I hate reading things on my monitor, but i also have no place to keep storing books, so is there a reader people recommend that sort of has the same feel as a book?
The OG Nook was a fantasic e-reader that had navigation buttons on the sides and a touch-sensitive area on the bottom where you could swipe through pages. Unfortunately, that's been long since discontinued and every iteration they've made since then completely fucked up the design.
It's not all bad though, I'm using the Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation) right now and it's an amazing e-reader for different reasons.
Pros:
The backlit screen is a gamechanger that I don't think I'll be able to give up in a future e-reader. It's not like the backlight of a phone/laptop and it's much gentler on the eyes, can be adjusted, and doesn't really affect the battery life compared to what I've been used to on the Nook/original Kindle.
Kind of hidden in Amazon's settings, but you can set up a *@kindle.com email on your amazon account that allows downloaded books (.mobi, .txt, .pdf) sent to the email address to be downloaded straight to the device over wifi. I have it so the library software Calibre can immediately convert, email books from my PC to the device in one click, which might be kind of excessive but I think is pretty nifty.
Downsides:
Navigating books with the main screen's touch controls works well most of the time, but I'll tap the sides of the main screen accidentally and change pages when I don't want to.
Amazon's .mobi garbage is a bit of a hassle but it's easy enough to convert .epub files over to amazon's format.
I have the cheapest kindle and it's perfectly acceptable. Lasted me three years and no signs of stopping. I know I'm not leading the vanguard by buying from Amazon, but my entire collection of animorphs helps me sleep at night.
The color kindle is anti revolutionary though.
Edit: whatever e reader you go with, grab a book style cover for it. You can find em cheap and it helps a lot with durability and ergonomics (stops it from sliding around your leg).
I download epubs from libgen and add it to Google Play Books to read and keep it synched between devices.
Any specific recommendation? I've used a kindle before tho not sure which and didnt really like, maybe cause it was too small or something about the display felt weird. Also would rather not support Amazon.
I'm thinking of getting this, but can it read like any PDF? or do i have to buy books from their store?
https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-clara-hd
Calibre ought to be able to support it, but double check.
Also pdfs suck for ebooks. Go for one of the ebook specific formats.
There’s others but I’ve had my kindle for a while and it still works really well. Buying used does not support Amazon.
Whatever you get; make sure it supports epub format and can sideload books from your computer.
There a lot of resources on this site for finding free books both legally and illegally.
You don't want to be restricted to what your ebook manufacturer wants you to read, or let them have a list of books you have read.