e-readers and e-books
Although I still read plenty of physical books and sometimes read on my phone or computer, a majority of my reading is done on my Kindle Paperwhite. This post contains some of my thoughts on e-readers and e-books.
Reading on an e-reader is especially useful for me to help convert the time I would otherwise waste on my phone into reading time. I try to carry mine around to most places (it will fit in large pockets and most bags).
The Device
If you’re doing any substantial amount of reading on an electronic device, an electronic ink display is a world of difference when compared to a traditional screen. In addition to helping you avoid eye strain, electronic ink e-readers are also lighter than proper tablets of the same size, have a better battery life, and are more free of distractions.
A lot of people on the Internet will recommend a Kobo over the Kindle. The Kobo does have several advantages: the page buttons on the higher end models are really nice, the UI is nicer to use, and it has certain quality of life features (e.g. being able to set the lock screen image) that are egregiously missing on Kindle.
That being said, I’ve found it much easier to get books onto the Kindle. In particular, I frequently take advantage of the ability to easily send books to the Kindle via email or drag and drop upload as well as the capability to use several different library cards at once, features that are missing in the Kobo ecosystem. I’ve also found the Kobo software occasionally buggy, and I’ve heard that the library of books is somewhat smaller. Politics and Amazon boycotts aside, I find that the Kindle works better for me.
As for the particular model of Kindle, I have no strong opinions, though I will mention that the Kids version of the Paperwhite is functionally identical and comes ad-free by default.
I haven’t looked into other alternatives like the Boox but they do exist.
Getting ebooks
By far the best way to get ebooks is to get a library card from your local library system. It’s trivially easy (two or three clicks) to check out a book from Libby and see it appear on your Kindle. Using the Libby app, you can add multiple libraries and check out books from all of them at once.
If you do want to buy an e-book (though keep in mind that Kindle books come with DRM and are not transferable to other platforms, meaning that you still don’t really own it), note that many e-books frequently go on sale for $1.99 to $3.99. To catch these deals when they happen, I check the /r/ebookdeals subreddit. Another option is to use notification services like ereaderiq. For certain genres or reading habits, Kindle Unlimited may also be worthwhile, but personally I find that it has few books I’m interested in reading.
For books that are now in the public domain, Standard Ebooks is nice. Despite what sources on the Internet might say (my understanding is that this is somewhat of a recent change), you can send epubs directly to kindle via email or upload.