It’s a good question. For now I’m still working through a few books that I had in my backlog that are available on Project Gutenberg.
I’ve been looking around for a few ebook stores that sell books in epub format, but am struggling to settle on one. I do want to buy and not pirate them as much as possible, but most people seem to point me towards ebook piracy sites whenever I ask.
Think I mentioned it somewhere here before, but it’s usually to keep costs down. eInk devices are relatively less demanding than modern smartphones, and utilize some older chipsets as they don’t need the extra power. This also helps keep costs down.
Problem with using holder chipsets is that Android itself only supports a few generations at a time, so they won’t be able to get the latest versions of Android, nor the privacy and security features that come with it.
I own two Boox devices, the Note Air 2 Plus, and the Page. The NA2+ is primarily used as a notebook replacement, while the Page has become my go-to reader. I use the Page to read anything from pdf files to even documentation using eInkBro. The whole experience is very good, and while I wouldn’t trust either of them to handle anything actually related to my work due to privacy reasons, they’ve become a valuable part of my working process.
I haven’t tried connecting a keyboard to either device and typing like that, so I can’t say much about that experience. But I do agree that with greyscale and a bit of fine tuning, you should be able to get nice syntax highlighting as well.
As someone with full Android in both their reader and note-taking device, can I ask why you might be hesitant?
For comparison, I downloaded the Kindle app on the Page and loaded up the book I’d been reading on my Paperwhite just last night.
The Page definitely feels lighter, and the bezel with the page turning buttons makes it much more comfortable to hold than the Paperwhite in my opinion. This may change though, as I haven’t been able to do an extensive reading session with the Page yet.
The screen also feels quite on par with the Paperwhite. When I installed the Kindle app on my Note Air 2+, I couldn’t get the text to look as crisp as the Paperwhite even with the display optimization settings dialed in, but the Page’s text looks as crisp. I’m thinking this might have something to do with the NA2+ having that extra pen input layer between the front glass and the eInk panel.
One of the big reasons I bought this even though my Paperwhite is still perfectly fine was because I wanted to have total control over my device and media. While I could’ve just read DRM removed versions of my eBooks on the Kindle, I had a great experience using my NA2+ with Syncthings and Obsidian that I decided a new device would be worth it. The Page also lets me read from websites at night, while Kindle’s browser still feels really sluggish.
I’ve Obsidian Sync set up so that my Obsidian vault is synced across all my devices. I don’t do much input into my vault on the Page, but mainly use it to view notes I’ve already written, or to keep my TODO list open while I do other things throughout the day.