Techradar Best eReader For 2023

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's partly Amazon centric as there's a Best Kindle and no Best Kobo.

It's reasonable to recognize that people may be invested in Amazon/Kindle to the extent that it's not realistic for them to switch and especially given Kindle's share of the market.

If anything, I think the article shows an anti-Kindle bias. It denigrates the current Paperwhite as pricey, even though it's the same list as the recommended but smaller Clara and significantly cheaper than the slightly larger Libra, the overall recommendation. What is hard to parse, of course, and I wish these articles would make the point (although I may have missed it) is the $20 surcharge for no ads.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

What is hard to parse, of course, and I wish these articles would make the point (although I may have missed it) is the $20 surcharge for no ads.

Yeah, that $20 ad removal just gets to me. It's because they explain that they are saving the end user money, but much smaller competitors are able to make devices of equal or better quality and sell them ad free for the same or less as the 'ad supported' Kindles*

I was given a Kindle and was still going to try to squeaky wheel my way into getting the ads removed for free. Luckily, it remained ad-free, which is how I discovered it is device specific (which is weird really).

*The current basic Kindle and Paperwhite are a real step up from their previous offerings. I'll give them that.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Yeah, that $20 ad removal just gets to me. It's because they explain that they are saving the end user money, but much smaller competitors are able to make devices of equal or better quality and sell them ad free for the same or less as the 'ad supported' Kindles*

I was given a Kindle and was still going to try to squeaky wheel my way into getting the ads removed for free. Luckily, it remained ad-free, which is how I discovered it is device specific (which is weird really).

Yes, I was puzzled that an old Kindle (maybe 3 years old), deregistered and passed to me had adverts.

Here even a contract phone, subsidised far more than the kindle (being generous to Amazon) must be unlocked from network for free after a year.

The advert-free surcharge is a scam and it's abusive that it lasts "forever". But logical that it's device specific. Amazon doesn't care who uses it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The advert-free surcharge is a scam and it's abusive that it lasts "forever". But logical that it's device specific. Amazon doesn't care who uses it.

The reason I'm confused is that I would figure that a Kindle's de facto position is to have ads. I register the Kindle to my name, pay the $20 and remove ads. But then deregister and pass the Kindle to another user, Amazon is missing a golden opportunity to soak the new user for another $20

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The reason I'm confused is that I would figure that a Kindle's de facto position is to have ads.

Only in some countries (those with their own Amazon store, I think). International versions have no ads.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I was given a Kindle and was still going to try to squeaky wheel my way into getting the ads removed for free.

Now that the bean counters are running the show, I suspect that's much harder to get than it used to be. Even connecting to a live person so you can make your case is much harder than it used to be.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Only in some countries (those with their own Amazon store, I think). International versions have no ads.

Well sure, but discussing getting ads removed from a Kindle would pretty obviously not apply to countries where there aren't ads in the first place.

[Quoth]

Ads on any kindle here in Ireland. Some UK chains sold them (Tesco, Argos) and they only sold the models with adverts. There is no Irish Amazon. Kindles by default use the UK store (with Irish VAT), though a year or to ago you have the option of USA (same UK geolimited ebooks, but USA prices + Irish VAT). Ireland is in EU and uses Euro. UK has neither.
You have to pay £20 to get ads removed, at least that's what it was last time.
The only time an "International" Kindle with no ads was sold in Ireland was Amazon USA selling off old stock of DXG in 2013 approx.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Ads on any kindle here in Ireland. Some UK chains sold them (Tesco, Argos) and they only sold the models with adverts. There is no Irish Amazon. Kindles by default use the UK store (with Irish VAT), though a year or to ago you have the option of USA (same UK geolimited ebooks, but USA prices + Irish VAT). Ireland is in EU and uses Euro. UK has neither.
You have to pay £20 to get ads removed, at least that's what it was last time.
The only time an "International" Kindle with no ads was sold in Ireland was Amazon USA selling off old stock of DXG in 2013 approx.

