cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/39848038
I bought myself a fancy new TLC 11 Nxtpaper Gen 2 with a cool e-ink type display. It’s an android tablet and I’m breaking free from Apple. That means no more Apple Books for my epubs. That also means, I’m now looking for a good solution to annotating epubs/pdfs (mostly highlights) on Android. I’d loveeee it it had some bring your own storage sync (webdav) or just plays well with the local storage for using syncthing etc. What are the best options?
I’m a fan of Lithium myself. It’s really solid app, with great performance, super reliable. It’s closed source though and has a pro version.
But I found it better for my needs than Moon+Moon+ has what you’re looking for. Syncs to box, Dropbox, gdrive and webdav. And can download from opds libraries like calibre if you selfhost your epubs.
KOReader the GOAT.
Do you have it setup to sync highlights/annotations? how does that work for you?
I’ve been synching progress and stats between a pair of devices! It’s been great since it runs well on my haul broken kindle & my android.
There is some(maybe a bit more than some) setup time to get used to the layers of menus, but it’s a pretty robust app.
If anyone was wondering: https://www.tcl.com/us/en/products/mobile/tcl-tab/nxtpaper-11-gen2
11 inch display with 60 hz refresh, but it sounds like regular lcd rather than e-ink? It has an 8000mah battery that it says can run the tablet through a full day, so that’s nothing like an epaper tablet. It sounds more like a drawing tablet, as it has a pressure sensitive pen.
Anyway, I’ve been using Librera FD for reading epubs on Android. Its blurb mentions annotations but I’ve never tried that feature.
I have an Inkplate 10 e-paper tablet but haven’t been using it.
It’s lcd with some matte finish, far from eink.
I’m not that techy on the screens front but it’s not totally a regular lcd but not as good as e-ink either. It’s kinda something in between. I’ve only gotten to play with it a for a few minutes so far but it’s hard to describe. These pictures do it some justice though: https://www.androidcentral.com/tablets/tcl-nxtpaper-4-fixes-one-of-the-technologys-biggest-hidden-issues
I see, yeah there is something about it in the blurb. How do you like the tablet? Is it responsive? Is it full of Android bloatware? Do you know if it is rootable?
I see there is a 14 inch version that’s about $300 and that starts to get interesting. It’s not “2nd gen” though. And, I had thought of TCL as a lower tier manufacturer with quality issues, but I hadn’t looked into it much.
I like that the tablet has an SD (probably microSD) slot. Don’t like that there’s no headphone jack. There’s plenty of space in those things compared to a phone.
Try Readest? I have used it for some time and it works great.
https://github.com/readest/readest is looking quite promising
I’ve been exclusively reading my fiction books (all epubs) on Readest and absolutely love it. Recently I also started using it for my nonfiction books and articles (mostly pdf) as an experiment, and it’s workable but a little more rough around the edges still.
You can highlight and annotate, and export all annotations for a book once you are done, for which I have set up a small pipeline to directly import them into my reference management software.
It works pretty well with local storage (though I don’t believe it does ‘auto-imports’ of new files by default) and I’ve additionally been using their free hosted offering to sync my book progress. It’s neat and free up to 500mb of books, but you’re right that I would also prefer a byo storage solution, perhaps in the future.
The paid upgrades are mostly for AI stuff and translations which I don’t really concern myself with.
before getting a pocketbook I was using ReadEra and it worked alright (for badic reading)
Does the pocketbook app/device let you annotate books? It seems quite interesting but not generally available in the US. Read era does look interesting though.
