I’ve been using a Kindle ever since the original Paperwhite came out in 2012. The combination of easy access to English books in Germany and being able to read at night without a light on made it a super compelling product.

I ended up getting a used Kindle Voyage for the physical buttons and when that recently died I decided to check out some other options. I do believe it’s important to consider which companies you support and Amazon continues to be a company worth avoiding, although I don’t always manage to.

After considering all of the alternatives I ended up choosing a Kobo.

Kobo

Kobo offers a large English-language book selection, support for German booksellers and built-in Overdrive and Storygraph integrations – so I can borrow books via my local public library and get recommendations.

I think a PocketBook would have been fine as well, but you have to pick something don’t you?

Hardware

The device is solidly built and feels well made in a functional yet unremarkable way.

There’s a few neat tricks like a gesture to adjust the backlight and there are some firmware tweaks available to adjust various behaviours.

Overall

I’m a happy convert – the library support has expanded my reading outside of my usual comfort zone and the idea of contributing in some tiny way to supporting ebook ecosystems other than Kindle feel like the right thing to do.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️