I did a lot of research and ended up buying a Kobo for my wife who was looking to switch from paperback. At the time the Clara HD was the newer model in the size and feature family she was looking for. I made the choice based on e-ink quality, wide compatibility of formats (including public library rental), and price.

Keep in mind that Amazon keeps device prices artificially low by pushing ads to your screen. I have had four different Kindle Fires over the years, and hate how intrusive the advertising is on their devices.

After spending a year or so jealous of my wife’s Kobo Clara HD, I bought myself the then newer Kobo Libra 2. Then she was jealous of my Libra and bought herself one, and gave the Clara to our kid who is a bookworm as well.

We love our Kobos.

Get a Kobo. They are excellent. I had a 2020 or so Paperwhite from 'zon but it made me feel sad all the time. My Kobo Libra 2 has caused me to read more since I got it than the entire before portion of my life.

If you get any books off amazon use calibre and DeDRM. IIRC DeDRM has stopped but also has been forked on git and continued by someone else so you would want the more up to date fork. Adobe digital editions DRM or whatever it was called I believe can also be removed up to a certain version but you have to download it for the first time with an old enough Adobe app version get the old drm version or it will get permanently locked to the newer version that can’t be removed. Anyway removing DRM let’s you read the ebooks on whatever device you want. It’s not illegal in any country I have bothered to research except if you are doing it to distribute or sell.

As a side note if it helps anyone, I was able to get the whole procedure to work on Linux too by installing the required versions of kindle desktop and Adobe digital editions via Lutris and wine. Calibre and plugins are already cross platform.

Edit: updated DeDRM fork link because goog search results are utter shit these days. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools

This is probably not what you’re looking for, but if anyone is looking to make their own Ebook reader I recommend checking out The Open Book Project

Last I checked, Kobo will be better specs (screen, water proofness and connectivity) for the money, and if you’re technical it can be modified very heavily, including pretty easily user expandable storage.

Kindle will have a more seamless Amazon experience and maybe better support.

I have a Kobo Clara HD, and I love it to bits. Warm temperature backlight, and I have installed custom firmware on it which lets me use a different reader app, and run an SSH server on it so I can remotely transfer files etc.

I use a Kindle Paperwhite which works well for me–colour shifting screen, USB-C charging, and incredible battery life. That being said, I have never connected it to wifi, and instead prefer to sideload books so my reading history/money are not sent to Amazon

I just replaced a Kindle Paperwhite that was probably 7/8 years old with a Kobo Libra 2. Can’t compare it to a modern Kindle, but the Kobo screen is bigger and looks more like paper.

My only gripe is that the software has some odd design choices. On a Kindle, the night mode button is on the main drop down menu, but in Kobo you have to hit the gear button to get to the settings, then scroll down a page to toggle night mode.

Both devices seem to read most formats out there. Look up a program called Calibre to maintain a local library on your PC and convert formats easily.

The main selling point for the Kobo was not sending more money to Jeff Bezos. I cancelled Prime last year and the Kindle was my last link to the Amazon ecosystem. I usually get my books from the library or other online sources but sometimes I’d be out of town craving a certain book and I’d buy it on the Kindle just for ease of use.

Kobo is compatible with Overdrive and Kindle, and they have their own store if you want that too. I love the screen and the battery lasts about four hundred years per charge. Way better than giving money to a monopoly

I used to own a Kobo Aura One and was very happy with it, until the battery decided to balloon and it got destroyed.
I did a bit of research for the replacement. Initially I was happy to go with another Kobo, but the Mozilla Privacy Not Included article about Kobo e-readers made me reconsider. It’s from 2021 so maybe by now they’ve changed their policies but it prompted me to look a bit further.
In the end I bought a Pocketbook Verse Pro and I’m very happy with that one. It has a nice screen, is small and fast enough and comes in pretty red (which is already covered up again with a protector :) It supports all the usual formats and that’s about all I really need from it.
Pocketbook is a Swiss company, so I’m not sure if you can get them easily in the US.

I hate to recommend Boox,but I have an Onyx Book Poke 3 color, and it’s basically an Android tablet that just pretends to be an e-reader. Any format, any audio, any webpage… Comics too. Had it for years, never let me down. Not as good of battery life as the Kindle, but with Calibre on my laptop and the Boox, I don’t ever pick up the Kindle anyways. Instinctively, I wanna crap on Boox as I don’t like some of their business practices, but the Poke is actually my go to e-reader, so…

As an alternative, I know that there are some e-ink e-readers in a phone sized form factor from a few companies, such as Hisense. Can’t say too much about them as I don’t have one, but half the time I read on my phone because it’s small enough to come with me everywhere. Just a thought.

I know you said you ruled out Onyx but I would actually suggest giving that a second thought. My spouse had a Kindle Paperwhite and switched to the Onyx Boox and really likes it. The construction is very similar to a Kindle but you aren’t stuck in the Kindle environment. It also has fantastic battery life (like most eink readers). Since it runs Android it works with basically any e-reader app you might want to use, she consistently uses Google Books and Libby and they work great.

I’m going to jump on the Kobo train along with everyone else. I have a Kobo Libra H2O that I really love. I had a couple Kindles before deciding that I really didn’t want to stick with an Amazon product, and chose Kobo because of its integrations with Overdrive. It’s really nice to be able to check out a book from the library directly on my e-reader.

The screen is bright when it needs to be, but dims down quite nicely. The touchscreen is fairly responsive, though it’s e-ink and there are limits to refresh rates. The physical buttons to turn the page are perfect, and I still can’t believe Amazon took them off their Kindles (though I guess I understand them removing the keyboard… even though I liked it).

I actually like mine so much, I bought a second of the same model after I somehow managed to lose my first one. So the one thing I wish they had was integration with Apple Airtag or one of the other device tracking networks!

I have a Kobo Aura 2, and I love it. That’s my first ebook reader, and I haven’t had any other one since.

Personally I avoid Amazon because I definitely don’t wanna get tied to them. I’m not sure if this is still true, but when I got my ebook reader, these were my choices:

• get a non-Amazon device, and I can read anything except books from Amazon
• get an Amazon device, and I can only read books from Amazon

So it was a no-brainer for me. One of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

You can get ebooks from any source (well, not considering the AI generated crap that Amazon is getting flooded with; if you want that, you need to get a Kindle), and your computer/smartphone will handle it as a standard USB storage device, so you can simply copy over your ebooks.

I know everybody hates Amazon and they want an alternative to the Kindle, but my Kindle is waterproof and I almost exclusively want to use it in the bathtub. I also want one that doesn’t have a strong backlight and feels natural to look at. The Kindle is damn near perfect.

I have a kobo libra 2, but have had kindle paperwhites in the past. The kobo is the better experience IMO, for 3 big reasons. 1, physical buttons. The buttons on the side also mean there’s a good place to hold the device, where on my old paperwhite I would accidentally skip to the next page constantly. Someone with smaller hands probably won’t mind as much though. 2, easier to get library books. Overdrive is built in, so I don’t have to go find my phone to search for books. 3, more customizable with the fonts and layouts and I can load in custom fonts really easy. That being said, my partner has the newest Kindle, and she adores that thing and hates how big the kobo is.

I have a Poke 2 Color and I have to do disagree with your opinion of Onyx. This device is very well made, battery life is fantastic even with active use, and the software isn’t locked down like Kindle.