The best piece of technology I’ve bought in years is this funky little e-reader

Normally, I’m not an Electronic Device Evangelist. While I might wax eloquent about a comic or a game, you won’t hear me rave about my new iPad or anything like that. But if someone casually mentions that they’re considering an e-reader and aren’t sure what kind, I’ll bust through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man and ask if they’ve embraced the gospel of Kobo.

For years I thought an e-reader was an unnecessary luxury. I didn’t need to read digital books, I could Real books. There’s a library three blocks from my apartment, and there are two independent bookstores on the way there! And even if I did If I have a digital book, I can read it on my phone — or on the giant iPad Pro that I use to read comics. But now that I have a fancy e-reader, specifically the Kobo Libra, I know what an immediate improvement in quality of life it is.

Take library books for example. A good e-reader will be able to browse, reserve, and check out e-books from your local library right from the device (Kobo’s Overdrive/Libby integration is a bit ricketybut it works). You don’t know joy until you realize you want to read a book, press a few buttons on your e-reader, and grab that entire book from the library right away, knowing it will automatically return itself on its due date. And that’s without the satisfaction of supporting your local library by using the catalog frequently.

The other basic e-reader task that my Kobo excels at is reading comics. Not the digitally colored, magazine-style pamphlets that are standard for American comics — for that, you really need a color tablet. Even E Ink color screens aren’t vibrant enough to display color comics as they really look. But an e-reader’s screen faithfully reproduces the smaller, black-and-white paperback format of manga. With my Kobo and a good library card, I’ve been able to delve into Delicious in Dungeon, Mermaid Sagaand much more, without having to fill my one-bedroom apartment to the brim with books or even open my wallet.

These are both things I would expect from any e-reader, but the Kobo excels in other ways. First, it’s a well-made book reader from a company that not have a decades-long history of exerting monopolistic pressure on the publishing industry. And this is perhaps a less universal interest, but for me and many other friends and colleagues it is the built-in Bag integration that really raises eyebrows.

We’re constantly online, constantly finding articles, links, and sites we want to read but don’t have time for at the moment. For some of us who shall remain nameless, that manifests as hundreds of open browser tabs. Or folders full of bookmarks. Or, for me at least, links sent to the Pocket app — another graveyard of great books. We swear we’ll read them before the heat death of the universe, but then we never do.

But what if the things I throw into Pocket automatically appear on the object I pick up when I want to read something? That means I actually read them. Pocket integration is feasible with e-readers like the Kindle, sure, but it doesn’t come without various hoops and third-party workarounds. Here, it’s a feature that comes right out of the box. And that’s the magic that owning a Kobo has brought into my life.

My desktop and laptop computers do a million different things, as does my iPad. My phone? Don’t even get me started on how many distracting, attention-seeking, necessary things are on my phone. My PlayStation is for games And movies because it’s the only disc player I own. Even my TV has apps!

That’s what really makes me want to look at my Kobo Libra with the same love I would a favorite pet, whether it’s on my nightstand or nestled quietly in my bag. Having a device that’s for One Thing means it can be very carefully designed to do That One Thing.

Take the Libra’s recycled leatherette cover, which—though sold separately—is, to me, absolutely essential to its appeal. The cover has a clever magnetic origami fold that turns it into a stand that works at any angle (while the screen rotates as needed and can be locked into place with a switch on any open page). I’ve also found that the fold in the cover makes for a nice one-handed grip, like a built-in PopSocket (which is saying something, because my hands are so small I buy kid-sized gloves). But most importantly, the cover stand makes for hands-free reading while lying on your side in bed—a bedtime reader’s dream.

These benefits may not be so appealing if you’re already entrenched in another e-reader’s ecosystem and would lose out on a lot of purchases that can’t be ported over from, say, the Kindle Store. And if you’re someone who buys many ebooks, you may decide to stick with your Kindle and retain your access to Prime Day discounts. But if you’re someone who’s just looking to get started in the world of reading books on a device, and have access to a good library or library system, I can’t recommend a Kobo enough.

My little Kobo Libra does a few simple, necessary things. It does them very well, and when I open it, it’s to read and never to do anything else. I don’t have that kind of relationship with almost every other computing device I own, and I enthusiastically encourage you to forge that kind of bond with your own friendly little book-reading device.