Products · Broad category
E-readers
Raised as a usability problem by 76 people on Hacker News over 17 years (2010–2026), in 64 threads.
This is a broad category rather than one product, so its issues aren't ranked on the home page.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Flipping between pages for technical material is disruptiveUnreviewed
20102026- Jumping back and forth to referenced figures and sections is hard, unlike flipping paper pages with a finger bookmark2026-09-21
- Interface is clunky, content renders incorrectly, and moving books is tedious2026-09-07
- Can't easily compare sections across books; ereader pages and books feel indistinguishable2024-10-17
Page refresh is slow and disruptive when readingUnreviewed
20102026- Screen refresh is slow and sometimes frustrating when interacting with pages2024-07-19
- PDFs display incorrectly and render very slowly on e-readers2021-09-21
- Reading PDFs is slow and page turns lag because the next page isn't cached2021-09-17
Tapping screen edges to turn pages is harder than swipingUnreviewed
20102026- Accidental taps and swipes trigger highlights, popups and jumps when turning pages2026-06-24
- Page turning by tap or swipe is hard when text is highlighted2021-09-21
- Tapping screen edges to turn pages is a pain compared to swiping2017-04-28
Large font forces horizontal scrolling on every lineUnreviewed
20102026- Large font makes users scroll horizontally on every line and back on two-column pages2024-11-05
- Can't see a whole page with text large enough; must zoom and scroll in all directions2020-12-17
- Fixed-width pages force scrolling left-to-right on every line and scrolling top-to-bottom then back up on phones2016-04-07
Takes forever to load big books and 15 seconds per pageUnreviewed
20102026- Old e-reader took forever to load big books and 15 seconds per page turn2021-06-15
- Long waiting times for indexing; a large book collection breaks the reader2019-02-19
- Finding references in e-book is slow: progress bar gives no left/right landmarks, page turns are slow2010-05-22
Poor handling of notes makes books with notes hard to readUnreviewed
20102026- Pages turn slowly, and note-taking is a disaster, especially with PDFs or images2025-01-15
- E-reader handling of notes is poor, so the user rarely reads books with notes2024-01-01
- Awkward to highlight passages and very slow to type notes2018-10-31
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Jumping back and forth to referenced figures and sections is hard, unlike flipping paper pages with a finger bookmark2026-09-21
- Using search to revisit earlier passages is clunky and risks losing current place2026-09-20
- Interface is clunky, content renders incorrectly, and moving books is tedious2026-09-07
- Getting Kindle books onto the device is a pain to do2026-07-21
- Screen text fades and becomes unreadable in direct sunlight2026-06-25
- Accidental taps and swipes trigger highlights, popups and jumps when turning pages2026-06-24
- Users spend more time configuring settings than reading, and page counters don't match actual page turns left2026-01-11
- Could only open a few formats and laid pages out poorly, making comics hard to read2025-06-02
- Hard to read articles from the web on e-readers2025-05-23
- Changing typesetting settings forces slow full re-rendering while previewing fonts2025-04-09
- Pages turn slowly, and note-taking is a disaster, especially with PDFs or images2025-01-15
- Large font makes users scroll horizontally on every line and back on two-column pages2024-11-05
- Can't easily compare sections across books; ereader pages and books feel indistinguishable2024-10-17
- Nags the user to connect online, with dialogs that hinder reading2024-09-02
- Screen refresh is slow and sometimes frustrating when interacting with pages2024-07-19
- Account is not clearly presented as optional during setup, pushing users into it2024-04-01
- Can't easily export highlights and annotations from e-books to other formats2024-02-23
- Most apps render poorly on e-ink screens2024-01-26
- E-reader handling of notes is poor, so the user rarely reads books with notes2024-01-01
- E-book format makes it hard to browse and flip pages2023-10-27
- Searching for the desired book on a tiny, bad interface is cumbersome2023-10-27
- Device is slow and hard to go back and forth, slow to find something2023-09-13
- Text-to-speech stops at the page or needs the screen on, so the reader loses their place2023-08-29
- Two-page spread and footnote navigation are worse than physical books2023-08-19
- Can't easily flip back to the previous reading position or browse pages like a physical book2023-03-01
- Page switching is too slow to flick between pages when reading technical books2022-08-11
- Scrolling shatters the display into pixel sandstorm and makes it hard to resume reading2022-05-18
- PDFs display incorrectly and render very slowly on e-readers2021-09-21
- Small screen forces frequent page turns while playing an instrument, impractical in practice2021-09-21
- Page turning by tap or swipe is hard when text is highlighted2021-09-21
- Small screen and slow loading make skimming hard; code and charts get reflowed2021-09-21
- Reading PDFs is slow and page turns lag because the next page isn't cached2021-09-17
- Flipping one page at a time is slow for jumping back to earlier content in reference books2021-07-18
- Old e-reader took forever to load big books and 15 seconds per page turn2021-06-15
- Slow page turns and odd refresh make the reader feel unusable2021-02-20
- Selector label shows a different layout than the one actually displayed by default2021-01-28
- Can't see a whole page with text large enough; must zoom and scroll in all directions2020-12-17
- Forces its own book library management instead of simply opening the file like a PDF reader2020-09-25
- Hard to navigate ebook reader UIs when looking up reference material2020-06-11
- Comparing or flipping between pages is cumbersome and slow2020-06-01
- Can't scroll A4 pages smoothly or navigate whole documents easily on e-readers2019-12-27
- Ebooks make it hard to juggle several open books at once and flip between them2019-11-25
- Commenter loses track and retains less when reading long texts on an eReader2019-09-22
- Desktop e-book readers don't support reliable search and fast navigation2019-09-21
- Default fonts, margins and spacing look bad, forcing hours of manual setup per book2019-08-04
- Ereaders are nearly unusable for flipping around or interactive tasks beyond turning pages forward2019-06-28
- Flattens folder hierarchy and makes users wait while indexing, and renaming or moving files breaks the library2019-02-20
- Ebook readers flatten folder structure and make users wait for indexing2019-02-19
- Long waiting times for indexing; a large book collection breaks the reader2019-02-19
- Finds e-reader menus cumbersome, so avoids touching them2018-10-31