What does /lit/ make of ebooks and ebook reader devices? While a big bookshelf is always nice to have around, it's hard not to avoid e-books as a voracious reader. Because instant digital gratification, and piracy if you know where to look.
If you feel absolutely no shame pirating e-books, go for a Kobo reader instead of a Kindle. It's the most open platform out there when it comes to sideloading ebook files (mainly .epubs, but also .mobi and .pdf). The 4GB nonexpandable storage might be off-putting, but get this, if you're willing to void your warranty you can actually replace the storage inside, it's all on an internal MicroSD card that can be dislodged and replaced with careful attention to correct firmware.
Also, there's no DRM on cracked, local .epub files. Your copy of 1984 isn't going to disappear over a copyright dispute (This actually happened with Amazon Kindle - buyer fucking beware.)
>>8240758
After having to move twice in the same year, in and out of a 2nd story apartment, with a couple hundred pounds of books I am pretty dead-set on picking up a Kobo on Cyber Monday
>>8240758
>4GB nonexpandable storage
Why would anyone need more? No point in having over 2000 books on one device at one time.
>>8240758
>no physical buttons
No, just no. Just get kindle 4 in stead. It's open as opposed to newer kindles, and you truly don't see the difference in resolution on six inchers.
>>8240884
Who the fuck buys an e-book with no backlight
>>8240884
You'll see the difference in resolution on my six incher you dirty boy.
Might as well ask here: I have a million pdfs on my comp and I hate reading on my comp, would an e-reader be better? I've hard that pdfs look like ass on an e-reader which is why I'm hesitant.
my 2c: e-readers are great for reading all the great book of human history free of charge and zero space in your shelf, but, there's a catch. I enjoy longer novels and postmodern ones with lots of stories and footnotes, etc. And I've found that going through sections and just "browing" a real book can NOT be replaced with an ebook. It just much more difficult and clumsy. With that aside, I'm all for e-reading, I've been doing it for ten years. But now I've found a middle ground where, when I REALLY want a book and I positively love it, I'll read it in paper
>>8241162
It depends on which e-reader. Reading them on my Kobo is pants, but I've heard others are better at handling them (and scaling them).
>>8240884
If only it had backlight, it'd beat all that touchscreen garbage.
What do you mean by "open" though, how more open is it than the newer ones?
I use a Nexus 7 with Aldiko.
It's very good!
>>8240770
>muh benevolent Kobo
>muh epub
I've been cheerfully pirating with my touch for 6 years and nothing happens. The only difference is in pic related, pressing send to device on calibre, and what sales you can get.
>>8241162
pdf=ipad
>>8241405
Briss has serious problems.
If you use Adobe Acrobat, the portable one that there are millions of torrents of, you can crop and then delete hidden information,and if the PDF is already OCR'd or contains text and isnt just scans, then convert to RTF and use wildcards to format out paragraph issues. Then Calibre to convert to epub.
My problem with just using briss to put pictures of the pdf on your kindle is that the kindle doesnt remember zoom size per page turn, and has two sets of margins, so the text is tiny.
My Kindle Oasis arrives on Friday, you jelly /lit/?
>>8245072
Post pics of your order. Let us feel your smugness through the screenshot.
>>8245072
I have over 15,000 physical books so not really to be honest lad.
>>8245094
have an old school kindle 2 with keyboard
Can't justify tossing it
I just use calibre and dedrm to unlock my Amazon books and I make sure to download mobi from libgen, or just convert them to mobi
>>8245191
I guess they pushed it back since I had placed the order last week.
>>8241162
>1,000,000 pdfs
>doing anything with them
goddamn
also, what is the best way for me to use any DnD rulebook pdfs
>>8245072
How bad is the light bleed from the side?
I ended up getting the paperwhite 3 because the Oasis just got slammed with people claiming they had defective units and to wait till Amazon got their shit together.
>>8246253
I don't doubt he has that at all
I'm not sure of the exact number, but I easily have close to 50k pdfs of just textbooks.
I've never even fully looked through all of what I have.
/sci/ book threads routinely have mega links with tens of thousands of books for various subjects. /g/ also posts links of programming and computer science links with thousands of books too.
One guy on /sci/ claimed to have over 500 GB of just university textbooks
It wouldn't be hard to get a million if you downloaded the entire collection.