Well, any Kindles I have bought directly from Amazon (Amazon US, Amazon.de, Amazon UK) have always been without ads - no models with ads have ever been available for shipping to my country. Local sellers who often buy their stock by mail forwarding might sell Kindles with ads, but as they're more expensive than buying from Amazon even with shipping added, I've never bought one from a local store.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

The Kindle Unpack plug-in (I think that is the correct name?) does the same thing with AZW3 to ePub.

That is the plug-in, and I use it to convert if I want to edit a book, but it breaks on some books, so you have to use Calibre's conversion.

Originally Posted by Sirtel

This too is subjective. When I still read on Kindles, I never used KFX - I converted all my books (both Amazon purchases and those from other stores) to AZW3.

For me, the much better quality of display (kerning, hyphenation, etc.) of KFX is worth it. I've never understood the reason for FONT_RAMP, since I don't change my base font size after I have set it. And, I'm not so picky that I absolutely have to have a font size that is right between two settings in the default list.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

For me, the much better quality of display (kerning, hyphenation, etc.) of KFX is worth it. I've never understood the reason for FONT_RAMP, since I don't change my base font size after I have set it. And, I'm not so picky that I absolutely have to have a font size that is right between two settings in the default list.

I actually hate hyphenation and actively disable it on my Kobos.

I never change my base font size after setting it either, but I am super picky as to the right size and Kindle defaults were never right for me. I'm super picky about many other things too (margins, line height and so on), that's why I finally ditched Kindles altogether. Too few customization options for me.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I never change my base font size after setting it either, but I am super picky as to the right size and Kindle defaults were never right for me. I'm super picky about many other things too (margins, line height and so on), that's why I finally ditched Kindles altogether.

The 1.2 minimum line height for body text is a bit larger than I'd like, but I've learned to live with it, especially after looking at the absurdly large line height in a lot of hardcover books that I own. Everything else, I can tweak outside of the Kindle.

I'm happy with the base font size I have chosen with my custom reading font, but if I absolutely had to have an in-between size, I'd just tweak the size inside the font file to be a bit larger or smaller.

Margins are fine, since I can use a negative margin applied at the html level. This allows me to have almost zero margins, and only requires a quick CSS edit. It also means that any margin from zero to your choice could be set.

I actually hate hyphenation and actively disable it on my Kobos.

For me, I'm very picky about the huge spaces between words that the lack of hyphenation creates.

The only things I have found to be a real problem with the Kindle are the bugs in not displaying some CSS formatting correctly, but every eReader has those.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

I'm happy with the base font size I have chosen with my custom reading font, but if I absolutely had to have an in-between size, I'd just tweak the size inside the font file to be a bit larger or smaller.

Margins are fine, since I can use a negative margin applied at the html level. This allows me to have almost zero margins, and only requires a quick CSS edit. It also means that any margin from zero to your choice could be set.

I used negative margins too, but it's easier if one doesn't have to do that. As to tweaking the font size inside the book vs a suitable font size on the reader... if you have thousands of books, it can be quite a lot of work. I'd rather have a suitable size on the reader. I did tweak the font size in the css when I had a Nook for a short while, but it's just too much additional bother I don't need.

Edit: did you mean tweaking the font size with a font editor, not in books? Yeah, I tried that too. It was still hard to get it just right and I was never completely satisfied with the result. Much better to have default font sizes you're satisfied with, and this I achieved with the font_ramp.

To each their own. Kobos just suit me better than Kindles, and AZW3 suited me better in every way than KFX; with you it's vice versa. Nothing wrong with having different preferences.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Edit: did you mean tweaking the font size with a font editor, not in books?

Yes. I had long ago done some tweaks to the Adobe Garamond Premier that I use for reading, so changing overall size inside the font file wouldn't be a big deal. I use HighLogic FontCreator, and it has some really good wizards for doing this sort of thing.

[HLS]

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