The Kindle app’s infinite scroll is what finally made me let go of paper books. It’s that good. I get completely immersed. Can’t do it on an e-ink device, only on phone or tablet.
Don’t forget to shut off the progress indicator or location or whatever they call it. Not knowing how far along you are is the other transformative feature of ebooks. In paper books, you always see the end coming.
On the kindle oasis (highest end model) no matter how many times you turn off the progress indicator, it always pops back up the next time you read the same book. Completely kills the immersive experience you’re talking about
I have the opposite view having used a large-format (13.3") B&W e-ink reader for nearly a year and a half.[1]
The device itself is the size of a printed full-format magazine. It's larger than most books, and if you're reading principally textual material, an 8--10" screen might be preferable (smaller, slightly lighter, more portable), but if you're inclined to read old-school articles scanned in with middlin' quality, this is excellent.
I far prefer paginated navigation. I use the device as well for much web reading, almost entirely using the Einkbro browser, which as the name suggests is optimised for e-ink. Basically, that amounts to full-page navigation based on touch (not gestures), and some settings for favouring a high-contrast black-on-white style on most websites. (HN's slight off-white main-page background is highly distracting. Even on desktop, I've inverted the main body and margin colour schemes using the Stylus extension (Firefox).)
I find that Pocket, though it typically renders articles well, navigates them poorly. It's instead hugely preferable to either read them on Einkbro or use that browser's print-to-PDF or print-to-ePub[2] features and then read content directly via Onyx's bookreader software (NeoReader).
For formatted books and articles generally, I far prefer paginated formatting, and will usually opt for PDF rather than ePub formats because the PDFs read better. This is after decades of being a PDF critic. It turns out that the problem is far less the PDF format than device displays. Laptops and desktops are landscape rather than portrait (though a sufficiently large desktop is good for viewing content with other applications/windows visible, and/or in 2-up mode), and phones are Too Damned Small. E-ink at 8" or larger is a whole new world.[3]
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Notes:
1. Onyx BOOX Max Lumi. Not GPL compliant, but otherwise excellent HW & SW. Wish I could bump the onboard storage up from 64 GB to ~512 GB or better. Starting to look into HW hacking options. Oh, and it also has continuous scroll for the ebook reader if that's your kink.
3. That's not to say that there aren't really horrible PDFs, or that the file format itself is especially good. I'm talking UI/UX here, with reasonable care to design matching print standards and conventions.
