[hardwaresofton]

BTW for those who are looking for a device, the PineNote exists:

https://pine64.org/devices/pinenote/

More expensive and less out-of-the-box software, but straight to the point on device ownership/what kind of software you can run, fewer strings attached.

[EDIT]

Great experience blogs on the PineNote

https://shom.dev/posts/20250308_pinenote-day-one/

https://shom.dev/posts/20250406_a-pinenote-only-5-day-weeken...

[ndiddy]

Have you tried the PineNote yourself? It $400 and says that it's "aimed at Linux developers with an extensive knowledge of embedded systems and/or experience with mobile Linux." The community provided firmware they link for it hasn't been updated in over a year.

The Kobos don't limit what you can do with them either, you can sideload alternative e-reader software like KOReader that improves on the built-in reader functionality.

[utopiah]

I have a PineNote but also (had a Remarkable 1 a while ago) a Remarkable2 and RM Pro. I also gifted a PocketBook Verse Pro and installed Koreader on it.

Basically if you want a "product" to use right now and still want to tinker, RM gives you ssh access to a system you can tinker with. RM2 has the best community support for now though.

PineNote works... but yes you will have to be ready to tinker. It's heavy and think but powerful, all the way to having a browser, audio, microSD, etc.

Meanwhile the PocketBook Verse Pro just works, no tinkering, but also tiny and not get for sketches IMHO.

[icantevenhold]

Can highly recommend the pocketbook. If you just want to read i think it’s the best option and a fraction of the price of pinenote

[utopiah]

Exactly, if you don't enjoy sketching concepts, think via diagrams or need to write in order to think then a PockerBook is good enough.

If, like me, you clarify your thoughts by physically writing (not typing) or sketching, then the ability to do so without distraction, moving a piece of text of the page, changing the position of a box in a complex diagram... then it's definitely worth the price IMHO.

[timeinput]

I have a pine note. It lives up to that description. It's "fine", but I like to use it as an e ink laptop (well terminal with occasional other uses) with a bluetooth keyboard. I don't know that I would even want to start on using it as an ebook reader. It's bulky / heavy, and just doesn't match my kobo. I imagine asking it to do DRM ebooks would just be a non-starter.

I tried to turn a kobo into an eink terminal, and basically failed at getting it to the state I wanted it to be in, so the pine note is nice, but as a plug and play ereader it would be a hard sell for me.

[jolmg]

Curious, what kind of battery life have you been able to get from the pinenote?

[timeinput]

I don't really push it. A couple of hours is all I really ask of it, and I get it.

I feel like it's not great given what I'm asking of it, and that it's an eink display. This is just vibes because I play on it like a few hours a week. I think I'd be very uncertain about getting a real work day out of it as an ssh client.

[hardwaresofton]

> More expensive and less out-of-the-box software, but straight to the point on device ownership/what kind of software you can run, fewer strings attached.

This note was in the original comment, did you read it? The fact that it is $400 (more expensive) and has less out of the box software is literally mentioned to alert people to that.

> The Kobos don't limit what you can do with them either, you can sideload alternative e-reader software like KOReader that improves on the built-in reader functionality.

This is patently false, the latest Kobo Libra Color is using secure boot which completely locks out custom development:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=363175

So much so that QuillOS which used to be Kobo focused rewrote to support the PineNote

https://github.com/Quill-OS/quill

https://quill-os.org/

The point is to buy hardware that is built for you to freely modify and fully own, from the start.

My post was to make sure everyone knew the PineNote was an option, because I certainly did not know it until someone on HN made me aware.

Could you maybe make your point more concrete? Are you attempting to completely dissuade people from using the PineNote because it may not be easy to side load apps to it on hacker news?. Obviously different people have different propensities to do hacking, and some may not be able to afford the PineNote due to how expensive it is, but it's not clear what the goal of your comment was.

If your goal was "invest in Kobo instead of PineNote", I disagree with that. I'm not interested in investing (whether money or time) in an ecosystem that is just going to rug pull me eventually, over nickels and dimes.

BTW for those who agree, another great option is XTeink -- very hackable, and I've bought one myself:

https://www.xteink.com/

And there's a Linux phone out there which looks pretty encouraging too:

https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1splus/

Graphene is likely still the easier more polished option, but it's great to have options these days.

[hommelix]

> This is patently false, the latest Kobo Libra Color is using secure boot which completely locks out custom development: > > https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=363175

Thanks for the link on mobileread. I was not aware of current development in direction of secure boot / chain of trust.

Not OP, but when I was looking for an e-reader, I looked up the Pinenote. I could not find easily a lot of information on its software state. I could find a lot on Kobo hacking. I notably found https://anarc.at/hardware/tablet/kobo-clara-hd/ and this motives me to get a second hand Clara HD for less than 100$. It was way cheaper than starting with 400$ and unknown software state.

[ramblurr]

> > The Kobos don't limit what you can do with them either, you can sideload alternative e-reader software like KOReader that improves on the built-in reader functionality.

> This is patently false, the latest Kobo Libra Color is using secure boot which completely locks out custom development

Your "patently false" is not true. There are nuances here that you are glossing over or ignoring.

Yes, the Kobo Libra Color uses secure boot.

But, you can still get root and install KOReader on it.

What is "custom development" if you mean "boot my own operating system" because, then yes. But the 90+% of the Kobo hacking community has never meant that.

For most folks in the community "custom development" means being able to install/side-load applications like Plato and KOReader alongside the existing Kobo/Nickel software.

