When I was buying mine in March 2025, I found that there’s only one guy in Pakistan who imports used or almost-new e-readers from abroad. You’ll probably find the same guy on FB, OLX, Daraz, etc. (with usernames Syed Online Store or Readers are the leaders).
I found that I care about three things most. 1) Screen Size, 2) Frontlight, 3) Display Resolution.
Screen Size
Small screen size means more page turns per book. Almost 80% of ereaders you’ll find would have 6-inch screen. This is equal to some mobile phones, just less rectangular. For book-reading, it felt too small. So, you should try finding one with 7 inch or 8 inch screen. Mine is 8 in, and it is perfect. Larger than 8 inch give more of a magazine feel and are suitable only if you wanna read scientific papers, mangas, PDFs with large paper size, or stuff like that.
Frontlight
Eink readers are supposed to give a paper like feel, but still since there’s a thin plastic touch screen between the display, light is not reflected back from the surface as good as paper itself. So, when you take the e-reader outside, it will be readable perfectly, but in a normal room where you can read paper properly, you will find the e-reader not so well lit unless you are directly sitting under a tube light or something. So, you should opt for an e-reader with frontlight. You will also need it if you wanna read at night with lights off. (The seller will call it backlight, but he means the same thing).
Resolution / Pixel Density
E-ink display technology has evolved a lot between 2010-2020. Older models used E-ink Pearl technology which had around ~167 dpi but newer models with E-ink Carta display have around ~300 dpi (same as book-print quality). For good reading experience, make sure not to buy anything <250 dpi.
Note: Resolution (such as 1448 × 1072) is only comparable if you are comparing same screen sizes. The proper comparison is thus by using pixel density (dpi/ppi). The seller might not know exact resolution/dpi but just tell him you need one with good resolution and google the exact dpi for the models he shows yourself.
Manufacturer / OS
Amazon’s Kindles have largest e-reader market share, but that is mostly because of integrated system with Amazon’s kindle store. But if you are not buying e-books from Amazon kindle store (maybe because *coughs* the author directly sent you an e-book file), standard .epub files won’t run on Kindle. So you either need to find *coughs* ask the author for AZW3 or MOBI version, or convert the file. Also, Kindle’s overall UX isn’t considered good. Kobo’s UX on the other hand is considered best among all e-readers (based on user reviews).
Now Kindles and Kobo both use their own OS, but some e-reader brands like Nook use Android. Android is an overkill if you wanna use e-reader just for reading stuff and hence should be avoided unless specifically needed as it will consume more battery etc.
How I bought mine?
I actually didn’t know all this info. It took me a lot of googling and some experimentation to learn this. I asked the seller to give me a list of all models he has, so that I can choose. When he gave me, I gave that to Grok and prompted it to google relevant specs and it returned a table, which I took to Excel and filtered according to my needs and decided. First, I bought a 6-in Kobo Clara (which had front-light not working1 and thus I could get it at lower price), but realized that 6-in was too small and front-light is necessary. The seller was nice enough to have me replaced it. I then chose an 8-in Kobo Forma (with minor scratches and page-turn buttons not working) which was the only >7-in model he had at that time with good resolution.
How to buy yours?
First check out Ereader ComparisonTables to get an idea of different models and their features and decide what features matter to you.
The seller I mentioned earlier is generally less responsive, due to other workload or something, and so he’ll reply late. If you’re in Karachi better visit his shop, or if you wanna buy online, try to share your requirements clearly early on so that it takes less back and forth for the final decision. It took me around a month from initial inquiry to final decision, which probably is not a good way to do it.
Other options are some shops that import new Kindles, or people who would have bought it from abroad, and are selling their used ones on OLX or FB groups.
After you buy your E-reader
If you are a nerd and need the best reading experience, KOReader is a must. Most e-reader UX’s suck and allow very little customization. KOReader is a third-party open-source software that can run on most e-reader devices (earlier it couldn’t be used on Kindle, but now even Kindle jailbreak has been released). It has some initial setup overhead, but with KOReader, you can make the device fit your needs. Kobo’s UX is best among all default manufacturers but even still, the page turns are slower on Kobo’s default UX (called Nickel) than if I use KOReader on same device. There are some engineering reasons behind it. There’s another third-party software called Plato which is even faster than KOReader but is less customizable.
- Note: The seller would also have some models with some defects, which will allow you to buy them at lower price. ↩︎