The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/garden-3750 on 2024-12-09 08:05:36.
I have found hardly anything adequate — Kindle and the Linux-based Kobo don’t allow freely installing Android applications (no Koreader, Syncthing, F-Droid…) and obviously are running a non-free OS. The latter doesn’t natively support the EPUB format. The Chinese manufacturer Onyx builds devices which can be considered as more open, but their heavily customized Android system reportedly sees no maintenance. Tolino is moving away from Android and Pocketbook does not support installing applications from sources other than their own software channels.
Additionally the e-reader devices have significantly lower hardware specs than I’ve ever dealth with (for comparison, my ~300€ NUC has 16 GB of 2400 MHz RAM), possibly making them non-viable for any web browsing — I frequently download books from Project Gutenberg along with Standard Ebooks and read various articles online.
LineageOS may not support any device with an e-ink display. Standalone e-ink monitors appear to exist in limited numbers, and would not offer true portability.
I consider the light-emitting display types as an inoptimal fit for long-term reading – an e-ink screen is a must for now.
- Note that while exploits may exist, I prefer not using a proprietary operating system. As an example I have found “modding” game consoles miserable due to the lack of and/or poor documentation.
- I haven’t owned any devices from the said companies and the information above may be outdated, or even incorrect.
- While the Open Book project received considerably attention, the resolution of the display is clearly very low. If any company is building comparable but higher-end e-ink devices, please let us know in the comments.
- I’ve scraped e-books from various places and my EPUB folder alone is measured in tens of GBs, meaning that hardly any e-reader device offers a satisfactory amount of internal storage (but some do have SD card slots).