I’ve been having trouble with my kobo over the past few months. It’d freeze up mid-novel, and I’d have to go through a whole 15 minute process of jabbing at the screen, sighing and being dramatic about my book not working, angrily holding the button for what seemed like forever to get it to turn off, then boot it back up again. Or the battery would go from 75% to 0% in a matter of minutes. It worked great when it worked, but the times it didn’t work got to be frustrating enough that I started looking into replacing it.
I’ve had two or three nooks from Barnes & Noble, but borrowing ebooks from the library was a giant pain, which is why I moved to the kobo. I could borrow books using the Libby app on my phone, then sync my kobo, and voila, the book was on my device. I loved this! It was the best! Until the kobo started breaking down and disrupting my reading. I hated that. That was the worst.
This time around I didn’t want to just buy another low-tech kobo and have the same problems, so I decided to try something different. Library borrowing is my top priority for an ereader. E-ink, self-lit, and lightweight are second, third, and fourth priorities. A friend told me about Boox, which makes e-ink Android tablets. With something like this, I’d be able to add the Libby library app directly to my device and read from there. I’d also be able to add the kobo and nook apps, which would give me access to the scores of books I bought on both of those services, all in one place. I own copies of most of my favorite books through the nook, but I can’t access them from my kobo because I bought them from Barnes & Noble.
So I splurged and bought a Boox Page, and the UPS guy delivered it yesterday. It’s going to take some getting used to. I’m in the middle of re-reading Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, so I set up my Libby account and am reading from inside the app, which has a different look from what I’m used to on my kobo. I managed to make the font big, which is the most important first step. The next step was figuring out how to increase the spacing to give a little breathing room between lines. I can’t figure out how to increase the margins, which is annoying — I don’t like the words running up against the edges of the screen — and I don’t like the page turning action that happens. I don’t need it to simulate a page turning, I just want to go to the next page, but I can’t figure out how to turn that off.
I’m eager to keep exploring and get everything set up the way I like. I’m particularly excited to get back into my nook purchases. I have copies of my favorite Hemingway in there, and I’ve been wanting to reread A Moveable Feast, which my library doesn’t have and I didn’t want to have to buy again. I was pleased that the Page came with a case, as well, so I don’t have to immediately go out and buy one. Boox devices seem to not be very common, though, and I really loved my kobo case which I could convert into a stand to prop up my book on the table to read while I eat. I’m not sure I’ll be able to find something similar for the Page, so that’s a problem I’ll need to solve.
Butterfly Mind 