Requirements:

  • Able to pirate books and load them on
  • Nice if it can integrate with my arr stack (Sonarr, Radarr, etc)
  • reasonably priced
  • not locked down to anything

That’s it really just a simple e-reader that I can add what I want.

Edit: this is the first post where I got a lot of comments where I wasn’t too overwhelmed to reply to them all. Hard when you wake up to so many replies but trying to be better thanking people for their input.

  • dbx12@programming.dev
    0·
    12 days ago

    I see you’re coming from a .de domain so chances are you might have a Thalia (store) in your area. I’ve bought a Tolino Shine about 6 years back and I really like it. Sure, you can buy them online too, but I liked the option to try it out before I buy.

  • Tecovirimat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    13 days ago

    Hi!

    Just recently was setting up my whole family with ebooks. Ended up with Kobo Libra Colour for myself and Kindle Oasis (jailbreaked) for family.

    I am quite happy with both readers. Kindle would be a bit better in quality, but Kobo is color and non-amazon. Both of them have physical side buttons, which were my main requirement.

    I store all my books in calibre and uploading it via USB on my kobo reader. It makes it much easier to manage and confirm metadata. I didn’t bother with readarr, as I already has a decent collection that still need to finish.

    For family - they were already familiar with Kindle, so I got them Oasises from ebay, jailbroke them to prevent Amazon from messing up with them and just send all necessary book to their readers wirelessly via Send to Kindle.

  • Hello_there@fedia.io
    0·
    13 days ago

    Off topic, but check out Trmnl if you want a passive eink display on the wall that shows a few things at a time. Without a subscription. Repairable and byod friendly. Let me know if you want a discount code for 15 off.

  • cfi@lemmy.world
    0·
    12 days ago

    Regardless of what reader you go with, look into KoReader, a custom reader app that you install on top of existing firmware. Offers a lot of features that stock firmware doesn’t, like OPDS catalog connections

  • truxnell@aussie.zone
    0·
    12 days ago

    I recently somehow broke my Boox page, and I replaced it with a PocketBook Era. It’s my favourite device, great battery life, integrated with calibre like a dream and the OS is really nice to use after fighting android on the Boox.

  • UnfairUtan@lemmy.world
    0·
    12 days ago

    I bought my first e-reader a month ago, it’s the Boox Go 7 and I’m really pleased so far. The fact that it’s also an android tablet let’s me download apps for Mangas, music, etc.

  • WandowsVista@lemmy.world
    0·
    12 days ago

    +1 to Kobo as well, although I’m admittedly unfamiliar with the pirate apps (arr).

    no issues downloading books and adding/editing my library with calibre and you can connect it to your library card to rent ebooks if you’re feeling frisky.

    or you can bypass the login steps and change out the firmware and add games and other utilities. it’s as customizable or not as you want.

    lots of refurbished options through rakuten and ebay

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    0·
    11 days ago

    The reader should mount as a USB drive, you put files on it like epub, PDF, or HTML in your own directory structure, and you can browse this and read the files. Nothing else needed.

  • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    Nexus 7 with FBReader connected via OPDS to Caliber, and I get books via Usenet, most of which I’ve physically bought but hate reading physical books now. I have several extra Nexus 7s because I like the size, old Android doesn’t have a lock screen which annoys the fuck out of me when I read in bed and they work fine.

  • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
    0·
    12 days ago

    I have a Kobo n437, I swaped the internal sd card with a 32gb one and installed InkBox/Quill OS.

    You’ll need a bit of linux skills to use a bigger storage solution to its full potential. The project is currently on hiatus as they port the OS over to the pine64 e-reader.

    Worth noting otherwise, currently pictures in epub formated books don’t load (at least on mine don’t know about other models) so youll want to convert them to pdf.

      • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
        0·
        12 days ago

        The process isn’t hard or time consuming, but I understand, this sorta stuff isn’t for everyone. I’m just a huge proponent of “this is my device it’ll do as I say”

        • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deOP
          0·
          12 days ago

          That’s very true but it becomes another dependency for me to manage, which is fine if that’s your thing but I struggle with motivation sometimes.

          For instance my media server crapped the bed last night and debugging today felt like a chore. Turns out that I didn’t properly manage the docker side of things and where it stores things so I ran out of space on the server disk. My plan is to move the docker stuff to a vault in truenas and automate clearing old images and stuff, but as I say it’s a chore at times so don’t want to be adding another thing I need to manage as when in a bad headspace it’ll not get done.

          Now this also highlighted an issue I must have, not been back to check docker compose, in that Plex doesn’t have access to my libraries now so the config must be wrong as Jellyfin worked perfectly. Means I’ll need to spend the time to resolve this so my users can continue on Plex which they prefer, I also prefer Plex but Jellyfin seems to work better on iOS.

          Hope you see this response as me just expressing my use case and I have no judgement on you for sharing as I like to know what’s out there still.

  • steal_your_face@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    12 days ago

    I have a kobo Libra 2. Its the first ereader I’ve bought and it’s super nice. I use calibre to load my books. Looks like kobo only has refurbished units of it now, though.

  • solrize@lemmy.ml
    0·
    13 days ago

    No idea about internet integration or “arr”, but the Inkplate series are completely open. I got an Inkplate 10 because of an app that I wanted to write for it at the time. The hardware is nice, software is lacking, but I’d buy it again if I wanted a basic e-reader. It has an epub reading app and I’d just download epubs to it from my PC by wifi or USB.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deOP
      0·
      13 days ago

      Thanks.

      I’ve had three replies now with three different suggestions.

      Guess I’ll research each and see what best fits my needs, as it’ll be a few months before I can justify the purchase I like to plan ahead though.