Kindle Oasis 3 replacement

[Leilu]

Hello,

I am looking for a replacement for my Kindle Oasis 3.

Why is my Oasis 3 no longer working for me?

Cons:

1. The Amazon ecosystem and its lock-in annoys me.
2. I would have liked to be able to create and import collections directly from Calibre but it's not possible as far as I know unless you jailbreak your device, which I can't do anymore since it updated itself to 5.15.1
3. Disastrous user experience.
   We can't create folders/subfolders or collections/subcollections to organize our books.
   The home screen is not customizable and displays information that I don't care about at all.
   The library screen does not even offer the bare minimum:
   we can only display 5 books at the same time on one page,
   only 9 filtering and 4 sorting parameters.
4. I find its autonomy ridiculous compared to a Paperwhite.
5. The handling of the device is unpleasant because of the material of the shell. It's probably premium to have something other than plastic but I feel like I'm holding an ice cube on winter nights.
6. I don't like the rear protrusion on one side of the device. Its weight is unbalanced and its grip is unpleasant.
   For these last two problems, I bought a fabric cover at the cost of another disadvantage: the extra weight.
   

Pros:

1. The ability to add downloaded fonts (modulo the fact that you have to convert all your books to azw3 to be able to select these fonts, it won't show with mobi books). I like Literata very much.
   
2. The possibility to add custom dictionaries (for example, I created a dictionary to facilitate my reading of The Silmarillion, it was great instead of going back and forth to the lexicon).
   
3. The remaining reading time in a chapter and book. You might find it silly but it encourages me to read a lot. Without it I think I would have a much harder time getting into a book.
   
4. I kind of like the physical buttons for turning pages but I think I could do without them.

I don't intend to read manga on it because that would mean a bigger screen and I think 7" is my comfort limit.

I think the ideal would be a not-yet-updated Paperwhite, which would remove many of the flaws I'm noting on my Oasis 3.

I don't know much about the other brands and I find that it's not easy to get really detailed presentations of e-readers on the internet.
For the addition of custom dictionaries for example, I had to dig a little and at the beginning it was not easy.

[Sirtel]

Kobo Libra 2 ticks most of your boxes.

- you can create collections in Calibre and sync them automatically to your Kobo. Ditto with other metadata.
- you can customize the home screen with patching
- plastic back, no protrusion, 7'' screen, physical buttons
- you can sideload your own fonts
- custom dictionaries (I haven't tried that one myself)
- time left to read both in the chapter and in the book

Plus, you can downgrade a Kobo to an older firmware if you happen not to like an update. And last but not least, no jailbreaking is needed at all.

[Colonel Cathcart]

Originally Posted by Leilu

I don't know much about the other brands and I find that it's not easy to get really detailed presentations of e-readers on the internet.
For the addition of custom dictionaries for example, I had to dig a little and at the beginning it was not easy.

This forum is a wonderful place to explore what actually can be done with an e-reader. Another good resource of what you can do with it out of the box is this youtube channel.
And a Sirtel wrote, the Libra 2 seems to be a good choice for your likes/dislikes.

[Leilu]

Thank you.

I just ordered a Libra 2 and I think I'm going to install KOReader on it.

[Quoth]

It doesn't need KOReader unless you have badly done epubs.
I did have it on my Elipsa and I do have it on my Android eink, but don't feel the need on Libra, Libra2 or Sage. Not on Elipsa since Kobo PDF crop is per book.

But you still have the native reader which allows you to more easily choose by My books GUI and Search.

The irony is that Kindle has so many short comings (I have 3 models and gave a 4th away lately, an Oasis) but can be impossible to add apps or patch, yet the Kobos are so easy to patch or add an app to, yet there is often no need. Currently none of my Kobos have any patches, but some do have the sideloadedmode=true in the configuration file. Makes My Books the Home Page.

[twowheels]

Need? Not really, but I really enjoy running KOReader on my Kobo, which gives me a LOT of capabilities that the built in reader does not.

I can reformat books on the fly if something is bugging me, it has way better reading stats, way better book map, translations (something I missed from my Kindle), swipe gesture configuration, clipboard to QR to allow me to share passages that I enjoy via whatever I want on my phone, I can connect directly to ODPS feeds or Calibre wirelessly, I can completely turn off the front-light if I’m outdoors and don’t need it, I can look up words in definitions if the dictionary definition has a word that I don’t know, etc, etc… as well as a huge number of features that I don’t personally use.