Of course I dream of something with feature parity with the US and Eastern alternatives, but I am not interested in color or touch. Mostly care about format support and rendering.
Of course I dream of something with feature parity with the US and Eastern alternatives, but I am not interested in color or touch. Mostly care about format support and rendering.
You could look into PocketBook. It was founded in Ukraine and is now based in Switzerland.
I second this. Here is a comment I made about my PocketBook a while ago: I still have a Pocketbook Lux 3 in use. It must be about 10 years old now and still works beautifully (even the backlight). One battery charge usually lasts me weeks, even with heavy backlight use. They are made in Europe (Switzerland) and run some flavour of Linux. They‘re not rock-bottom bargains, but the cost of the entry-level model seems quite fair in my opinion (€107). https://pocketbook.de/
Do not look into pocketbook. Owner of many years here. My touchscreen failed. The e-ink screen is completely fine. It was never dropped and been babied for all the years I owned it (always transported in its own hard-shell case). It just spontaneously failed and they charge two thirds of the price of a new device for a new touchscreen. A touchscreen of this size costs about 20 euros. They charge 260 euros. (InkPad X) and no, you cannot use any mouse or keyboard, not via USB-C nor Bluetooth. Either your touchscreen works or the device is totaled. Stay away from this trash company. And yes, it is glued together. Because of course it is.
Sounds very much like my experience with Boox.
Does it support uploading e-books and pdf files?
Also, I see it has Android, can you install any android app?I own the InkPad Color 2. It runs on an, I guess, embedded Linux not Android. So no Android apps.
You can upload your e-books through USB or download them e.g. through the PockeBook-Shop or the installed webbrowser.
Not the OP, but interested anyways.
For the PockeBook-Shop have a wide selection in a variety of languages? Does it mean I could buy an e-book from Amazon then upload it to the InkPad?
Amazon usually has DRM, I’d suggest you find a DRM-free alternative, to ensure long-term access to your books.
I know humble bundle books are usually DRM free.
The problem that I find the most limiting is really availability of books. I read a lot and I am picky, I usually look for specific titles in many languages. I haven’t been able to find a real competitor to Amazon’s wide library yet (even if I don’t like it)
Unfortunate, but understandable.
I’m sadly not happy with my PocketBook InkPad 4.
My PocketBook developed a crack near the charging port very soon after I got it. I got into contact with the company, and they handled it well, but I some time back saw it had developed a crack there yet again. Clearly it’s a structural issue.
The software is also mediocre at best. If you read pdfs, there’s this really weird issue where it fails to register long presses, but only in landscape mode. It simply stops very soon after the first press, so panning and pinch-to-zoom don’t work. I tried both pdf readers (it has two if I remember correctly) but it doesn’t matter. I also got into contact with PocketBook over this, and they were very receptive and seemed to want to understand and fix the issue, but it’s been more than a year now and it still isn’t fixed.
There’s also a minor (but to me major) graphical flaw when reading epubs, where the top margin is often ignored, meaning the text begins at the very top of the page. It annoys me, especially considering this is an expensive device developed specifically for reading epubs.
My main reason for picking PocketBook was that it supports lots of file formats, but, needless to say, I wouldn’t buy a PocketBook anymore.
Owner of poketbook here, I have one of the older models. Battery life is great, had no problems with it whatsoever.