Photo by Shalev Cohen on Unsplash

I love books. Ideally, epic fantasy series with multiple books. Those books get heavy and storage is challenging. Ebooks really started to become available on sites like Fictionwise and Smashwords in the mid-2000s but I didn’t want to be tied to a computer to read them. I solved this by buying second-hand Palm Pilots – they were cheap and easy to replace when they died. When Amazon first came out with the Kindle – finally! an affordable, accessible e-ink device! – I jumped on that bandwagon and didn’t look back. My Kindle Oasis is a gorgeous device, but it has started to chafe: micro-USB charging with very specific cable requirements, Amazon’s walled ecosystem, etc. So I started to explore and it turns out there is a big world outside of those garden walls.

Here are the ereaders currently in my collection – bold text indicate those in active use:

• Kindle Oasis – beautiful, but tied to Amazon and restricted to micro-usb charging.
• Kobo Libra 2 – the most beautiful of the bunch and originally caught my interest due to its hackability and ability to sync with Calibre-Web.
• Pocketbook Era – lovely device but the cloud just isn’t stable for syncing read progress.
• Onyx Boox Poke 5 – Android e-ink – older, 6″ screen, but works well.
• Onyx Boox Page - Android e-ink – new, fast, 7″ screen, page-turning buttons.
• Google Pixel tablet – my go-to for non-fiction and comics/graphic novels

Note that I’ll be mentioning Calibre, software for managing your ebook library, but not going into further details. The relevant part is that I store my books in this system and occasionally need to access it through reading tools.

After all these years, why leave Amazon?

Being tied to any ecosystem has its drawbacks. Authors may have mixed feelings about Amazon due to various horror stories, despite some being content with it. Sideloading onto a Kindle via email can be effective, but Amazon’s rules can be restrictive and finicky. Without knowledge of tools like Calibre, you’re stuck with their DRM. Highlights and notes are relatively locked into the system. Although alternatives exist, they often feel cumbersome and overly complex.

Coming from the open source world, I’m a strong proponent of not being locked into anything – but there has to be a balance between convenience and personal convictions.

I do still buy from Amazon – their marketplace is easiest to work with, has the best selection, many of the authors that I want to read do sell on Amazon, etc. But I am not tied to Amazon because I don’t use a Kindle, I know how to remove DRM, and I’m comfortable purchasing wherever I want.

I need Whispersync so I can read on multiple devices.

There are really two parts of this: one is being able to sync your reading progress across devices – I found a fix for that, read on. The other is syncing between ebook and audio book – that’s something you really need Amazon’s system to manage well, though I’ve seen the Audiobookshelf project talk about it.

I need a way to sync reading progress – I want to read on whatever device I have at hand, rather than have to actually go find my “book”. 

There are good open source software options options such as KOReader and Librera Reader (my go-to open source reading app); they’ll let you sync reading progress via for example Google Drive and do support OPDS for access to Calibre. These options didn’t work seamlessly.

I did test Kobo and the Kobo Libra 2 is one of the best physical ereaders I’ve seen. It’s beautiful. However, syncing reading progress on Kobo’s self-purchased books is meh, and you can’t add your own books to their ecosystem. You can only side-load to the current device: I can upload a book to the Kobo app on my phone, but it won’t be available anywhere else. That was a dealbreaker. You can sync Kobos with Calibre-Web, but that’s only the books themselves and not the reading progress.

I also tested Pocketbook, a German company – the Pocketbook Era is beautiful device, and their Pocketbook Cloud could be a true competitor to Amazon’s Whispersync. As much as I wanted to love it, the cloud isn’t stable and there was too much friction. I spent more time troubleshooting than reading.

Bookfusion, an unexpected lovely find.

I’ve been using Bookfusion for about six months now and I’m very happy with it. It has a Calibre plugin so I can send books from Calibre to Bookfusion. I can open the Bookfusion app on any of my devices (web, Android, iOS) and access the same books with the correct reading progress. The highlights are wonderful because I can copy/paste them wherever I need them and their Obsidian plugin is just about to come out of beta (I love it and can’t wait to write about it). They’re a small company actively working with their community through Discord.

Note: Bookfusion is not FOSS but I believe it’s worth paying for a good product.

I find e-ink more pleasant – and less distracting.

Great, Bookfusion solves the cloud library management and reading progress synchronization. I prefer not to read on my phone, though – so what e-ink device would work?

I found Onyx Boox, a Chinese e-ink manufacturer with e-ink devices running Android. That caught my attention because a device running Android would let me do whatever I wanted in regards to apps. There are other e-ink Android manufacturers but I haven’t looked into them.

I started with the Onyx Boox Poke 5 – I didn’t want to spend too much money and I’d found a returned product at a local electronics store. While I wasn’t head-over-heels in love (this older model is slow), it fit the bill. I could read my books! The 6″ model is a bit small, but on the flip side, it’s great for travel because it fits in my pockets or a small bag.

I eventually upgraded to the Onyx Boox Page, a 7″ ereader with page turning buttons. It’s my go-to reader at home. It’s not quite as nice a build as the Kobo Libra 2 but the open ecosystem makes up for that.

Using an Android ereader such as the Onyx Boox line, I can load whatever apps I want. That means that I can load up the Amazon Kindle app if I want (I haven’t needed to), could use other apps like Libby, Kobo, Librera Reader, etc., and also can load Bookfusion. In practice, I use Bookfusion 99.9% of the time.

To be fair, third party/unaffiliated ereaders are more expensive. Amazon subsidizes the cost of the Kindle so that people will buy books.

A recap and the final solution

I read all fiction and non-fiction books, generally in epub or PDF via Bookfusion on my phone, an Onyx Boox Poke 5, or a Onyx Boox Page, depending on the situation and whichever I have at hand. I may switch to my Google Pixel tablet for non-fiction – I prefer seeing more of the page at once and highlighting with different colors is easier on a color screen.

For comics and graphic novels (possibly another blog post?) I use a Komga server, and then either read through the web interface or (more often) CDisplayEx on my tablet.