Michael Kozlowski

11786 posts
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

What e-note is better? The Sony DPT-CP1 or Remarkable 2?

The Sony Digital Paper DPT-Rp1 has been available for the past three years and sets the gold standard for viewing and editing PDF files. The split screen view is robust and it is great for making notes. The Remarkable 2 has started to ship to people who placed pre-orders back in April and this device can not only view/edit PDF files, but also EPUB ebooks too. The drawing app is one of the best in the business, with their layering system and handwriting to text engine.

Would you buy a refurbished Kindle?

There are a few different ways you can buy refurbished Kindle e-readers. The first is Amazon owned woot, which tends to only focus on overstock and used items. You can find anything on this site, and every month they have around 30-100 different Kindle models that go on sale, until they are sold out. Here is an example of a 1 day sale. It is important to note that Woot is only available for US customers. Amazon also sells refurbished Kindle e-readers on their various websites. Amazon.com has a used selection of only 3 devices, but once in awhile there are lots of them listed. The current list focuses on the entry level Kindle and previous generation Kindle Paperwhites. Ebay is one of the originals, many people used to exclusively shop on this site, before Amazon became a big thing. You can find plenty of every generation of Kindle e-readers, from lightly used, to sealed in the box and never used. Some vendors buy up the woot stock when it goes on sale and lists it on Ebay to get a little bit of profit. Still, you can find lots of deals.

Hummingbird Digital has been sold to 360 Media

Hummingbird is not a household name, but it was a service that allowed users to sell audiobooks and ebooks in their online store and earn a commission whenever something was sold. If you wanted to do business with the company, you had to be a US resident. Hummingbird was sold to 360 Media Direct, the marketing and fulfillment agency with roots in the magazine publishing world. 360 Media Direct was founded more than 30 years ago and has expanded to include a range of digital services, including lead generation tools, customer loyalty platforms and targeted advertising media programs

Readmoo suspends relationship with Alipay

Readmoo is the largest digital bookstore in Taiwan and they have just ended their relationship with Alipay, which is located in China. Alipay demanded the removal of politically sensitive books from the platform. Rather than capitulate, Readmoo decided to simply terminate the agreement.

Remarkable 2 Marker Plus Pen Review

The Remarkable 2 comes with a free white stylus, but the company…

E INK is developing 2nd generation color e-paper

E INK has confirmed with Good e-Reader that they are developing a second generation model of their Print Color E-Paper or the better known marketing name of Kaleido. It will be launched sometime in 2021 and will be able to display more colors and the front-light doesn’t always need to be on to display proper color accuracy. The screen size of 2nd generation colored e-paper will be further enlarged, and the scope of applications will also be expanded to include advertising billboards and ID cards in addition to current ones such as electronic shelf labels (ESLs) and e-book readers. This will pave the way for larger screen devices such as e-notes, that have larger screens.

Amazon Kindle will support the Microsoft Surface Duo

The Microsoft dual screen Surface Duo is coming out on September 10th. This device is running Android 10 and should be good for reading. Amazon has just updated their Android app with full support for reading ebooks on both screens at once. You will get a two page spread, where each page is on a single screen. So it will function like reading a real book, once you have finished reading both pages, you can swipe or tap and both pages will automatically turn, populating both screens with the next two pages.

Amazon issues new update for the Kindle Paperwhite 3

Some of the new features it received today was a new search experience making it easier to navigate through your search results in the book without losing the page you were reading. To get started, simply search for a term in your book and tap on a search result. They have also updated the Page Flip experience that shows recently read pages as dots on the progress bar, including your most recent page read from another device. If you have a Freetime Unlimited subscription, kids will see a new layout, improved search, book details, and Audible support. In supported marketplaces, kids with access to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited will see rows of recommended eBook and Audible content that are age-appropriate.

Powell’s Books will stop selling books on Amazon

Powell’s Books is one of the most iconic indie bookstores in Portland and many people in the United States place orders with them online. They have announced they will no longer be selling their books on Amazon.

Avalue and E INK partner for white labeled Sony DPT-RP1 solution

E INK has announced that they have got their hands on a white labeled version of the Sony Digital Paper DPT-Rp1 and have partnered with Avalue. These two Taiwanese companies will not only sell the units, but also provide software enhancements and technical assistance. This is because it is running Android, so it is quite easy to load in a few apps, or develop custom functionality. I do not know if they are sharing the entire kernel to customers who want to develop their own software, but I assume they will. I have reached out to both companies to find out pricing, MOQ and how much software development costs. This might be ideal for other startups or established players to jump into the e-note field, with a product with an extensive track record.

Remarkable 2 Hands on Review

The Remarkable 2 is one of the best e-notes on the market, it has the most advanced note taking features, handwriting recognition, can view and edit PDF files and ebooks. There are very few devices that can successfully compare against it. The main competitors against the Remarkable 2 is the Onyx Boox Note 2, which might not have all of the advanced note taking things, it does hold its own, it has a microphone, so you can even do audio to text, in addition to handwriting recognition. The Supernote A5 also competes against it, but is older, slow, and their handwriting software has been broken for years. I would really recommend the Remarkable 2 to someone who has an older e-note and wants to upgrade to the latest and greatest. The only barrier right now is the pre-order system, you can’t just buy it and have it delivered in a few weeks. If you order today, it will take 3-4 months for it to be sent out and this depends on stock availability. Hopefully in 2021 the stock situation stabilizes and can be purchased right away, ditto with standalone accessories, cases, stylus and nibs.

