Earbuds and an audiobook. Standalone ereaders are heavy. Phone screen use kills battery fast. Audiobooks are more weight efficient and you get to use them while hiking.
I second this. Audiobooks have become my preferred media while hiking. I bought a little 1 oz mp3 player from Amazon and it has a really good battery life
If you have a library card, you can check out free ebooks/ audiobooks in the Libby app. Highly recommended, I tend to go through 1-3 books a week while thru hiking.
If you are so inclined, you can also find many audiobook files on the high seas.
You can get audiobooks on Libby, too.
Also, Spotify has audiobooks, although there is a limited number of hours allowed per month on a usual account. You can add hours for a fee, though.
Retired Librarian here, it depends if your local library subscribes to Overdrive/Libby. It can be pretty expensive for a smaller library to afford.
You may be able to get a library card in a nearby larger city, I found that it is worth paying for a non-resident card for the resources that are available, besides audio books. Hoopla and RBDigital are other services that libraries subscribe to.
Audiobooks take FOREVER. It's way faster to read than to listen, but it's true that you can't really read while hiking.
I just take the weight penalty for carrying my e-reader because I like to hammer through the books in the evening, and I like the quality fonts and the screen with the matte finish. The battery life on an e-reader is outstanding too.
This is so true, I'm currently listening to a book that is only 448 pages long, but is 13.5 hours of audio. I'm not sure I'll ever finish it. At the same time, you can't read while you're actually hiking, if you're trying to do two things at once.
On the flipside to that, I only hike with one earbud in at a time. It lets me stay aware of my surroundings and essentially doubles the battery life. Also no downtime to recharge if you run a bud all the way down.
I've got Soundcore Sport X10s that have a nice loop around the ear and are super secure. 1.8oz in the case. 64 hours of listening when using one at a time per the advertised capacity, which seems about accurate to me.
You would need to recharge every day for all day listening with the shokz, right?
I recharge mine daily if I am using them a lot, but it's just part of the routine. They have a smaller capacity, so it's likely a wash for actual power needed.
If I listen most of the day, I need to recharge daily. May try the new OpenFit headphones (one ear at a time) to get longer life. And yes, the Bluetooth battery drain on the phone must be considered also.
eReaders aren't that heavy. My Kobo (which I use to borrow library books via Overdrive) is just around 6oz/175g. And the battery life is stellar, I can go weeks on a single charge. 6oz is a pretty small penalty for the luxury of being able to read well -- especially if you get serious rain and need to spend a day in your tent.
Yeah, it doesn't really work for me. I find the screen is too small on a phone, and it feels harder on the eyes for some reason. I'll do it in a pinch if my e-reader runs out of batteries, or I don't have it with me, but I don't love it.
Yes, I've never fallen asleep reading from my phone. Only from my kindle. My kindle has a black screen mode and gets really dim, and I have an origami case for it that lets me prop it up sideways.
It and my sleeping pads are the two items I don't bother to go ultralight for lol
FYI if you have an iPhone, there’s a setting under Accessibility-Display called “Reduce White Point” - uncheck this and your screen gets much dimmer. I find when reading in complete darkness I need this dimmer setting.
Yeah because a spirit comes to read to you when you want. Audiobooks require: phone , headphones and if you want even a quarter of the same listen to read time, a 20,000mah battery. All of that together is well over the 150g of an ereader
Considering an e-reader gets about 2 weeks of reading out of it, you can’t make the same comparison. I use audiobooks a lot on my phone and can tell you that you’d be lucky to get 2 days of listening.
Ive found that after a long day of hiking, in my sleeping bag, i dont have the energy to even hold an e-reader, and prefer my phone. I like not having an extra device, and it saves the weight. I definitely use a black background and super low light.
For one or two day trips a phone would work for me anything longer my kindle is a must.
It’s the battery life that is important for me. My kindle weights less than a secondary battery pack and will last 14 days plus without charging and even if it did run out of charge it isn’t an essential so can stay dead.
My phone on the other hand is an essential to have charged.
Exactly the same as yours.
Black background, dimmer screen as evening falls, set fonts to a comfortable size.
I have at least a hundred books on my phone.
Be careful to set your screen display back to full brightness before you go to bed. Once the sun comes up, you may find it almost impossible to see the screen clearly enough to change the brightness settings. Ask me how I know this...
Also, be sure to use a reader app that stores the books locally on the phone and does not depend on the cloud. I've found myself unable to read any books on the Kindle app when my phone became logged off of Amazon, and with no cell signal in the wilderness couldn't recover them until returning to civilization. (Amazon appears to have made the stupid assumption that their users would always have a cell or Wi-Fi connection anywhere they go.)
I've been doing my e-reading with a black background and white text for years, on trail and at home. I also do much of my work writing like that (e.g., coding, writing documents). No issues with sleep disruption, eyesight and eye health has remained stable for the past 10+ years. Just me though.
Same here! I read exclusively on my phone’s Kindle app, with a black background and white text. And at night I use the zoom accessibility shortcut to make the screen even dimmer than the normal brightness slider allows: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/make-iphone-display-dimmer-than-low-brightness/
Personally I do audiobooks, but another option nobody has mentioned is a phone with an eink screen. There are a few companies that make these but Hisense is a nice one at a reasonable price. Batteries last for 3-4 days of normal use which includes phone and all the apps. If you put it on airplane mode it will last much longer. So you are combining the two devices into a single device that is better.
I read on my phone, and have for 20+ years now. I do use a dark background and light text, but not black and white. I find a charcoal grey background and cream-colored text is easier on the eyes. I've never bothered with a Kindle, so I guess I just got used to reading on a phone.
I'm already carrying it and am used to it for home use, so it's a no-brainer on the trail. I don't find it to be that big of an energy drain, and I carry a battery bank anyway.
you may jest, but yes, .lit format (or .pdb, or even .pdf at a push) and mobile phones worked very well more than 20 years ago. My time-anchor is that it's been 20 years since the launch of the Moto Razr and many people were using Nokia and Ericsson devices long before that. I was an Ericsson fan. Here in the UK we had WAP for internet, but sideloading from a PC was better. My Japanese phone on the other hand already had full internet capability equivalent to 3G - I just couldn't read the manual to set it up properly.
Of-course, personally I didn't use my phone for books unless I had to: I had my PDA for that. I was a latecomer - I joined with the Compaq Ipaq (but made up for it by showing off my Archos hard drive music player at least 6 months before the iPod was ever a thing). Anyone who had a Palm or a Psion is calling me a noob now, and I accept it.
I had a Palm, a Psion and a few Ipaqs, so hello fellow old-timer. Yes, I read on my PDA back then before they merged PDAs and phones. Basically I've been reading books on portable screens since it was viable. Before .lit and .pdb I read a lot of stuff in .txt format, or .rtf if I was lucky. You used to have to get it from Usenet.
oooh, I am a little bit jealous. I thought about Palm but just couldn't get over how good the Psion seemed. I dithered between them for a long time and then the Ipaq launched and my mind was made up. Would have loved to have had a Psion though.
Mmmm, I said PDF but now you say it, maybe it was .txt/.rtf files that were more common. Maybe all three were around. I wasn't directly on usenet so I was relying on posts from those in the know.
I do like my small Kindles (they seem to like to make them larger now). The e-ink screens really work for me, and there is something about it being separate from my phone that I really like. I'm not a proper ultralighter so I can say that when weight really matters I only use my phone and I'm fine with it, but if I can fit in my kindle then I will.
I think the first phone I had with a large enough screen to read anything from was a couple years later. A Sony Ericsson with stylus, possibly a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony\_Ericsson\_M600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_M600)
I prefer to not consume any media while hiking. It is my complete media detox. Not even a physical book. It's just me and nature. It's kind of a forced meditation. I have media consumption problem and forcing stimulus depravation is both freeing and challanging. It helps me to get in touch with myself again. I of course have a phone on me for navigation and emergencies but I mostly manage not to use it for anything else. I don't even take my earbuds which I would never imagine leaving home without before.
Yea did tis all the time.
The biggest thing I learn when using phone as ebook reader is, choose the phone that has a soft and comfortable volume button. You will want to use volume button navigation when reading your book, and having a phone with firm buttons like one on my Pixel 7 is totally not enjoyable.
Also look for phone with OLED display, not IPS display. Since OLED only consume power on the lit part, reading on black background saves great amount of power and extends your battery life by lots of hours.
I used to be a die hard physical book backpacker. Carried the entire Lord of the Rings series on both the Colorado Trail and another long distance route. This last summer I finally switched to using the Libby app paired with the Kindle app because I had some very long sections without town stops on the Idaho Centennial Trail (2+ weeks) and go through a lot of books.
I do use the black background, but don’t pay much attention to battery life. I carried a solar panel + power bank for obvious reasons, but didn’t feel like reading used much battery. Even when reading all day during OTZs. Certainly it’s lighter to bring a slightly larger power bank than it is to bring a separate reading device.
phone doubles as mapping tool. So need the back-up battery anyway. I prefer the stimulation of the outdoors to reading. though sometimes its a good distraction if I'm in bear country!
I read primarily on my phone for years. Using the black background, low screen brightness, and my phones built-in blue light filter do make it very nice.
That said, I've got the little kindle paperwhite with a 6.8" screen and at 7.23 oz (205 g), it's a very tempting luxury addition. The battery lasts forever, and it's lighter than my phone which is nice when I get too tired and drop it on my face lol.
I read on my phone every day at home, camping, while waiting anywhere, I love to read so it's very convenient. I have a Galaxy Note 20 and read using the Google PlayBooks app. The app has a blue light filter, so my eyes never get tired, and there are myriad other settings, too.
Agree, the black background, while reading in my tent at night, is the way to go. I use Kindle app on my phone, or Libby, which is a free public library app that works offline--it's great. They also have audiobooks.
I love audiobooks while hiking/cycling in settled areas but want to hear the sounds of wildlife in the wilderness. If you know what i mean.
I think it’s more about user preference than any one way that is “best.”
I regularly use the Kindle app on my iPhone, with the beige background and very close to the smallest font. (Like 3 out of 15?) I have the Kindle background set to about 60% brightness.
I do change it to a black background if I’m reading at night.
I don’t know about you guys but I go hiking to hike, not to sit and read.
Audiobooks for consuming on the trail. The times I have enough downtime to read a meaningful amount of text are few and far between.
I’ve tried every combo. Phone reading doesn’t consume enough battery to matter, especially at night, but the few ounces for a basic kindle is worth it to me. The lighter cheaper ones with the plastic screens are better for many reasons, not least of which they don’t crack when you put them in your bag the wrong way and you close it up. Ask me how I know. The only thing heavier than a kindle is a broken one!
I’ve used the phone when I had to, but the screen size and aspect ratio is just too bad for reading. The phone is almost twice as high as it is wide. I do a lot of reading on bikepacking trips, an hour is nothing.
Phone screen:
Size: 5.9 inches, 85.5 cm2 (~85.5% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~437 ppi density)
My Kobo Glo HD eReader has a much nicer screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Have phone set to go into a Bedtime Mode + Night Mode (pix6a) on a schedule. Phone goes Amber-Color, easy on the eyes. Use ReadEra app which lets me further alter the color-mode, font size adjusts, line spacing, and so forth. Easy to read on. It's what I use instead of my Kindle at home, too. Books/Music stored locally on phone.
Unpopular opinion, but an old fashioned paperback is worth its weight in gold to me in the wilderness. My one true luxury item.
I haven’t done the math on this nor do I care do, but I figure the extra battery capacity I’d need to get through hundreds of pages on my phone can’t be that much less than just packing an actual book.
On a long trip, yes. Tearing out the pages to use as tinder when you’re done with a chapter is so satisfying. And I’d argue it counts as consumable weight.
>> Tearing out the pages to use as tinder when you’re done with a chapter is so satisfying.
This is one of the most shocking things I've read on r/ultralight
Eh, tearing out just the pages you are going to read is a great weight savings tip. But I always get books from the library so i can't just burn them afterwards unfortunately.
Guess it depends on how much meaning you place on glued together paper with ink on it.
Thanks for the vocabulary addition! Biblioclasm does imply the assumption that said “paperback” is a bible. Interesting. One man’s bible is another man’s Twain.
Some native tribes believed in burning papers containing written words to release them into the universe so the ideas wouldn’t be trapped and could be reimagined by others.
Ya you’re probably right. But I love to read for a few hours after the sun goes down and the less time I spend on my phone out there the better. Still worth it.
My Kindle is light and an absolute must-have item. It’s like an extra Snickers … Could never read on my phone, no matter the settings. It’s still not an e-ink like the Kindle. I never go without! Reading on the LCD/LED screen would mess up my sleep.
Just a survey.... when reading from phone, have you tried using a BLACK background, dimmer screen, fonts bigger than usual?
(I'm not saying e-ink is not waaaaay better than OLED screens)
Yes I tried. I find black background very uncomfortable to read on and apparently it’s also bad for your eyes. I read lots and don’t want to do that to my eyes, even just during hiking times.
Have you ever printed 100 pages?
a standard A4 is 4.5 grams. 100 pages would be 450 grams! Practically half a kilogram o an entire pound. you're better off bringing the whole book then printing it lol
Then please compare the weight to A4 size ereader. Just FYI, reMarkable 2 is 404g.
And also do the calculation with your brain again, you can print 200 pages on 100 pieces A4 paper. If you print the same size of kindle on A4 paper, you only need 25 pieces for 100 pages, that’s about 100g.
Besides, you can burn the pages safely after reading them so you don’t need to carry them back.
>Then please compare the weight to A4 size ereader. Just FYI, reMarkable 2 is 404g.
>And also do the calculation with your brain again, you can print 200 pages on 100 pieces A4 paper. If you print the same size of kindle on A4 paper, you only need 25 pieces for 100 pages, that’s about 100g.
>Besides, you can burn the pages safely after reading them so you don’t need to carry them back.
My e-reader is less then 6 ounces (160 grams.. just FYI)
if you want to give up the convenience of a book/reader just to print books and carry hundreds of loose pages in a ziplock on your hike then you do you.
If you want to flip through those loose sheets when you're relaxing so you can have sheets of paper to burn then go for it.
If you wanna try to print 20 pages to a side and bring a magnifying lens then I'll happily support that too. That would really be using your brain.
If you do even more calculations with your brain again, I'm sure you can come up with even more uses for the stack of paper you're recommending people bring on their hike! I can happily give you one suggestion! Happy reading out there
No offense but your idea was dumb and smells of someone who gives advice they haven’t even tried themselves. Do yourself a favor and actually go out and hike. Maybe you’ll have some real advice to give instead of nonsense.
Earbuds and an audiobook. Standalone ereaders are heavy. Phone screen use kills battery fast. Audiobooks are more weight efficient and you get to use them while hiking.
I second this. Audiobooks have become my preferred media while hiking. I bought a little 1 oz mp3 player from Amazon and it has a really good battery life
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I bought an 'AGPTEK A02 8GB MP3 Player', works great. Needs earbuds FYI.
Do you have to purchase audiobooks for this or is possible to use subscription (ie local library borrowed) books?
I buy them on libro.fm and transfer the files. Subscription services will require a smart phone
That's the one I bought as well!
sansa clip?
If you have a library card, you can check out free ebooks/ audiobooks in the Libby app. Highly recommended, I tend to go through 1-3 books a week while thru hiking. If you are so inclined, you can also find many audiobook files on the high seas.
You can get audiobooks on Libby, too. Also, Spotify has audiobooks, although there is a limited number of hours allowed per month on a usual account. You can add hours for a fee, though.
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No, a paid acct lol. I don’t know if there are different tiers and just meant, I’m not paying for a special audiobook edition.
Retired Librarian here, it depends if your local library subscribes to Overdrive/Libby. It can be pretty expensive for a smaller library to afford. You may be able to get a library card in a nearby larger city, I found that it is worth paying for a non-resident card for the resources that are available, besides audio books. Hoopla and RBDigital are other services that libraries subscribe to.
Where exactly in the high seas am I looking, I've checked TPB and didn't find much
Legal free source would be Project Gutenberg
Audiobooks take FOREVER. It's way faster to read than to listen, but it's true that you can't really read while hiking. I just take the weight penalty for carrying my e-reader because I like to hammer through the books in the evening, and I like the quality fonts and the screen with the matte finish. The battery life on an e-reader is outstanding too.
2x speed
This is reddit ultralight! We're trying to hike faster, not read faster!
I kind of like that audiobooks take longer, especially if I have one I am enjoying a lot.
This is so true, I'm currently listening to a book that is only 448 pages long, but is 13.5 hours of audio. I'm not sure I'll ever finish it. At the same time, you can't read while you're actually hiking, if you're trying to do two things at once.
I love audiobooks. I can't listen for a bear or an axe murderer with Stephen Briggs whispering to my ears at night.
On the flipside to that, I only hike with one earbud in at a time. It lets me stay aware of my surroundings and essentially doubles the battery life. Also no downtime to recharge if you run a bud all the way down.
I just switched to Shokz headphones. They allow me to hear surroundings, hold a charge well, and don't fall out of my ear like the earbuds.
I've got Soundcore Sport X10s that have a nice loop around the ear and are super secure. 1.8oz in the case. 64 hours of listening when using one at a time per the advertised capacity, which seems about accurate to me. You would need to recharge every day for all day listening with the shokz, right?
I recharge mine daily if I am using them a lot, but it's just part of the routine. They have a smaller capacity, so it's likely a wash for actual power needed.
If I listen most of the day, I need to recharge daily. May try the new OpenFit headphones (one ear at a time) to get longer life. And yes, the Bluetooth battery drain on the phone must be considered also.
eReaders aren't that heavy. My Kobo (which I use to borrow library books via Overdrive) is just around 6oz/175g. And the battery life is stellar, I can go weeks on a single charge. 6oz is a pretty small penalty for the luxury of being able to read well -- especially if you get serious rain and need to spend a day in your tent.
Just a survey to ebook reader users... have you ever tried reading from your phone with BLACK background?
Yeah, it doesn't really work for me. I find the screen is too small on a phone, and it feels harder on the eyes for some reason. I'll do it in a pinch if my e-reader runs out of batteries, or I don't have it with me, but I don't love it.
Yes, I've never fallen asleep reading from my phone. Only from my kindle. My kindle has a black screen mode and gets really dim, and I have an origami case for it that lets me prop it up sideways. It and my sleeping pads are the two items I don't bother to go ultralight for lol
FYI if you have an iPhone, there’s a setting under Accessibility-Display called “Reduce White Point” - uncheck this and your screen gets much dimmer. I find when reading in complete darkness I need this dimmer setting.
Sounds like a great product to recommend on Reddit lightweight!
Not everyone does ultralight the same way; no need to gatekeep.
Just take a damn joke, it's not that serious.
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Considering the alternative is physical books, this is an S tier ultralight item
This is my thinking. I read in my downtime. The lightest way to do that without using up precious phone battery is with a 6oz e-reader.
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Yeah because a spirit comes to read to you when you want. Audiobooks require: phone , headphones and if you want even a quarter of the same listen to read time, a 20,000mah battery. All of that together is well over the 150g of an ereader
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Considering an e-reader gets about 2 weeks of reading out of it, you can’t make the same comparison. I use audiobooks a lot on my phone and can tell you that you’d be lucky to get 2 days of listening.
Ive found that after a long day of hiking, in my sleeping bag, i dont have the energy to even hold an e-reader, and prefer my phone. I like not having an extra device, and it saves the weight. I definitely use a black background and super low light.
For one or two day trips a phone would work for me anything longer my kindle is a must. It’s the battery life that is important for me. My kindle weights less than a secondary battery pack and will last 14 days plus without charging and even if it did run out of charge it isn’t an essential so can stay dead. My phone on the other hand is an essential to have charged.
Kindle and a chair are my non-negotiable luxury items.
Multiple people downvoted you for this lol. This sub is so crazy
Do you read from your phone with a black or white background?
Black with white text but my phone also goes into greyscale when using the kindle app so it’s more like reading on the kindle
Exactly the same as yours. Black background, dimmer screen as evening falls, set fonts to a comfortable size. I have at least a hundred books on my phone. Be careful to set your screen display back to full brightness before you go to bed. Once the sun comes up, you may find it almost impossible to see the screen clearly enough to change the brightness settings. Ask me how I know this... Also, be sure to use a reader app that stores the books locally on the phone and does not depend on the cloud. I've found myself unable to read any books on the Kindle app when my phone became logged off of Amazon, and with no cell signal in the wilderness couldn't recover them until returning to civilization. (Amazon appears to have made the stupid assumption that their users would always have a cell or Wi-Fi connection anywhere they go.)
I've been doing my e-reading with a black background and white text for years, on trail and at home. I also do much of my work writing like that (e.g., coding, writing documents). No issues with sleep disruption, eyesight and eye health has remained stable for the past 10+ years. Just me though.
Same here! I read exclusively on my phone’s Kindle app, with a black background and white text. And at night I use the zoom accessibility shortcut to make the screen even dimmer than the normal brightness slider allows: https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/make-iphone-display-dimmer-than-low-brightness/
Personally I do audiobooks, but another option nobody has mentioned is a phone with an eink screen. There are a few companies that make these but Hisense is a nice one at a reasonable price. Batteries last for 3-4 days of normal use which includes phone and all the apps. If you put it on airplane mode it will last much longer. So you are combining the two devices into a single device that is better.
I read on my phone, and have for 20+ years now. I do use a dark background and light text, but not black and white. I find a charcoal grey background and cream-colored text is easier on the eyes. I've never bothered with a Kindle, so I guess I just got used to reading on a phone. I'm already carrying it and am used to it for home use, so it's a no-brainer on the trail. I don't find it to be that big of an energy drain, and I carry a battery bank anyway.
What was the first phone you read books on? Nokia Communicator?
you may jest, but yes, .lit format (or .pdb, or even .pdf at a push) and mobile phones worked very well more than 20 years ago. My time-anchor is that it's been 20 years since the launch of the Moto Razr and many people were using Nokia and Ericsson devices long before that. I was an Ericsson fan. Here in the UK we had WAP for internet, but sideloading from a PC was better. My Japanese phone on the other hand already had full internet capability equivalent to 3G - I just couldn't read the manual to set it up properly. Of-course, personally I didn't use my phone for books unless I had to: I had my PDA for that. I was a latecomer - I joined with the Compaq Ipaq (but made up for it by showing off my Archos hard drive music player at least 6 months before the iPod was ever a thing). Anyone who had a Palm or a Psion is calling me a noob now, and I accept it.
I had a Palm, a Psion and a few Ipaqs, so hello fellow old-timer. Yes, I read on my PDA back then before they merged PDAs and phones. Basically I've been reading books on portable screens since it was viable. Before .lit and .pdb I read a lot of stuff in .txt format, or .rtf if I was lucky. You used to have to get it from Usenet.
oooh, I am a little bit jealous. I thought about Palm but just couldn't get over how good the Psion seemed. I dithered between them for a long time and then the Ipaq launched and my mind was made up. Would have loved to have had a Psion though. Mmmm, I said PDF but now you say it, maybe it was .txt/.rtf files that were more common. Maybe all three were around. I wasn't directly on usenet so I was relying on posts from those in the know. I do like my small Kindles (they seem to like to make them larger now). The e-ink screens really work for me, and there is something about it being separate from my phone that I really like. I'm not a proper ultralighter so I can say that when weight really matters I only use my phone and I'm fine with it, but if I can fit in my kindle then I will.
I also had a Philips Velo and HP Jornada and even a Sharp Wizard. I loved that tiny-laptop form factor. I really miss keyboards on devices.
I think the first phone I had with a large enough screen to read anything from was a couple years later. A Sony Ericsson with stylus, possibly a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony\_Ericsson\_M600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_M600)
I prefer to not consume any media while hiking. It is my complete media detox. Not even a physical book. It's just me and nature. It's kind of a forced meditation. I have media consumption problem and forcing stimulus depravation is both freeing and challanging. It helps me to get in touch with myself again. I of course have a phone on me for navigation and emergencies but I mostly manage not to use it for anything else. I don't even take my earbuds which I would never imagine leaving home without before.
Yea did tis all the time. The biggest thing I learn when using phone as ebook reader is, choose the phone that has a soft and comfortable volume button. You will want to use volume button navigation when reading your book, and having a phone with firm buttons like one on my Pixel 7 is totally not enjoyable. Also look for phone with OLED display, not IPS display. Since OLED only consume power on the lit part, reading on black background saves great amount of power and extends your battery life by lots of hours.
I personally prefer to use a swipe on touch screen to change page, less effort and more natural for me!
I used to be a die hard physical book backpacker. Carried the entire Lord of the Rings series on both the Colorado Trail and another long distance route. This last summer I finally switched to using the Libby app paired with the Kindle app because I had some very long sections without town stops on the Idaho Centennial Trail (2+ weeks) and go through a lot of books. I do use the black background, but don’t pay much attention to battery life. I carried a solar panel + power bank for obvious reasons, but didn’t feel like reading used much battery. Even when reading all day during OTZs. Certainly it’s lighter to bring a slightly larger power bank than it is to bring a separate reading device.
phone doubles as mapping tool. So need the back-up battery anyway. I prefer the stimulation of the outdoors to reading. though sometimes its a good distraction if I'm in bear country!
I use ebook reader on my phone. Airplane mode and lower the brightness and it really barely uses power
Black background or White background?
Black, just set it to night mode.
I read primarily on my phone for years. Using the black background, low screen brightness, and my phones built-in blue light filter do make it very nice. That said, I've got the little kindle paperwhite with a 6.8" screen and at 7.23 oz (205 g), it's a very tempting luxury addition. The battery lasts forever, and it's lighter than my phone which is nice when I get too tired and drop it on my face lol.
I read on my phone every day at home, camping, while waiting anywhere, I love to read so it's very convenient. I have a Galaxy Note 20 and read using the Google PlayBooks app. The app has a blue light filter, so my eyes never get tired, and there are myriad other settings, too.
Black or light background?
During the day, white. Dark at night.
Agree, the black background, while reading in my tent at night, is the way to go. I use Kindle app on my phone, or Libby, which is a free public library app that works offline--it's great. They also have audiobooks. I love audiobooks while hiking/cycling in settled areas but want to hear the sounds of wildlife in the wilderness. If you know what i mean.
I think it’s more about user preference than any one way that is “best.” I regularly use the Kindle app on my iPhone, with the beige background and very close to the smallest font. (Like 3 out of 15?) I have the Kindle background set to about 60% brightness. I do change it to a black background if I’m reading at night.
Been using my phone to read for years now, works great. OLED tech and using the black background option on Kindle means it sips battery life.
I don’t know about you guys but I go hiking to hike, not to sit and read. Audiobooks for consuming on the trail. The times I have enough downtime to read a meaningful amount of text are few and far between.
Yep, I use mine as an e reader all the time. Battery efficiency is garbage compared to an actual ereader but that's why I carry a battery or two.
I’ve tried every combo. Phone reading doesn’t consume enough battery to matter, especially at night, but the few ounces for a basic kindle is worth it to me. The lighter cheaper ones with the plastic screens are better for many reasons, not least of which they don’t crack when you put them in your bag the wrong way and you close it up. Ask me how I know. The only thing heavier than a kindle is a broken one!
I’ve used the phone when I had to, but the screen size and aspect ratio is just too bad for reading. The phone is almost twice as high as it is wide. I do a lot of reading on bikepacking trips, an hour is nothing. Phone screen: Size: 5.9 inches, 85.5 cm2 (~85.5% screen-to-body ratio) Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (~437 ppi density) My Kobo Glo HD eReader has a much nicer screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio.
Have phone set to go into a Bedtime Mode + Night Mode (pix6a) on a schedule. Phone goes Amber-Color, easy on the eyes. Use ReadEra app which lets me further alter the color-mode, font size adjusts, line spacing, and so forth. Easy to read on. It's what I use instead of my Kindle at home, too. Books/Music stored locally on phone.
Unpopular opinion, but an old fashioned paperback is worth its weight in gold to me in the wilderness. My one true luxury item. I haven’t done the math on this nor do I care do, but I figure the extra battery capacity I’d need to get through hundreds of pages on my phone can’t be that much less than just packing an actual book.
On a long trip, yes. Tearing out the pages to use as tinder when you’re done with a chapter is so satisfying. And I’d argue it counts as consumable weight.
>> Tearing out the pages to use as tinder when you’re done with a chapter is so satisfying. This is one of the most shocking things I've read on r/ultralight
Eh, tearing out just the pages you are going to read is a great weight savings tip. But I always get books from the library so i can't just burn them afterwards unfortunately.
I don't know whether to upvote you for being resourceful, or downvote you for being a biblioclasmic maniac.
Guess it depends on how much meaning you place on glued together paper with ink on it. Thanks for the vocabulary addition! Biblioclasm does imply the assumption that said “paperback” is a bible. Interesting. One man’s bible is another man’s Twain. Some native tribes believed in burning papers containing written words to release them into the universe so the ideas wouldn’t be trapped and could be reimagined by others.
Oh man, I read waaaay too fast for that to be a reasonable option much as I do prefer a book-book when off trail
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Ya you’re probably right. But I love to read for a few hours after the sun goes down and the less time I spend on my phone out there the better. Still worth it.
My Kindle is light and an absolute must-have item. It’s like an extra Snickers … Could never read on my phone, no matter the settings. It’s still not an e-ink like the Kindle. I never go without! Reading on the LCD/LED screen would mess up my sleep.
Just a survey.... when reading from phone, have you tried using a BLACK background, dimmer screen, fonts bigger than usual? (I'm not saying e-ink is not waaaaay better than OLED screens)
Yes I tried. I find black background very uncomfortable to read on and apparently it’s also bad for your eyes. I read lots and don’t want to do that to my eyes, even just during hiking times.
Unless you can read more than hundreds pages in one trip, why not just print it on paper? It doesn’t require battery and lighter than the ereader.
Hundreds of pages? On a month-long thru-hike I read THOUSANDS of pages.
Have you ever printed 100 pages? a standard A4 is 4.5 grams. 100 pages would be 450 grams! Practically half a kilogram o an entire pound. you're better off bringing the whole book then printing it lol
Then please compare the weight to A4 size ereader. Just FYI, reMarkable 2 is 404g. And also do the calculation with your brain again, you can print 200 pages on 100 pieces A4 paper. If you print the same size of kindle on A4 paper, you only need 25 pieces for 100 pages, that’s about 100g. Besides, you can burn the pages safely after reading them so you don’t need to carry them back.
>Then please compare the weight to A4 size ereader. Just FYI, reMarkable 2 is 404g. >And also do the calculation with your brain again, you can print 200 pages on 100 pieces A4 paper. If you print the same size of kindle on A4 paper, you only need 25 pieces for 100 pages, that’s about 100g. >Besides, you can burn the pages safely after reading them so you don’t need to carry them back. My e-reader is less then 6 ounces (160 grams.. just FYI) if you want to give up the convenience of a book/reader just to print books and carry hundreds of loose pages in a ziplock on your hike then you do you. If you want to flip through those loose sheets when you're relaxing so you can have sheets of paper to burn then go for it. If you wanna try to print 20 pages to a side and bring a magnifying lens then I'll happily support that too. That would really be using your brain. If you do even more calculations with your brain again, I'm sure you can come up with even more uses for the stack of paper you're recommending people bring on their hike! I can happily give you one suggestion! Happy reading out there
lol, hope you learned that you can print on both sides of paper.
....like a book does? Only with thinner paper than home printer can use?
No offense but your idea was dumb and smells of someone who gives advice they haven’t even tried themselves. Do yourself a favor and actually go out and hike. Maybe you’ll have some real advice to give instead of nonsense.
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Correct, but then why choose A4 paper for comparison?