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I prefer physical books in general because I love the feeling of turning paper pages. However, when it involves language learning, Iāve grown to prefer using my Kindle Paperwhite.
Screen display
I tried to use my iPad or a Kindle fire for ebooks, but the screensā lights feel to harsh for me, even when using dark mode. (I do sometimes use my Kindle fire for reading ebooks in English). When reading a physical book, I have to either sit in a place where the light hits the pages in the right direction instead of casting a shadow, or place a lamplight directly above me. This doesnāt always work out when I want to lay back on my sofa and read. With the Kindle, I can essentially read anywhere regardless of the amount of light.
Looking up definitions
I found it takes less time for me to complete a novel using my Kindle because I donāt have to open up my phoneās dictionary app to search for a word. Even though there is a bit of a lag when highlighting words and looking up their definition in the Kindle interface, it still takes me less time than looking up on my phone.
Convenience
My Kindle fits in the front pocket of my small crossbody purse because of its slim size. Even the small paperback books I have wonāt fit in it. (When I do read a physical book, I carry it in my backpack). And because the Kindle itself can hold many more digital books, I have more options to read in one device vs one physical book.
Perhaps as I learn more vocabulary and kanji, I will reach a point where I can read more physical books. I still buy them 
If Iām sitting down at a desk/coffee shop table, I do try to make an effort to read physical books.
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Sorry to revive an old thread but I only ever buy physical copies of books. The only times I read digitally is if I can get the book for free like Aozora or something similar. Maybe itās an old fashioned way of thonking of things but I just donāt see the point in paying for digital books. I like being free to carry them around where I canāt have devices, write on them, gift them freely, etc. Also, the feeling of buying a bunch of new books and flipping through them is unmatched. Iām not happy about the idea that companies can take away all your books if theyāre digital as well.
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There are ways around this 
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Iāve heard about that, but arenāt a lot of companies cracking down on that anyways? It seems like such a headache compared to actually owning a physical object that is all yours.
Some are, some arenāt. And their lock downs tend to eventually get cracked if itās thereās a large enough interest.
Physical objects are nice, but they can be inconvenient in their own ways. I live in a small apartment and move every few years - I have to be very picky about what physical books I keep and every new one I bring home I have to consider if I have space for it.
I still own too many books, physical and digital 
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I can give you multiple 
- space & weight (if you are travelling or planning to move, this quickly becomes an issue)
- price (just like my own country, japan has fixed book prices, however kindle unlimited, bookwalker coins, ā¦ exist and circumvent that)
- ease of looking things up (within a split second)
- ease of taking notes/saving things for later/adding to anki (it takes me about 1 second to add a word with itās definition/translation and the sentence I encountered it in to my anki deck, if I so wish)
I do like physical books and I still buy them when I am in Japan and have access to used books but everything else is ebooks (and audiobooks).
I think my appreciation of e-documents started when I was at university (before ebooks where even a thing, but e-journals already existed) and I fell in love with the ease of searching and accessing journals online and saving screenshots of relevant passages, etc. vs. looking through tons of physical publications for those 2 lines of relevant information, then copying those pages (which cost money), so you could reference it later etc. And if you are a nightowl, too bad, because the library is closed.
Even with German or English, I rarely ever buy a physical book nowadays. Most of my reading comes from the digital offerings of my libraries. It has saved me so much money and space - and time. 
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I pretty much only read physical books, mostly because I donāt feel like breaking four decade old habits 
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Yeah, I suppose physical space could become an issue. I guess Iām pretty privileged in that regard, as Iāve never really had to consider it when book shopping. I donāt really agree on your other points though, Iām fine with paying more for a physical printed book and I just donāt really get the fascination with ebooks. Also, I feel like printed books are better for note taking because you can write on/highlight them easily, but I donāt Anki or anything so I donāt know what thatās like.
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I bought used copies and new copies of some series where I intended to do that, but I still cringed writing on the book itself, so in the end I moved to digital note taking.
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Throwing my hat into the ring.
I prefer digital books, both in English and Japanese for their ease of access. If I have my phone (and I always have my phone) I have my books.
I think I enjoy the experience of reading a physical book more, but only slightly. There are also a number of studies that show that thereās better comprehension and retention on physical media (although I wonder if that will continue to be true for Gen Z and Alpha, a lot of whom will be electronic-first readers). That said, to me the best way to read is the way that gets you to read the most, and that for me is digitally. I literally have an IKEA Billy bookcase full of Japanese books and Iāve read maybe 1/10 of them. Outside of free manga volumes I got from online stores Iāve read (or at least tried and determined it was too hard or too boring) all of my digital books.
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I prefer physical for manga because the image quality on digital is still hit or miss, depending on the publisher. That said, I still buy a lot of manga digitally due to discounts and other factors. For actual novels I exclusively read ebooks for convenience. I switched to that several years ago and donāt expect to switch back to physical any time soon.
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I read almost exclusively on my phone Fire tablet. Bookwalker for novels, Kindle for manga. Iād like to own more physical books, but theyāre more expensive (shipping) and take longer to get. Additionally itās harder to do lookups (more of an issue with novels than manga). Tablet is easier for me to focus on, and I prefer the white background.
For magazines Iād get physical, if they have some sort of bonus (I havenāt gotten any yet).
Iāll use a physical book if itās something that doesnāt require a lot of lookups, or Iām reading along to the audiobook. Thereās something nice about not staring at a screen. I hope one day Iāll have enough vocab that Iāll be able to read physical media comfortably
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For the beginning I prefer physical books as I like to get having a collection with good books that I can look at. And surely I will purchase some in the future that I regard worth having in physical shape.
I have to admit Iām not used to read with my kindle reader in Japanese yet and my translators donāt even seem to work properly thatās why I donāt begin getting e-books I guess. And I also dont necessarily want to purchase via Amazon.Jp which makes it hard to get some. But in the end I would like to read via e-reader if possible.
I imagine it a smart way of reading especially if there are unknown kanjis of which there are a lot.
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Once you are used to yomichan, itās hard to go back. 
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I used to be hardcore physical only, then I had to move my entire library. Now Iām paring down as much as I can bear to, lol.
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Yomichan is for Kindle as well? I only know it as an extension for browsers. 
no, kindle has itās own pop-up dictionary, which I canāt comment on.
But you can use yomichan with android tablets, if you have epubs (and you can make kindle files into epubs - though itās legally a bit of a grey area.)
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Oh I see. Thank you for the hint.
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You can also get Kiwi browser (I think thatās the name), which lets you install extensions
