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moonlune wrote (edited )

I have an old kindle I got second hand for 20$. It's pretty cool. I pirate everything I read, callibre is a software that automatically convert foss formats to the proprietary amazon one. My kindle is small and the conversion is not great for equations and technical books with lots of figures but it's good for stuff with words.

If I were to change anything I'd look for a kindle with backlights, so I can read it in bed without lights. And maybe a bigger screen in order to read PDFs but those are still expensive so I'll wait a few years for my kindle to break and hopefully the second hand market will have bigger screens by then.

If you want to buy new, kobo and kindle are the two main brands. Kobo slightly better software, kindle slightly cheaper. AFAIK you can find kindle source code so it's probably possible to buy the kindle with the ads for cheaper and flash the new ad-less code on it. Buy e-readers with big screens if you need to read PDFs.

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[deleted] wrote

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moonlune wrote

No, I have a paperwhite. I download from b-ok.cc, send the epubs into callibre, and plug my Kindle into my computer via USB. Callibre recognizes the kindle and everything is straightforward from there.

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snack OP wrote

thanks for the informative reply! i already use calibre, albeit not for conversion purposes, but it's good to know i can use it for that should i get a kindle.

i'll buy second hand cause i'm both cheap and poor, so you know. i wouldn't mind it if it were small, the easier it's transportable the better. Reading PDFs would be neat, but it's not a necessity. From what you said i take it you can't zoom in in a PDF then? Backlights are a good idea!

would you say it doesn't matter what version of a kobo/kindle i get? i can't tell the differnence

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moonlune wrote

I don't remember but I don't consider pdfs usable on mine.

I'm not that knowledgeable, but yeah the backlight and screen size are the only things that matter for me going forward. You could check on callibre's website if they're compatible with the version you want to buy.

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