Remarkable 2 delayed by another couple of weeks

The first batch of the Remarkable 2 was delayed by a couple of months and people were getting excited that pre-orders placed in April and early May were finally going to ship out soon. Remarkable has confirmed with Good e-Reader that the device has been delayed again, but only by a couple of weeks. 

Onyx Boox closes down their forum

Onyx Boox has been operating their online forum for a number of…

Quirklogic Papyr 13.3 inch e-note hands on review

The real power with this device is the collaborative drawing system. In our hands on review, we had a smartphone with the Quirklogic app and the Papyr, logged into the same cloud account. On the phone, I could make adjustments to the drawing or import in some images from local storage and it is instantly added to the Papyr. I really like this, and is a major selling point that no other e-note on the market could beat. Chances are you don’t have a deep library of images on your e-note, but you would on your smartphone.

Amazon discontinues KindleGen

KindleGen is a command line tool used to build eBooks that can be sold through Amazon’s Kindle platform. Many people who used Linux or a MAC liked the ability to build ebooks and the tool is best for publishers and individuals who are familiar with HTML and want to convert their HTML, XHTML, XML (OPF/IDPF format), or ePub source into a Kindle Book. It can also generate the APNX page number file with the right input. The system was developed in 2012 and was just discontinued today, Amazon is encouraging people to use the Kindle Previewer.

The Kindle e-reader collects a large amount of data

The Amazon Kindle e-reader and their Android apps collect a ton of data from readers. Highlighting or tapping any word will send the requests with the text to Bing Translate and Wikipedia, as well as back to Amazon.  Kindle services leverage reading data to offer some nice features that traditional books can’t offer: maintaining bookmarks and notes between devices, keeping all devices synced with the last read page, and more. It also shows ads and recommendations for next books to read on the kindle. There is tons of data they collect.

E INK and TCL partner for digital signage production

E INK is the company responsible for e-paper found in almost every single e-reader and e-note currently available. The company derives 75% of their total revenue from the e-reader sector and they are looking to expand further into digital signage, which is a tremendous growth market.  By 2025 it will be worth over $31.71 billion.  E INK primarily makes its money producing the displays and then selling them to established signage vendors, who build their own shell and develop their own software. So it is good money for E INK to just make the screens. In order to ramp up production, E INK has just partnered with TCL, the company who made Blackberry phones and also televisions. Under the Agreement, TCL will manufacture 42-inch ePaper TFT backplanes using an 8.5 generation production line. This will be the first time large-size ePaper backplanes have been manufactured in an 8.5 generation facility, and it will be the largest generation factory in the world to manufacture ePaper TFT backplanes. This will not only help optimize the cost-effectiveness of the production, but will also help to increase efficiencies.

Audible is changing their subscription packages

Audible has just launched a new subscription tier called Audible Plus. It will provide subscribers access to 68,000 hours of content from more than 11,000 original productions, audiobooks, and podcasts. The new offering will be available for $7.95 per month. They are also are changing their Audible Gold program and are now calling it Audible Premium Plus, which costs $14.95 per month.

Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 e-Reader Review

The Pocketbook Touch Lux 5 is brand new e-reader that has just…

Kobo issues emergency fix for their e-readers

Last week, Kobo issued a big firmware update for their complete line…

These are all of the Color E INK e-Readers from 2020

This year E INK released Kaleido, a new form of color e-paper that was designed for e-readers, e-notes and smartphones. Most of these devices have 300 PPI to read black and white content, such as ebooks. These devices can display  4,096 different color combinations up to 100 PPI. The way the technology works, is that you can read both black and white text at 300 PPI and colors at 100 PPI, on the same page. This is useful if you are reading a biography ebook, where there are tons of pictures in the center, and also text, giving readers context. It also works using a web-browser,  or other ebooks. The B&W and Color filter have a hard time with PDF files, because they are basically big image files, although some PDF render engines can convert the PDF images to pictures AND text. CBR/CBZ, are popular formats for comics or manga, but they are basically containers for a series of jpg/png files.

Wil Wheaton is going to narrate Ready Player Two audiobook

Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline is going to be coming out at the end of November of this year. This is the sequel to Ready Player One that basically lived on various bestseller lists for years. Wil Wheaton narrated the original audiobook and he has just confirmed the narration of Ready Player Two.

Amazon upgrades to Fire OS 7 on Fire HD 8, HD 7, and Fire 7

Amazon has just issued an Operating system update for the 2018 Fire HD 8, 2017 Fire HD 7, and entry level Fire 7 that came out in 2019. It upgrades to Fire OS 7, which is based on Android 9. Amazon hardly ever supports their older tablets, so this gives them a second life.