Yea, I agree it sucks that the new Kobo uses secureboot, but it was never an open development platform. I feel for the quill-os folks, that sucks. I'm glad they found a home with the PN as they won't get a rugpull.

But the Kobo is still a system where you can trivially get root on it without having to jailbreak or otherwise exploit a vulnerability.

And +1 for the xteink x4 (though if you're rabidly against manufactures locking down their devices, you should look at the recent xteink developments where they are only releasing unlocked devices to the western market.)

[ndiddy]

> Could you maybe make your point more concrete?

I hadn't heard of the Pinenote before looking at your comment, so I looked at the site and saw some things that made it seem unfit for purpose as an ereader. I made my comment because I was interested in hearing your impressions if you were using it as a daily driver.

> The point is to buy hardware that is built for you to freely modify and fully own, from the start.

Personally I view stuff like this as a nice-to-have, not a must-have. If it means I can't have an interface where I can buy books and then download them to my ereader, or I can't have an iphone app where I can read books and have my progress synced between my ereader and my phone, or it's unstable, or the battery life isn't good, then I would rather go with the Kobo. I understand that different people have different priorities, but those are mine. Stuff like this is why I'm interested in hearing more detailed information about what exactly the tradeoffs are for going with something like the Pinenote.

> This is patently false, the latest Kobo Libra Color is using secure boot which completely locks out custom development:

I think you can still sideload KOReader on them, but that's a shame that they're making it harder to replace the stock OS entirely. I hadn't heard about that prior to now so thanks for bringing that up. I only have a Sage I bought a few years ago.

[hardwaresofton]

> I hadn't heard of the Pinenote before looking at your comment, so I looked at the site and saw some things that made it seem unfit for purpose as an ereader. I made my comment because I was interested in hearing your impressions if you were using it as a daily driver.

I updated my original comment to include some more personal blogs with first-hand accounts. They're not mine but worth linking to for others!

I haven't bought a PineNote yet, but it's probably going to be my choice for that size of Tablet. I opted for a Xteink instead and have been very happy with it.

> Personally I view stuff like this as a nice-to-have, not a must-have. If it means I can't have an interface where I can buy books and then download them to my ereader, or I can't have an iphone app where I can read books and have my progress synced between my ereader and my phone, or it's unstable, or the battery life isn't good, then I would rather go with the Kobo. I understand that different people have different priorities, but those are mine. Stuff like this is why I'm interested in hearing more detailed information about what exactly the tradeoffs are for going with something like the Pinenote.

I agree that there are certainly a lot of sharp edges to less supported platforms. I just think I'd rather get a Boox (and deal with Android/Graphene) or PineNote over the Kobo over the long term. Then again, my usage of very simple -- maybe I just don't read as much/depend as much on the ereader to the extent that others do!

> I think you can still sideload KOReader on them, but that's a shame that they're making it harder to replace the stock OS entirely. I hadn't heard about that prior to now so thanks for bringing that up. I only have a Sage I bought a few years ago.

Ah yes, AFAICT what you're saying is correct -- sideloading apps is not an issue as far as I could find, it was just the inability to have custom firmware/OS.

I was very disappointed in this, and I generally see it as a step towards locking down that will only continue. Would love to be wrong though as I was very very convinced I wanted a Kobo Libra Color earlier).

People that are happy with the Kobos as they are (and the bundled software/services) I'm sure will be happy to keep buying though, I think the market is certainly big enough for that!

[ndiddy]

Thanks, I'll look at those blog posts.

[yoavm]

One can also just run Linux on most Kobos. I wrote and am using this every day: https://github.com/bjesus/air

[Anonyneko]

Amazing! Do you know if anyone tried to run this on a Sage?

After getting that Kobo I realized that my hyper specific reading needs require a web browser with extension support (in particular support for Yomitan or similar dictionaries; the built-in dictionary functions on e-readers are awful for most non-English languages even with custom dictionaries, and KOReader isn't any better in that regard)

[yoavm]

Not that I know of, and it isn't listed as a supported device on the pmOS wiki: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:Kobo

I can run Firefox on my Kobo Clara HD, but it's not a pleasant experience. It is very, very, very slow.

[jolmg]

What's the battery life like on Kobos running linux? Is it on the order of weeks, days, or hours?

[yoavm]

For my daily reading before sleep usage, it is around 2 weeks.

[hardwaresofton]

Wow, had no idea this existed, thanks for writing it and sharing it!

[spaghettifythis]

Also worth checking out, this guy's Open-Source 60hz e-ink screen: [video] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHbA2-_qzH4

[ndiddy]

I saw that video a few days ago. It's really neat tech, but I'm curious what people are using the small external monitors for. I'm a big e-ink fan and really want to buy one because it's neat tech, but I can't come up with a use case where it makes sense for me. Any time I'm using a laptop on a desk, ideally I would want a larger monitor so I don't have to keep looking down (hurts your neck). If I'm lying down or on the couch, I would want a standalone device so I don't have to deal with the cords sticking out of the monitor or being tethered to a computer. I know portable e-ink displays have been a thing for nearly a decade at this point, so there must be a reason why people are buying them. If anyone reading this has one, what do you use it for?

[port11]

I mean, it’s expensive, huge, and potentially unstable; not exactly what I’d want to read in bed at night.

The Pine projects are necessary and well-motivated, but the PineNote doesn’t strike me as a reader’s device, maybe a hacker’s or someone that wants an e-ink tablet.

[pluralmonad]

Thanks for this call out. I have not checked on Pine devices much since a disappointing early Pinebook.

[hardwaresofton]

No worries, and thanks for your service -- people buying possibly-disappointing early devices definitely enables the newer devices to exist :)