>>8246306
damn dude, with textbooks' formatting, not to mention color issues, e-readers are fucking useless. if that 1,000,000 pdfs anon had regular books in pdf format, he might be able to figure out converting, (and even then it'll probably be ass) but fucking textbooks are a no go.
>>8240758
>What does /lit/ make of ebooks and ebook reader devices?
I only use an ebook currently, don't get book purists, these things are amazing.
I can download what I wish and use Calibre to get the correct format and change the book cover etc.
>>8241405
thank you kind stranger
>>8246253
>DnD rulebook pdfs
print character pages for quick leveling
>>8240758
>but get this, if you're willing to void your warranty you can actually replace the storage inside, it's all on an internal MicroSD card that can be dislodged and replaced with careful attention to correct firmware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FuyPwc7Iw
You can't do that. Stop spreading lies.
>>8246274
If this thread is still here when I receive it, I will report back.
Given the delay on shipping, I'm guessing mine isn't part of the first batch.
The only thing I miss about physical books is the fact they they have their own unique weight, smell and feel. All the books I read on my kindle feel the same and look the same. I miss opening an old book, smelling it and the smell bring back memories. Everything else is great
>>8248544
You are missing the point. People who cheer kobo as a moral alternative to the evil Amazon are idiots. There is literally no difference between Kobo Glo and Paperwhite at this point except price & quality of support. Both are equally well made useful products and are equally flexible, especially since everyone uses calibre anyways.
Any way to crack current Amazon ebooks?
>>8249170
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/
De-Drm for calibre. Does it automatically
>>8249195
Cheers, I've plugged in and restarted but still gives the locked by DRM message
>>8249285
The troubleshooting part of the calibre forums is very descriptive. I had similar problems and it was due to some heuristic setting I had checked
>>8249312
THanks
>>8240758
I read on my 8' tablet...and i use my 10.1' winshit tablet with keyboard to write...
I'm doing it right?
Perfect ereader
>6" or 8" option
>Latest version of color E-ink
>Physical non capacitive page turn buttons on each side
>MicroSD card slot that supports 512 GB cards
>Glass screen
>Bluetooth audio/jack
>Full pdf support
>No Android shit
>No windows shit
>No forced cloud storage shit
>No removeable battery cover case shit
>No adverts
Why can't this exist
Would easily pay 1k for this
>>8250595
It exists. You're just too lazy to config it.
Get an 8'' Galaxy Tab, then give it some cyanogen mod seeing as how you hate android, then install ub reader and acrobat on it, and if you really need to, config the volume or camera buttons to turn the page (unnecessary though, as you can config most readers to turn the page on tap).
You'd only be missing the color e-ink and the 512GB card support (only up to 64, I believe, but you can always have multiple cards and just swap them).
What options are there if you just want a simple ereader and nothing else? I'm planning on pirating the shit out of books anyway, so I don't need built in web stores and server side storage and all that stuff
>>8250669
how much are you looking to spend? are your books in pdf or other formats? the paperwhite has some of those bullshit online store options but it's not something you need to use. i turn wi-fi off and only load pirated books and it's great
>>8250669
I got a "kobo glow" for like 100 dollars, not too much built in but it's got a browser and a backlight and it supports epubs which are the most generic format.
>>8250687
>I don't have many books yet
libgen. if you read in english, you're in luck as a lot of stuff is gonna be in reader-friendly formats already. not so much for foreign language stuff
>>8250692
I'm considering a Kobo glow, does it support pdf files?
Is the processor quick enough?
how do you like it?
>>8250765
E-readers are not good with PDF's
Buy a tablet instead
>>8251820
>>8252189
I would not recommend this. I'm on the ereader side. Reasons:
1)A tablet is backlit which is not so good on the eyes for long periods of time.
2) The internet access will tempt you to go on facebook or browse 4chan instead of reading.
3) Battery life is not even remotely comparable.
4) The PDF problem is mostly solved with briss or with the acrobat reader editor. Just get a kindle or a cheap similar one. I have pic related that was dirt cheap and does the job perfectly
I just use my phone and it works well enough. I've read more than I would be able to normally thanks to torrenting books.
>>8252536
>The PDF problem is mostly solved with briss or with the acrobat reader editor
The amount of work involved is ridiculous, as is the size of the resultant files.
>>8252660
please try briss, it really is a breeze. You just format two pages and all the rest will be cropped equally. it takes literally one minute and the resulting file is almost the same size. Go ahead and try it!
