+1 for Kobo.

I've had my Kobo Clara HD for almost 8 years and I still use it daily with KOReader. It's so easy to install KOReader and it's really repairable. I replaced the SD card at one point, and another time I thought it was broken or needed a new battery but came back to life after reseating cables.

Before that I had a kindle and you had to jump through a lot of hoops to install KOreader, and I remember you had to be careful not to upgrade the firmware so it could be jailbroken.

Like I said I've had the Kobo for 8 years, so I hope this is still the case.

KOReader works just as easily, and just as well, on my much newer Kobo Clara BW. I'm not unhappy with the built-in reader software, but keep KOReader installed just in case I want or need it.

It's such a great piece of software IMHO.

Calibre web support, opds catalogue, wallabag, ssh. And it supports so many file formats.

I'd imagine the built in reader has improved a lot over the years, but at the time reading technical pdfs on it was not feasible. KOReader allowed me to rotate to landscape and reflow the pdf text.

I almost got the Clara BW for Christmas, I thought my Clara HD was dead, wasn't sure if it was the battery or screen but it was failing to properly clear and update the screen. Someone actually bought the BW for me but I ended up returning it after I managed to recover the Clara HD.

I was kind of looking forward to the waterproofing, but seems my old one is not yet ready to give up.

But why? You can get a Kindle with ads, jailbreak it and having Bezos pay the halb of your Device

In any case you are always the only one to pay they just reduce their margin with the ad flavored version.

Because you still paid Bezos and then have a bunch of extra work to do to not make it a strictly interior to a Kobo. Tailscale+Koreader+Kavita on my Kobo Libra Color gives me access to my entire library at all times from anywhere. I read a lot more now after getting one.

Not all Kindles can be jailbroken. It's a constant cat and mouse game, and if you get a Kindle with up-to-date firmware, there's a good chance you cannot jailbreak it for now. Once jailbroken, you need to make sure it doesn't auto-update the firmware. And personally, I think one should rather support open devices. Even if Amazon loses money on a jailbroken Kindle (which I doubt), in the end, it still hurts open alternatives.

Had a few kobos, very good readers, then bought a Box color go 7 ii, mainly because it runs android, so you can used it for so many things. Shame the company is based in china.

what's the take on it being a shame that it's based in china?

being able to not care about GPL compliance, that's about it for me

I (author) live in Brazil. Kindle is the only E-Ink device on sale here by its official manufacturer. We can import a Kobo or Boox or Bigme, but importing taxes are very steep.