> I had a rather frustrating time setting up the damn device – it’s annoying to have to connect to wifi, make a Kobo account, make an Overdrive account, and search for books with a terrible response time to text input, and it’s especially annoying when you enter the wrong wifi password multiple times and end up restarting the device because you’re so convinced you have the right password before finally realizing your mistake.
The best advice I can give for the Kobo is to use all of the functions not directly related to reading as little as possible. By that I mean, don't try to search the Kobo store on the Kobo: search on the website or on the smartphone app, and just send the books to the Kobo automatically when you buy them. Don't try to search the library on the Kobo: search with the smartphone Libby app and let the Kobo sync them over when you check one out. Don't try to read Wikipedia articles directly in the Kobo's experimental browser: add the wiki articles you want to read to Pocket and sync them over.
The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. I minimize the time I spend "browsing" on it via the methods described above, and I have a much more enjoyable experience.
> The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device.
Sounds like a feature to me - perfect!
Apparently these days you can release a half-baked product and get away with it by saying "the obvious lack of features is so that you can have a focused, distraction-free experience!" or something similar.
> the obvious lack of features is so that you can have a focused, distraction-free experience
This means the device is more of an appliance than a general computing device.
A good example is a reMarkable 2. It is a solid, well-designed digital version of a paper notebook. (I will add paper notebooks aren't searchable.)
Yes, anything else, including search, is bolted on but the core experience it was designed for isn't half-baked.
Actually, reMarkable is _precisely_ what I had in mind. Distraction-free is just an excuse for obviously unfinished software; just go and see which con most reviews agree on.
The hardware is quite capable, but held back by the software.
Show me a general purpose computing device, like you are seem to be insisting every device should be, that has a month or more of battery life despite moderate to heavy usage, yet weighs as little and is as thin as the reMarkable. Products necessarily have trade-offs due to current technology limitations, so it's not just about "excuses".
It's not a technology limitation to withhold root access from the user.
Instead of it being "excuses for limiting features because of poor software" it's "withholding root access" now? So we are shifting goal posts?
I'm not the GP but you mentioned general purpose computing device. All of these devices are general purpose computing devices in terms of the offered hardware and even the underlying software, the only thing stopping you from doing general purpose compute is the fact you aren't allowed to have root access to what is probably some unix OS running on the device. Imagine being able write your own scripts to run on your remarkable tablet and build your own features tailored to your own use cases, just like any laptop today. The only limitation is corporate policy rather than hardware or even software, both of these are capable of general purpose compute already.
You have actual root access to a reMarkable device by SSHing into it, so not sure your point here? Were you thinking it was a device locked down like an Apple product?
More details: https://github.com/reHackable/awesome-reMarkable