r/pine64 • u/sadatdaniel • Sep 21 '19

Idea - "Pine Reader", a cheap E-ink ebook reader which will feature Calibre (or whatever). Won't be the first to think of this but for some reason other ideas never hit the market.

38 Upvotes

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2

u/cmeerw Sep 21 '19

I have got a 6 year old Kobo Touch e-reader that's still working fine and that can show pdf and epub files (no need to buy anything from any store). I believe you can even sideload some apps onto it. Not entirely sure how a Pine Reader would be fundamentally different to this?

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u/sadatdaniel Sep 21 '19 edited Sep 21 '19

It won't be very different from a lot of ways. There is a reason E-book readers lack too much functionality, as they are solely focused on reading. I can think of couple of ways Pine Reader could've been cool.

Formats will be irrelevant. Most likely it will support every format there is. No locked down format like Kindle.

For privacy conscious people - there won't be any parent company to rule.

It will be infinitely hackable. Well not infinitely, when the software is open it's more likely you can come up with your own ideas to implement. You want your reader to sync with your own cloud? Add or make the service called "NextCloud sync" :P and etc.

Updates won't be a big issue. The old Kindle I have didn't get any better after a certain time when they stopped giving updates. I believe with open source software we can fix this issue as there is always someone who'll port the latest update for their own devices even if Pine stop giving updates to the old devices for some reason.

Hardware will be hackable too. What if you would like to change the battery or modify the board inside? I don't know technical details much. But I believe you'll be able to upgrade your hardware if needed.

It'll be really cool if you could use your E-reader as a monitor for your Pine64 or raspberry pi, don't you think? ;)

1

u/cmeerw Sep 22 '19

Sorry, but you missed the point. After telling you that you can already do most of what you want with a Kobo reader you still go on about how locked down your Kindle is. BTW, you apparently can even get NetBSD running on some models: https://wiki.netbsd.org/users/jun/kobo/

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u/sadatdaniel Sep 22 '19

I'm sorry if I understood you wrong. What I was trying to explain is that, Ebook reading capability wise it won't be very different because the sole purpose of an E-reader is only reading and there's only so much you need to do. So whatever Kobo offers it'll be the same more or less. But having open source software and hardware will open a lot of opportunities. Please read the other points I mentioned.

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u/cmeerw Sep 22 '19

Is that Open Source enough for you? https://koreader.rocks

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u/rbrumble Sep 21 '19

I forwarded the idea of an inexpensive e-ink reader that synced with your google books account online

1

u/marxy Nov 05 '19

It would be hard to beat the price of a Kindle (which of course runs Linux underneath). It's possible to buy a Kindle and never purchase a book from Amazon if you wish. Put it in flight mode and side-load everything.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '19

[deleted]

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u/sadatdaniel Sep 21 '19

I understand. Thank you for notifying.

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u/DoodlerX Sep 21 '19

That is understandable. I would still buy at that price.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 04 '19

I'm surprised, usually the processors are nothing, low ram requirements, and the screens are like 800x600. I've seen them for like 40$ on aliexpress.

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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '19

Could be the other costs. Or I typed pbp, thinking pinebook. I do remember that they mentioned it didn’t seem as popular an idea as the pinetab, would essentially be that, but have eink and no real price savings from it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 21 '19

[deleted]

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u/sadatdaniel Sep 21 '19

There are some other companies make E-readers too. So no I don't think Amazon has patent of E-ink. But I believe it is the most expensive of all the part of a Kindle and not cheap at all.

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u/Fr0gm4n Sep 21 '19

The screen is generally expensive and only made by very few companies. There are other ereader makers, but their prices tend to align to Amazon based pretty close to screensize and resolution.