I use to think that I’m a big fan of hard copy books, but I always found it hard to pick the book up and start actually reading it. For some reason it already felt like loads of work to even physically pick up the book, let alone actually read it.
This completely changed when I decided to purchase a eink tablet as I instantly realized that personally, its so much better to read on eink then on real paper.
Since I’m all about open source, I got myself a developer version of the PineNote by Pine64. A eink tablet that runs Debian and uses Gnome as its desktop environment. This is not my first time getting a raw open source product, so I expected loads of bugs and issues at the start, and for them to get fixed over time as I use the device.
You might argue that you can get a very similar experience by just reading on your phone or tablet (with a non eink screen.) While you are partly right – loads of the issues are addressed by just using your phone – there is a new problem: the phone is too distracting. Good luck focusing on the book when you have all of your chats and feeds 2 clocks away. You can disable notifications, you can disable all apps, but it still feels extremely unnatural and unfulfilling to read on a device that is designed to be a distraction. On a eink device, this issue is solved by the screen itself. Due to the low refresh rate, it becomes quite painful to navigate any distracting app.
If you can consistently read on your phone, perfect! you save 300-400 euro! but I don’t believe that the majority of people will find it enjoyable.
2 months after my purchase, and I’m already reading on the daily basis and saving all of my notes to my 2nd brain.
I believe that these are the reasons why the eink tablet allowed me to finally remove the friction of reading:
1. The font on a book is way too small: this sounds like a non issue, i know, but i was surprised on how much more i was able to read as soon as i put my font up. Reading a page no longer felt like a big accomplishment, but as a quick and mindless process.
2. Turning pages makes you constantly shift position: Now this is really a non issue. But more of a slight annoyance. I tend to read in all sorts of positions and places, so the consistent shape of my PineNote allowed me to sit more comfortably whenever i read, which ended up extending the time i spent reading per sitting.
3. Reliance on a light source: While I don’t really read in the dark, sometimes the light is just not places in an optimal way and reading from a book just starts to hurt your eyes.
4. Any knowledge gained in a ebook can be saved for later use: This is the biggest one for me. Being able to quickly highlight parts of text and then export it to my notes app gives me a feeling of inspiration and knowledge accumulation.
I want to make one thing very clear. If you can read hard copy books, do it, But its simply not for me.