Or, how I ended up with three perfectly fine eReaders.
I got my first eReader (a 2nd generation Kobo Glo) in January 2014, after much deliberation. Would I actually like to read from a screen? I don’t like to read much on my laptop/phone so I wasn’t sure if I would like it. But it did sound as if it could be very useful potentially, and sometimes I got eBooks which I had to read on my laptop and I didn’t like that. In my book club almost everyone had a Kobo, so I went and got one. I have to admit it took some getting used to. I think it took like a month to finish the fist book on it, but after that it became like reading a tree book very fast and the rest – as they say – is history.
And I would have been perfectly content to just stay with Kobo, were it not for Netgalley. You can read their books most of the time on an eReader of your choice, but certain publishers only provide kindle versions – which meant I still sometimes had to resort to reading on my laptop. At some point I went YOLO – I want a Kindle as well, and that’s why I bought my Paperwhite. It still makes perfect sense to me. Actually since Netgalley works much more easy with Kindle I will read almost all their books on the Kindle nowadays.
In 2017 I had a rather big scare! My Kindle was having issues and I was mainly using it so I wanted to make sure I would never be without a Kindle. So I ordered a new one (Paperwhite 2017), but by the time it arrived – you might have guessed – the problems with Kindle-chan had disappeared and it keeps working until this day. So I mainly use the other one as a backup or if I left my main one somewhere on accident.
What eReader should I get?
I’m probably not the best one to answer this question, since all my eReaders are terribly old for tech standards. But they are still going strong even after 5 or 6 years and I think that is a great plus. Yes, they have cost a 100 euros but it is an investment well made – in my opinion. I have never regretted buying one, not even the spare one.
All of them are rather low-end eReaders – they don’t have all the most fancy features but some of them are:
- No buttons (I know some people like to have physical buttons to move through the book, but mine are all touchscreen, and I like that I can reverse the moves – so for example I can read with just my left hand)
- A build in light (for many, this is very important. I don’t use it that often but when I do, I am glad this feature is here)
- Good battery (by far the most important. I have used my eReaders way more than prescribed by the company and still they have a battery life of weeks – tell that to my last phone who couldn’t last a day).
- My Kindle comes with a mail-address so even if you have mobi files that didn’t come from Amazon or Netgalley (for example the Tor.com eBook Club), you can transfer them wirelessly.
The biggest difference between Kobo and Kindle is the format of the books you need to feed it. Kobo uses .epub – which is all vendors except Amazon, and Kindle uses Amazon-only .mobi; this is something you might want to keep in mind – although I do think there is some crossover in newer models.
I really enjoy eReaders and could no longer do without them, but there is one thing that would never happen with tree books:
What is the story of your eReader(s)? Let me know in the comments!
Url Phantomhive 
I’ve only used a Kindle Fire 10″. I like it, but I don’t load any apps on it, because I use it strictly for reading.
I almost bought a paperwhite, until I went to Best Buy to get my feelers on it. Screen was too small for the money. I’m sure it is a great device, but my girlfriend can’t see the best, so I wanted a big screen just in case she decided she wanted to use it.
Lately, not so much in the avenue of eBooks, but I’m sure that will change soon. I’ve been diving into physical books.
Kindle Fire’s interface for keeping up with reading on PDF’s Mobi’s, etc, the built in capability, at least is horrible. If I start reading a PDF, it’s fine as long as I don’t go to the home screen, if I do it auto closes my PDF, then I have to find my place. I’m sure there are probably some reading apps that can help with this, but I haven’t bothered to look. I actually prefer PDFs so I can see the books formatting. Any ideas for making PDFs easier to read on Kindle?
I realize there is a way to email ebooks to your specific kindle device, but its a pain because you have to go look up the email address every time. I suppose I could put it in my address book. . . Thank you for sharing.
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I bought the Paperwhite because it is small – and easier to take away. The size of the letters can be customized, but if your eyes aren’t so good it might be better to stick with a better format.
I don’t read a lot of PDFs on the Kindles to be honest. I have read much more of them on Kobo, which is still not ideal (the screen is just as big as the paperwhite, which is rather small to encompass an entire PDF page). Now, I read most PDFs either on my 10” tablet or on my laptop – but those are computer screens rather than eInk screens and it is not the same.
I find the emailing of eBooks terribly useful. I think you can change the address to something that might be more easy to remember? Mine is also just in my addressbook, filed as Kindle Chan 😉
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I didn’t know you could change it. Thank you for the tip, URL. 😁
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