems pretty good aside from the scalped price, but I've never used one so I don't know if it's just memes or if it's actually good. I'd probably use it to read pdfs/mango and possibly doodling.

>>2649 Consider tablet sizes, as big ass E-Ink devices might seem like a good replacement for paper, but a smaller tablet size may be a better option. It's not only for the price, but also for a slightly lesser risk of breaking completely (if you're clumsy) or finding replacement parts in case something goes wrong. E-Ink hardware is already a niche tech, so finding one that has a paper-sized screen is rare. The 1st gen ReMarkable is slowly getting cheaper, while others like the Fujitsu Quaderno and the Boox Note are difficult to find.

I actually highly recommend e-readers. They are quite on the pricey side, but if you read a lot of manga/literature/documents, you should invest in one. You may think they are just more expensive tablets, however the e-ink technology is easier on the eyes, and it makes the screen actually look very similar to an actual book (The ones with 300dpi are especially nice). They also last forever, so if something happens you'll have something to entertain you. I'd avoid the amazon ones for the obvious bot-net and over-pricing. Kobos, from what I've seen so far, are pretty nice. You can easily mod them, and the storage is not soldered in, so you can reimage an sd card and expand the storage. I heard chink e-readers are not bad either. But I always hear mixed reviews around the android based ones. I'd recommend getting a 6 inch one if you're just reading books. Manga is not to bad on 6-inch readers, however they are much easier to read on readers 8 inches and above. PDFs look nicer on larger tablets too.

>>2689 They are comfy devices, but my biggest issue with nearly all of them is the locked and restricted firmware. The SoCs are light enough to not have much backdoors when compared to other chips, but the software does not allow for any GNU/Linux nor any custom Android ROM. Even then, ARM64 is still too new and niche for developing a proper E-Ink distro. Hardware is also its own issue, as there's little to no repairability for most of them except for any old Kindles and Kobos. Maybe projects like >>693 can help with this, and there's going to be an easier version that uses a Raspberry Pi Pico (although you still need to solder). I do hope there is a free OS for E-Ink tablets, even if it won't support my ereader.

Buy one of those goose neck things that can hold you e-reader in place. Super convenient not having to hold that shit while reading. Likebook Mars masterrace reporting in. 7.8 inches, it's just a tablet you can sideload apps on, and lets you insert an SD card for more storage. It's like $220 I think. Definitely going to upgrade to a large e-reader that's at least 10 inches in the future once I get a job so I can read my chinese hentai comic books without ever having to zoom in.

>>2097 >RGB >when ink works best as CMY ... any how, here is something i posted on 4chan about two months ago(it seemed longer to me...) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky-t00ubcU0 [Embed] E Ink shows Color, Flexible, Shelf labels, OTFT and more at SID Display Week 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF52pUyze80 [Embed] Reflective Electrowetting Display by South China Normal University at SID Display Week 2018 I-Zone near absolute peak^, it updates in 3 milliseconds and can do a million color(in my opinion it still needs a fourth layer for K/black... and perhaps(because it might not need it at all) a fifth, sixth and seventh layer for light cyan, light magenta and "light black" to make it able to do CcMmYKk(which i believe should be renamed CMYKcmk)... and its not bistable(would be lovely if it was, it should mean that you could turn it off and the image will remain without using any energy), but that is just me) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjJ2-cdhwMQ [Embed] CLEARink ePaper 2.0 at SID Display Week 2019 the manga that sometimes appears in the video is black butler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZSZbplyKKo [Embed] E Ink CEATEC 2019 booth tour, Ricoh 42" white board, Linfiny 13.3", 10.3", Ratta Supernote and more the tech presented on 20:25 onwards would be absolutely lovely to have on keyboard key caps(i think) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo7NNElEu80 [Embed] About the electrowetting display that consumes 3 Watt gimp better start working on that cmyk support (id say it be good if we had the best of both worlds, first the e-paper and in front of it quantum dot pixels so that you can use both cmyk and rgba systems(obviously the e-paper black should be at least as good as the "truer blacks" that is commonly advertised on modern displays, likely something like "Musou Black" or "Black 3.0")) and i must add some recent development i have become aware of... well recently, just right now from the simple search "eink color" on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lZ6sBEeIVw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by3rW57XWgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wF3U17-rTU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlnzrxaZViU