Paper vs digital

[OgnjenLivada]

I enjoy reading books the traditional way, holding them in my hands. However, some books have such small font, and my eyes aren't in the same condition as they used to be...

Therefore, I'm interested in finding a good digital device for reading, not just for myself but also for my son.

The main reason I came here was to find a platform where I could share the book I've written for free. Hopefully, I'll also be able to view it on some cool device.

Take care,

Ogi from Croatia

[JSWolf]

Which eInk Readers are sold in Croatia?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Which eInk Readers are sold in Croatia?

As Croatia is a member of the EU, the OP can buy from any EU country without paying the customs duty.

[rantanplan]

Originally Posted by OgnjenLivada

Therefore, I'm interested in finding a good digital device for reading, not just for myself but also for my son.

Hello and welcome!

In general, there are three major players in Europe. There's Amazon's Kindle, then there's Kobo and Pocketbook. In general, all three are pretty sideloading friendly, so it just comes up to taste which ecosystem you prefer.

Kindles are subsidized the most, and you can get either a regular Kindle or a Paperwhite quite cheap, especially if you buy the version with ads as screensaver. If you're already invested in the Amazon ecosystem and do your shopping mostly with them, getting a Kindle makes sense.

Kobo does many things just like Kindle, and you have the option to rent digital books from your library as they come with Adobe Digital Editions support. Their pricing is comparable to Kindle.

Pocketbook is usually a bit more expensive than the other ones, however their build quality / screen quality does not justify this (IMHO of course). You also have the option to rent digital books from your library. In addition to supporting the Adobe Digital Editions DRM scheme, Pocketbooks also support the CARE-DRM scheme, in case your library chose to implement this. CARE-DRM is much better than ADE-DRM, as it doesn't come with an activation limit, whereas ADE-DRM only allows up to 5 activations before you have to contact Adobe to request 5 more activations in a pretty convoluted process.

With regard to supported book formats, Pocketbooks support the most formats, however you usually only encounter epubs "in the wild" or Amazons proprietary formats that can only be read on kindles. Though with Calibre, this doesn't really matter as you can convert every book format I know into a format that either reader would be able to read.

[Quoth]

In terms of publishing your own book as an ebook, the universal is epub. Amazon doesn't take their own format for upload, but take an epub.

A Kobo is best for annotation and management with calibre. I've used Kindles before switching to Kobo (still have 3) and have or did have or tested Sony, Nook, reMarkable, iRiver Story, Binatone (3 models), cheap Chinese 4.7″ ereader and an Android based 7.8″ eink ereader and test ebooks on Android apps from v 4.1.x to v11.x and 4.3″ to 10″.

So I recommend a 7″ or 8″ Kobo managed by free calibre and book edited using free LO Writer (both Linux, Mac or Windows) and ebook from an extra docx save converted by calibre. Any paper POD (self publishing) takes a PDF using a different template direct from LO Writer or MS Word. Actual big publishers mostly use agents and both typically want a docx (but almost always only by invitation).

Most PD sources do epub and both sorts of Kindle File. Only Amazon sells Kindle files exclusively (but you upload an epub to them). Everyone else offers epub.
Loans are more complicated.
Most people actually read ebooks, inc loans, on a phone app, but an ereader is less tiring.

[HLS]

All ereaders are fundamentally the same. KOBO is good when it comes to font, margin options and customization