> I hadn't heard of the Pinenote before looking at your comment, so I looked at the site and saw some things that made it seem unfit for purpose as an ereader. I made my comment because I was interested in hearing your impressions if you were using it as a daily driver.

I updated my original comment to include some more personal blogs with first-hand accounts. They're not mine but worth linking to for others!

I haven't bought a PineNote yet, but it's probably going to be my choice for that size of Tablet. I opted for a Xteink instead and have been very happy with it.

> Personally I view stuff like this as a nice-to-have, not a must-have. If it means I can't have an interface where I can buy books and then download them to my ereader, or I can't have an iphone app where I can read books and have my progress synced between my ereader and my phone, or it's unstable, or the battery life isn't good, then I would rather go with the Kobo. I understand that different people have different priorities, but those are mine. Stuff like this is why I'm interested in hearing more detailed information about what exactly the tradeoffs are for going with something like the Pinenote.

I agree that there are certainly a lot of sharp edges to less supported platforms. I just think I'd rather get a Boox (and deal with Android/Graphene) or PineNote over the Kobo over the long term. Then again, my usage of very simple -- maybe I just don't read as much/depend as much on the ereader to the extent that others do!

> I think you can still sideload KOReader on them, but that's a shame that they're making it harder to replace the stock OS entirely. I hadn't heard about that prior to now so thanks for bringing that up. I only have a Sage I bought a few years ago.

Ah yes, AFAICT what you're saying is correct -- sideloading apps is not an issue as far as I could find, it was just the inability to have custom firmware/OS.

I was very disappointed in this, and I generally see it as a step towards locking down that will only continue. Would love to be wrong though as I was very very convinced I wanted a Kobo Libra Color earlier).

People that are happy with the Kobos as they are (and the bundled software/services) I'm sure will be happy to keep buying though, I think the market is certainly big enough for that!