Haha, I guess the smell in books is unforgettable when you open it up anytime! :D

The key for me is readability, and the physical aspect.

I have many physical books where the publisher &/or printer should have been shot, because the print size is too small or too faint or just a bad font.

Physical books can be a chore to keep open without damaging them (paperback) or too heavy if a hard cover, especially as you get older and weaker.

There can be size, liquid, lighting and other issues.

I have read books with publishing or editing errors. These cannot be fixed in a physical book, and in many cases are detected by early readers and fixed with an update as an ebook. Hell, I have had entire paragraphs or even pages missing. I have even edited ebooks I had some issue with, so you can be an editor and correct things yourself.

Then there is storage and transportation, especially on holiday. And while I love my many bookcases of books, I began to realize it was smarter to downsize by buying ebooks instead.

You also get options like dictionary lookup and bookmarking that are so much simpler in an ebook. Not to mention searching by word or words. You can even capture bits of text to share. Ebooks can be much better for research.

And depending on your device, you can enlarge images in an ebook or use links to the web etc.

If stuck somewhere with my phone, I can use it to continue reading my ebook, even though my ereader device is at home. I can also bring up something from my ebook on my phone to show someone while I'm out and about. It is useful even just to recall the name of the author and book title or another one you read recently or some time ago.

And my wife and I even sometimes read the same ebook at the same time ... different devices and copies of course. Even my mother sometimes gets in on the act and three of us are reading the same story simultaneously.

Beyond that, and I've probably forgotten a few aspects, I have just grown to like the ease of use of my E-Ink Readers, prefer them even, for speed, comfort and page turning. No need to ever squint either or read poorly lit.

True and of course you get the gamut between good and bad smells, as unfortunately paper can absorb bad odors too.

I always buy a good cover for my ereaders, even my tablets. Generally some nice smelling leather or leather seeming cover. I also like that feel ... quite biblical at times ... not that I am religious anymore, but that was always one of the good things about a bible, a decent one anyway.

I wouldn't say I "prefer" ebooks to printed books.
As a matter of fact, nothing beats the haptics of a real printed book, cracking it up for the first time, how that new paper and ink smells, etc.,...

It's just that ebooks are more convenient.
You can carry around hundreds, if not thousands of ebooks with you - wherever you go.
Try doing that with printed books. Heck, try it with just a dozen books.

Also: I'm a German, and love to read books in English...but sometimes I stumble over english words, that I've never heard before - my ereader translates these words for me.
It's also connected online to wiki.
Plus: reading in the dark.
Changing the font size.
All very comfortable features.

they add in drugs to make you addict to that smell

I am not sure that is true anymore, as a lot of books remain out-of-print but are available as an ebook somewhere. Printing costs are expensive.

Yep, price of an ereader or even tablet, which is at least multi-purpose, needs to be factored in. Also another reason why we should punish those publishers who overcharge for ebooks, like so many do, especially the big ones. They of course often finance other things due to the outrageous ebook profits they make, sometimes just the losses on the physical books they provide which is morally and ethically wrong.

In reality, we should see the cost savings from ebooks being passed onto the reader and also encouraging the uptake of E-Ink readers, which is a technology that needs greater support, especially now that so many are happy to just use an iPad, tablet or phone for an inferior reading experience. The way things are going, E-Ink will become an even more expensive niche and supported less ... perhaps something just the rich can afford before too long.

If not for tablets, I truly believe we would have a color E-Ink reader by now. It's a fabulous low power demand technology, that could be extended beyond ebooks.

Thank you to all who replied to my questions, I see many are in the center lane of actually using both ebooks and physical since each has their own useful traits for different times! :)

I used to like print - i still have a large bookshelf, filled with both paper and hard back.

I've found myself shifting to ebooks as I (pre-Covid) travel a lot, and it's great to have my whole library with me. I also love the ability to search the ebook for a specific quote or phrase. Finally, my e-reader is easier and lighter to use when compared to large, heavy novels, especially when reading in bed.
https://printsbery.com/digital-planners/goal

Yep. My wife, also named Paula by the way, says the same thing and now mostly uses a small Kobo ereader or a Samsung tablet to do her reading. She regular borrows an ebook from our local library too.

Being in her 60s now, she can get aching wrists when reading in bed, even with an ereader or tablet, but worse with a largish physical book, and often it is related to having to physically keep the book open while reading ... especially when reading for long periods of time. She is reading a lot more these days.

I think I found out how to search for either DRM free or DRM'd comics in DLsite.

Open a random comic that has the format (s) you want. So far I only saw JPEG, PDF and "Specialized Viewer" (first two DRM free, last one DRM), but there could be more formats.

Then look for the format you want in the product description. It'll be to the right of "File format" if you're using the site in English.

When you find it, click on it and you'll be taken to the products list page, but with a hidden (?) filter for the product type you're looking for activated.

EDIT:

It seems there's a more consistent way to look for such formats.

Open the category you want (they're all listed in DLsite's index page), then click in the "advanced search" button to the right of the search bar.

In the page that opens, you can filter, among other things, the file format.

The only one I can't see being listed is the "specialized viewer" format, the ebook DRM DLsite uses.

Amazon.
I'm not kidding.
I recently found out, that some ebooks on Amazon are DRM-free - on request of the publisher(s).

I don't think there's an option to filter DRM-free books on Amazon, so you have to look out for a message like (paraphrase) "This book is available DRM-free on Amazon, due to the request of the publisher."

Huh. And, judging by the date of these discussions, it's not a new thing at all. Of course, also considering that date, any information listed there about those external methods is likely very much outdated.

All the digital books I get are from Project Gutenberg so...I don't really know.

With regards to the ebook vs physical book thing: I'm not the biggest reader, but I have a hard time reading books on a computer or a tablet. Holding the physical thing is just easier reading. That also translates to proofreading things I've written, just easier to spot things on the physical page.

It is my understanding that DRM free on Amazon only means no simultaneous usage restrictions, and that all Amazon ebooks still have Amazon encryption/DRM, and therefore they cannot be converted to other formats, so can only be read on Amazon devices.

That's not true. On my PC, I had no problems opening ebooks marked by Amazon as DRM-free at publisher's request. Admittedly, I only have a couple of those.