Working with a budget of 200$ max
Damn, that could get you a lot, especially if you're open to the used/refurbished market. Forget about jailbreaking anything, all you need is Calibre.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably go with the Kobo Clara BW. My tiny ass Kindle does just fine though. Just don't like being tied to Amazon because of it. I basically pirate all my stuff so I can't comment on the storefront of each.
I have a Kobo Clara HD, bought reconditioned (or maybe it was open box) and I love it. I use KORrader and have only used the Kobo store once or twice.
The HD was what I was looking at when I ended up with my Kindle. I fell victim to the sunk cost fallacy since I had a few books on Kindle already and didn't know how easy getting books actually was. I went with the new 2022 model Kindle I think. It still does what I need it for and it does it well. I think I've had like 3 reboot relaled issues in the 2 years that I've had it. Open box or refurbished Clara sounds like a great deal though.
IF you end up with an Amazon product I strongly recommend not connecting it to any network, even (/especially) if you never intend to purchase books through their platform. I recently read about some people losing access to massive libraries / collections off their devices after having one suspected pirate copy of something detected remotely on the device.
Anecdotally my housemate gave me her old one and it too got remote-wiped. I get the impression it doesn't happen that often, or we'd see more people complaining about false positive bans and deletions, but yeah.. just be wary of Kindles and any of their convenience features. I know a few people on here use them and like being able to upload via email etc but it's a gamble.
Used/refurbished Kobo. Install KOreader/plato (let me know if you need the link to the tutorial). Download .epubs off annas-archive
I suggest Remarkable 2, because Linux.
Look at pawn shops. They're like 10 bucks.
I second the recommendation of a used/reconditioned or open box Kobo. You should find something nice under/around $100.
Boox or some Android e ink device if you want to read comics and manga using Mihon and web novels. Kobo with koreader otherwise.
Theres always the Samsung A tablets. They go for around $200ish. Entry level no high powered frills tablets with ok color. Open just about any format of stuff. You aren't locked into a single store either.
I bought an old used kindle and jailbroke it. You still need to shop around though because people think selling secondhand means recouping all of their original cost.
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