Quote from Michael Kozlowski on 22 February 2025, 11:11 AM

There is a vast number of people who are looking to switch to another e-reader due to Amazon suspending the ability to use the USB File Transfer system on February 26th. They see Amazon killing off so many services in the past year that it is no longer worth staying with the ecosystem and hardware. They are wondering what e-readers they should buy that have fewer draconian policies.

In the past six months, Amazon killed off Kindle Vella, their short-form story platform, Kindle Flashcards. Not to mention the Kindle Colorsoft debacle, where the yellow bar at the bottom of the screen was a hardware defect that hurt the Kindle brand with its first color e-reader.

If you want to ditch your Kindle and switch to another brand, there are plenty of options. Selecting the right e-reader for your needs can be daunting, but here are some of the best, along with their core features and functionality.

Kobo

Rakuten Kobo has been making e-readers since 2010 and has been in the game for a long time. Regarding market share and sales volume, they are the global number two player, second only to Amazon. There are a few reasons to embrace Kobo: you can easily borrow library books via Overdrive, it supports many book formats and fonts, and it has advanced features to control the reading experience. Most of their current devices have cloud storage, making it easy to access your books. The company offers various screen sizes, a great combination of color e-readers, traditional black and white e-paper, and even a few e-notebooks.

One of the significant advantages of Kobo is its support. They regularly issue software updates and push them to the latest and old hardware. I have seen updates reach devices that are over 10 years old. Whereas Amazon only supports devices for up to 5 years when they first go on sale on the website, older devices never receive updates.

Kobo sells its e-readers on its website, Amazon, and through a series of bookstores and big box retailers worldwide. It is very easy to buy Rakuten Kobo since so many places let you try it before you buy it.

Recommended Kobo Products
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Pocketbook

Pocketbook has been making e-readers for a little bit longer than Kobo. They are a European company, but their e-readers are sold worldwide. They support most e-book formats in the business, so you can read your manga in CBR/CBZ or even buy books from other retailers and use Adobe Digital Editions to load them. Pocketbooks have always been bullish on page-turn buttons, which most industry players have abandoned. Pocketbook has its bookstore, but it is not as polished, nor does it have the same Kindle or Kobo content, so you will primarily buy this because you're not locked into a specific ecosystem.

Pocketbook e-readers are usually sold through third-party retailers. Amazon seems to be the best choice due to its liberal return policy.

Recommended Pocketbook e-readers
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Onyx Boox

Onyx Boox has a wide array of products, primarily focusing on e-readers and e-notebooks. Different screen sizes and functionality make it easy to spend a couple of hundred for something as good as the Kindle Paperwhite or sometimes even better. Onyx employs the Android operating system; all their devices have Google Play and Google Play Services. This allows users to use an E INK screen and craft their experience. Onyx sells its devices on its website and various Amazon stores.

Onyx offers several black-and-white e-paper readers, e-notebooks, and color devices. Depending on the screen size you want, Onyx has solid offerings. However, Onyx products cost more than Android because Android requires more processing power and RAM.

Onyx has an online store. St-generation and previous-generation hardware are available in their Amazon stores. However, they don't have accurate retail visibility, so trying the United States and Europe, where you can buy directly from them, isn't easy. They are also before you buy.

Recommended Boox Products
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Remarkable

If you are a Kindle Scribe owner and want to get out of the e-notebook arena, there is no better brand than Remarkable. They popularized the entire note-taking industry and have the best-in-class features and polished software. They regularly push out firmware updates to introduce new features and bug fixes. Their business model is about e-notebooks; they don't even make e-book readers. Their mantra is "distraction-free." You will never see popups and notifications, anything to prevent you from the task at hand.

Remarkable currently sells a UB e-reading app that allows you to use 25,000 different colors. It primarily focuses on freehand drawing, taking notes, and viewing/editing two products: the capable Remarkable 2, which has a black-and-white e-paper display, and the Remarkable Paper Pro, which has a Gallery 3 e-paper display capable of taking a break and reading a book. However, Remarkable hardly ever advertises this feature.

One of Remarkable's most controversial aspects is its subscription program, Connect. Connect gives you unlimited, secure cloud storage for all your documents, ensuring they are always instantly accessible and ready to use on your paper tablet and in our companion apps on your other devices. Capture a thought on your phone, develop it in detail on your paper tablet, and finish it on your computer. Build the workflow that works for you with Connect, which gives you full access to the power of our apps. It costs around $4.99 monthly and has a free 100-day sub on new devices.

Remarkable sells its products directly on its website. It also offers an extensive array of first-party cases, styluses, and keyboards. The company sells on Amazon to a limited degree. The Paper Pro is only available with a bundle deal, but the older Remarkable 2 is more widely available. The company has also established partnerships for retail in Europe, so buying at a physical store is more manageable now.

Recommended Products
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Wrap Up

Those companies I recommend if you want to get away from Amazon and switch to another brand that has been around for a long time and has an established track record. I left Barnes and Noble primarily because it is only available in the United States, making buying digital content in another country tremendously challenging. I also left off Bigme because they focus on AI software that can't be uninstalled but also runs Android and Google Play.

Amazon is the world's largest e-reader company and sells the most e-books in North America and Europe. I always get asked what you do, and nobody knows what I mean when I mention I write about digital book readers. I then say, "Like the Kindle," and everyone has heard of it, if not knows someone who owns one. In the wild, all I see are Kindle e-readers; I hardly see anything else, and I live in Canada, the home of Kobo.

Amazon does not let you genuinely own your books; it only licenses them for you. This allows them to remove any book, anytime, without reason. Barnes and Noble and Kobo have similar policies and ditto with app-based platforms such as Google Play Books and audiobook platforms such as Audible. These companies have some form of  DRM, which protects the content. However, it is far easier to back up your books locally, and more solutions to strip the DRM from the books, providing actual ownership of the books you buy.
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