A year on an e-reader

29 Apr, 2026

E-readers are something of a niche technology. Hardly anybody has an e-reader in public, especially compared to the number of people with a smartphone in hand. Despite that, I took the plunge last year and got an Android e-reader — the Meebook M6.

It’s been nothing short of awesome. I wanted to yap about my reading setup, because cool tech is cool, plus a bit about how I approach reading as a hobby.

Why an e-reader?

I read primarily for fun and enjoyment. If I bought a physical copy of every book I wanted to read, my apartment would overflow with books. Libraries perform an absolutely vital service, but not every library book is in as good a condition as I’d like. Some books are way too bulky to carry on the go. Others are printed in teeny tiny font sizes (what is this, a book for ants?).

For several years, I read e-books on my phone, alongside the occasional library book. To this day, I only purchase physical copies for books with sentimental value (or, rarely, can’t find online). Reading on my phone was… alright. Good enough for me to assume that e-readers were largely redundant. After all, many of us read (or skim?) colossal volumes of text on screens every day. Hell, you’re most likely doing it right now.

That changed when I was walking around a bougie bookstore that happened to have an e-reader section. I wasn’t (and still am not) convinced that the displays looked anything like real paper, but I was blown away by how comfortable they were to read on. I hadn’t even known I'd been settling for less. That same day, I was back home looking for reviews on budget options to try out myself.

Hardware

I eventually settled on the Meebook M6 for a few reasons. I wanted something that would fit in my pocket, so a screen larger than 7 inches wouldn’t do. At the same time, I wasn’t a fan of the phone-shaped form factor, like that of the Hisense Hi Reader and Boox Palma. I knew from experience that I disliked reading with a bigger font on a narrow screen.

So that left the 6 inch, regular Kindle-shaped options, though I didn’t exactly want a Kindle because of the bullshit Amazon had been pulling. Luckily for me, the Meebook M6 just so happened to be on sale on Taobao for under 100 USD — it had decent reviews, so I gave it a shot.

It is a lovely little Android device. Its royal blue bottom bezel and flush screen are immediately pleasing to the eye. It is basic hardware-wise, but there are a couple of neat features.

It has warm and cool front lights that can be adjusted independently with sliders. The warm light is particularly nice for reading in bed. There are three presets: “Day”, “Night”, and “Bed”. I use “Day” most often, which is most suited to reading in weird indoor lighting (rather than daylight).

The refresh rate is also adjustable with four presets: from the regular “regal mode” with a slow refresh rate and no ghosting, to the “A2 topspeed mode” with the fastest refresh rate but heavy ghosting. The former is most suited for reading, and is what I use 95% of the time. The latter option is much appreciated when I’m using apps not optimized for the display, especially when scrolling.

Software

I was not as enthused with the default software experience. I disliked the default launcher and the default reader app was off when rendering English text. The great thing about Android is that it took me about five seconds to ditch them for a new launcher and a new reader.

KOReader rocks!

I’m a bit anal about customizing my reading experience; KOReader has every feature I could ever wish for. It was a match made in heaven. The vast style tweaks options really satisfy that urge to have everything look exactly as I want it. I keep a handful of these enabled all the time — shoutout to spacing between paragraphs.

I was also impressed at how great KOReader is for reading PDFs. The reflow feature works amazingly for many, but not all, PDFs. If it doesn’t, KOReader can automatically scroll to different parts of the screen depending on the reading direction. For example, for a two-column PDF, it can automatically start at the top left, go down until you hit the bottom left, then go up to the top right. Much, much easier than manually zooming in and scrolling.

All the features can be overwhelming, to be fair. Fortunately, the documentation is pretty robust. And things look good out of the box, even if you don’t mess with anything!

Reading fonts

The English fonts that I rotate between are mostly from this GitHub repo containing fonts tweaked for e-reading. Here’s a live showcase for how each font would look in action. Pretty cool!

My current default is their version of Charter. For informational non-fiction, I sometimes switch to a sans-serif font like Atkinson Hyperlegible Next or Jost. For (Traditional) Chinese, I use Chiron Sung HK, an aesthetically pleasing serif font.

This is how I've gotten things to look:

Where to get e-books

I sideload most of my books as EPUBs, and occasionally PDFs. This means I need my books DRM-free — which most e-books being sold are not. Apart from the obvious solution¹, here are a few (100% legit!) suggestions for where to get e-books you actually own:

• Project Gutenberg is well-known for hosting a huge collection of public domain works. However, their earlier titles tend to be inconsistent in quality.
• My go-to for older English works is Standard Ebooks. Despite their smaller collection, each book is meticulously proofread and beautifully formatted to elevate your reading experience. Seriously, they look gorgeous.
• Kobo and eBooks.com are online storefronts with decently sized DRM-free catalogs. (The most popular fiction titles are those published by Tor, like Brandon Sanderson’s novels.)
• Here is an extensive list of publishers that offer DRM-free books directly.
• If you happen to have institutional access through a university or library, certain publishers allow DRM-free downloads. I find this especially handy for academic publications or textbooks. I recently downloaded several books from Oxford University Press this way.

What I’ve learned

Sometimes, I get comments when I’m reading in public. People have told me, with a touch of regret, that they could never get through a whole book, or that the last time they picked up a book was in sixth grade. It might surprise them that I have struggled with keeping up a reading habit, too.

I don’t know how common this is, but I will confess that I got this device with the expectation that I would annihilate my entire backlog. A misguided approach, of course. The more pressure I put on myself to read, the less appealing and more overwhelming it felt. This was despite the fact that picking up a book was more easy and effort-free than ever. The sole barrier was my mind.

If you’re anything like me, it’s easy to hype something up in your head — even highly enjoyable and rewarding things — and end up demotivating yourself. I still find myself having to adjust my mindset to get over these hurdles. Some of this includes:

• Learning how to forgive myself for not being consistent day-to-day. Sometimes, consistency can look more like week-to-week, or month-to-month. Even then, it’s okay to fall off or take a break. I can come back anytime.
• In a similar vein, letting myself put books on hold or drop them — whether I’m overwhelmed, exhausted, or just don’t enjoy them. I can pick them back up whenever I want to.
• Approaching books with wonder and curiosity, rather than focusing on getting through as many as possible. Learning new stuff and gaining new perspectives is fun and awesome.
• Being mindful of when a passage I’m reading is impacting me, and really feeling that wave of emotion. I find this heightens the experience and pushes me to get more into it.

Much of the above applies to other hobbies as well. While it’s easier said than done, maintaining intrinsic motivation is essential for hobbies, which are so vital to a meaningful life. Most importantly, have fun!

#blog