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The two devices that are closest to me requirements are the Kindle Paperwhite and Onyx Boox T68. As far as meeting the requirements goes:
E ink display: both have one
Supports English text and has English-English dictionary: both have one or two (this condition was only to rule out Japanese ebook readers with poor English support); the one included on T68 is so so and the preinstalled apps have limited compatibility with other dictionaries
Supports Japanese text and has a smart Japanese-English dictionary: possible on Onyx Boox T68 using Jade Reader and should be possible on Kindle Paperwhite with this dictionary (you have to pay for it and it might be unavailable in some countries)
Allows me to load my own (EPUB) files: both, but Kindle doesn't support some formats and those files need to be converted first
Furigana support: might be partially supported on Kindle Paperwhite, but it appears that it interferes with the dictionary (not supporting furigana is not a big deal)
tools to help me learn Japanese: many apps are available on Onyx Boox T68 (you need to switch system font to Roboto as there is no japanese version of DroidSans on the device; some applications will render white text on white background which makes them unusable, but should be hackable); probably there is something on Kindle too (not a big deal either way)
PDF support: both support it
Touchscreen: both have it (it's a little wonky on the T68)
Ability to load (zip compressed) sequences of images: should work on both (see notes below)
Additionally:
Onyx Boox T68 has better resolution and it's slightly bigger
It also runs Android which should give me access to many useful apps (I can even make my own Apps should I need them)
Kindle Paperwhite is cheaper (even if you buy the dictionary) and with some trickery it might be possible to buy Japanese novels and manga
However both have relatively small screens, so reading comic books will probably be not very comfortable (still Onyx Boox T68 is likely to handle those better, due to size and resolution); verified, while doable on T68, the screen feels a bit too small for displaying whole pages (zooming in is slightly annoying due to slow response time of the e ink display)
Kindle Paperwhite 2nd generation has slightly better contrast than Onyx Boox T68 and is generally more responsive in terms of user input; tested Onyx Boox T68 and the contrast is decent
Onyx Boox T68 has audio output (you can use text 2 speech and listen to music) while Kindle Paperwhite does not support that
Details:
I checked if various ebook readers that are on the market can do the things that I want, but most of them can't. The one that is closest to my requirements is Kindle Paprwhite (if I install additional dictionary which I would have to buy, but which might be unavailable in my country), but unfortunately it doesn't support EPUB file (I would have to convert them to MOBI). The reason why most of the devices wont do what I want is because they run on a closed OS. This made me wonder why there are not ebook readers that run Android and...
I read the comment from Tom which put me on right track. Rather than google for ebook readers that do all that I want (which gives poor results), why not google for a E ink Android tablets. I did that right away and I found those two devices: Onyx Boox M96, Onyx Boox T68.
At first I was considering buying Onyx Boox M96, since the display is bigger. However lack of touchscreen (you have to use stylus) and high price turned me off. I'm probably going to buy the smaller Onyx Boox T68 (despite the higher resolution, the smaller screen will probably make reading comic books slightly annoying).
Jade Reader does exactly what I want in terms of Japanese text and it's actually compatible with the Onyx Boox T68. The app could use some improvements (splitting text into pages, the dictionary popup should take into account the position of selected text, now it can shows up always on the bottom of the screen and appear on top of the text you were reading).
Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg
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