I've got an old kobo touch. Probably one of the more cost effective things I've ever purchased. Can read basically anything and hasn't given me any problems.
I will say though it's not good for textbooks, you're better off reading anything you'll need to zoom in on a tablet or computer screen.
>>8240758
Guys, I read books on an old smartphone. Is it okay? I feel like reading on it is fine. How does reading on a smartphone compare to E readers? Should I buy one (they're pretty cheap).
>>8252710
if you're ok with the old smartphone, keep on with it. As I've said an ereader has some advantages.... and a few disadvantages too
>>8252710
You buy e readers for their e-ink paper-like display and ridiculously long battery
I always preferred physical books and accumulated over 300 of them. I quit my job to travel the world at the beginning of this year so I bought a kindle for traveling. It's actually really nice. I miss my library as a whole but I don't really miss reading physical books that much.
My only complaint is that Amazon charges almost the same for an e-book as the physical. When I come back to the states and settle down somewhere I'll go back to buying books.
>>8252775
Just pirate books?
>>8252710
Being able to read on a smartphone is a godsent. I have only read one book on my phone and after that I decided to get a kobo since I reading on my phone frustrated me. I'd say wait until there is a great deal on an ereader or until you see it being absolutely necessary to get one.
Should I buy an Oasis? I have the money and this will be my first e-reader
>>8240770
>(This actually happened with Amazon Kindle - buyer fucking beware.)
You are full of shit.
This might have happened once, possibly twice, but this does not happen often. Granted; I agree that Kobo is more versatile (since most ebooks come in .epubs), but as I have a Kindle, I can very well tell you that it is hardly an effort using calibre to convert it to either azw3 or mobi.
Stop shilling so hard family.
>>8252909
Hell no, even if you do have the money. I say use the money on a Kobo Glo HD and invest the money on something else. The Kobo Glo has a slightly better display than the Kindle Paperwhite, but you won't notice the difference. You can, however use open source books, PDFs, and MOBI files on your Kobo though.
>>8252988
*Invest the rest
>>8250699
>Uses racial slurs to categorize authors based on their ethnic background.
None the less, thanks for this.
Any recommendations on where to pirate said ebooks?
>>8253033
Private club torrent tracker websites.
Can you navigate IRC?
>>8253033
Piratebay, KAT.cr, and Libgen. The Gutenburg Project is also great for finding open source books in several languages. They are very neatly sorted as well. You are bound to find mostly classics on there.
>>8252988
One of the main reasons I'm really considering it is because most reviews say it's actually comfortable to hold compared to the awkward handling of others. I don't really care about open book formats since I don't mind using calibre for convereion and won't be reading PDFs.
Most importantly I'd like it to be reliable, as in, just about zero chance of the software ever bugging out on me. Can I count on Kobo products for that?
>>8250595
http://www.pocketbook-int.com/us/products/pocketbook-color-lux#specifications
Fits most of your criteria.
>>8253046
If you don't mind being ghetto you can make any e-reader comfortable to hold.
>>8253033
ebooks.wtf
myanonamouse
gutenberg.org
>Evil Amazon
There is a new jailbreak out for the current generation of kindles:
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275877
With that you can install Koreader, and read sideloaded epubs. Also do stuff like register it without connecting to Amazon, customize fonts & screensavers, and a bunch more.
Buy an ad supported Kindle, turn off Wifi immediately, and never see an ad. Pirate and sideload epubs.
>>8245072
A wee bit
Considering buying a e-reader soon (most likely a Kindle Paperwhite) which will leave me completely broke.
What's the best place to download books?
>>8254273
#bookz homie
>>8254273
soulseek, mobilism, btdigg.ws, libgen
>>8254273
I thought you just bought them via amazon?
Post pics of your e-readers.
>>8251820
Try this, is what l use everytime l read any pdf, it's a godlike program
http://www.willus.com/k2pdfopt/
lt makes pdfs much more readable and it also gives you advanced options in case the pdf is structure in some weird way like 2 pages in one page
>>8250699
Tablet's don't have e-ink, which is the entire point of a modern e-reader. There's really no reason to get an e-reader otherwise unless you're on a budget.
Does anyone know of a jailbreak that works on Kindle 3.4?
Everything I find with google is 404'd or out of date.
