this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
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There are so many alternative ereaders that are better than the kindle, that I don't get why people buy it.
I once borrowed one from a friend and it didn't even let me organize media in directories from a pc. The directory structure got all messed up and it was a pain to follow my study sequence. Any cheap Chinese ereader would allow that.
Kindles are cheap. That's pretty much it. I don't think it's a great mystery. Amazon subsidizes their hardware to get you into their ecosystem even more.
They also consistently put their ebooks on sale. I've gone cold turkey on buying from them and have noticed they often have the best prices on books. They want people to build a library and be locked in.
Maybe my different experience comes from living in the global south. All of the are expensive in here, so kindle has no price advantage
Prime Day and other sales push those prices down pretty regularly to the point I think most people are like "ah fuck it why not" and just grab one
Which ones do you recommend?
Not OP, but i am happy with my Pocketbook Verse pro.
My kobos have been excellent, I've had a few over the years. MUCH sharper screens than the kindle by and large, and they support loading epubs, pdfs, cbz, all sorts of things.
I'm pretty happy with Kobo. I've had the same model for about ten years and it's still working great. They had color temperature changing for the backlight before it was cool. The syncing to Pocket was neat before stupid Mozilla killed it, and now they've pivoted to Instapaper. Plus I can install KOreader to also read stuff on my own ebook server, though I find the Kobo firmware is quite nice so I often just stick on that.
I mentioned some in this other comment: https://lemmy.zip/post/49532624/21704502
The Paperwhite was magnitudes cheaper than a Kobo. I wanted a Kobo but just didn't have the funds at the time. I use the Paperwhite and have never connected it to wifi, thank God for them not tanking usb downloads. Yet.
Tell me alternative vendors which provide good quality case and not breaking easily eink screen
Pocketbook. But of course a lot more expensive than a Kindle since it's not subsidized by Amazon's store
I had bad experience with their new models which easily broke eink screen after 2 month it was just laying on the table and one day I came and saw lines of screen.I know there was model which called aqua which is very nice and hard to break l but that was not my model
Kobo?
I used a cybook odyssey for more than 10 years, so I guess bookeen devices can be a good choice. I'm currently using a refurbrished tolino vision 2 and the experience is also much better than the kindles I tried.
But if I had more money, I would probably have bought a device from boox. They make nice ereaders, some even with android,being much more flexible than a kindle. Devices from bigme and the meebooks also look nice, but I don't know if they have good cases.
I'm sure there are other good options around. These are just the ones I know.
I have an android based ereader and honestly I would buy a cheaper non android one if I had to replace it. I never really use any app besides the reader app and the battery only lasts a few days max. Non android ones last way longer because they have no stuff running in the background. Edit: not a kindle though I'm comparing it to a Tolino / kobo
That's interesting to know. I'd be devastated if I spent more morey for one and felt like it wasn't worth it. Those devices are too expensive around here.
By the way, don't you find it useful for reading stuff on the internet, like web articles, news, etc? When I looked for one, I also imagined myself connecting a bluetooth keyboard and using it for writing.
I thought I would use it to read Wikipedia pages but it turns out I only really read Wikipedia when I am encountering a link on my phone or PC and while I have it set up to sync links I save to the reader, since I want to read the thing right away I'm not gonna bother switching devices. Same with articles, I never find myself switching devices to read one. Maybe it would be different if I had a daily newsletter I'd read on it but I don't use those, while I could use the ones from my library they are always lent out at the times I'd read them.
As for writing, my device is a standard 6 inch one which I'd find too small to write on, as I already own a laptop as well which is simply more ergonomic for writing. I also tried reading manga on it for which android has some great apps, but turns out I don't enjoy manga as a medium at all.
I do love the ereader for actually reading books, it's so comfortable but that's the one feature I could have on any generic one. And like I said, I use it for about 2-3 hours a day and I find myself charging it once a week.
I use have old android ereader which hold battery for weeks
Interesting, what brand and how many hours per day do you read?
2-3 hour
Kindle Unlimited is the big thing that keeps my wife on her Kindle. She goes through books like candy and it’s made it seriously economical without the trouble of loading it via her computer.
I rock a Kobo and used an Onyx for almost a year and they are indeed great (Onyx especially if you want to still use Kindle and don't mind a free 5G Modem).
The issue is the ecosystem. Kindle Unlimited is, even with the current Amazon bullshit, a SPECTACULAR resource for self-published authors. And it restricts what authors can sell in terms of ebooks.
There are-ish ways around it (drying up every day as per the article). But if you are buying an ereader it is generally because you like to read a lot. And the Amazon ecosystem is still nigh unbeatable.