Kobo Libra H2O Review

I bought a Kobo Libra H2O e-reader last week. Here is a short review.

The good,

• The 7 inch 300 ppi screen is very sharp.
  
• It has front light with adjustable color temp. The illumination is even.
  
• It has physical page turn buttons.
  
• The system is hackable. I installed KOReader on it.
• It supports OverDrive, allowing me to borrow books from libraries.
• It supports Pocket. I can save web pages and read them on the e-reader.
  
• The US Kobo book store has many Chinese books.
  

The bad,

• Micro USB connector should be replaced with USB-C.
  
• No Chinese dictionary.
• It does not synchronize with DropBox like Kobo Forma. But there is a open source solution.
  
• No built-in Chinese fonts. I installed some myself.
  
• Sometimes I cannot highlight a sentence. The highlight always stops half way.
  
• It does not have an ambient light sensor. But I can adjust the brightness by swiping the left screen edge.
• It sends data to Google Analytics automatically. We can change the /etc/hosts file to block Google Analytics.
  

I think the Kobo Libra H2O beats the Kindle paperwhite. They are in the same 130 USD price range. But the Kobo has a larger screen, physical buttons, and much better front light.

Remarkable 2 Tablet Review

I acquired a Remarkable 2 tablet in Oct 2020. However I sold it last week. Here is my view on the tablet.

Things I like,

• It is sturdy while thin and light.
• It has a long battery life (> 1 week).
• It supports many wacom EMR pens.
• The note taker interface is intuitive and responsive.
• The stylus lag is minimal (~20 ms). 
• It is very hackable. SSH is on by default with a random strong password.

Things I do not like,

• It has no front light. So the screen contrast is low. This is my biggest complaint.
  
• It relies too much on the cloud. The USB web UI is almost useless.
• It does not have built-in CJK fonts. 
• While it supports PDF and ePub, the features are very limited. However, KOReader is available on it.
• I had the book folio. But the tablet won't sleep when I close the cover. 
• The marker's tip is a bit thick, which is okay for writing in English, but not in Chinese.
• It does not rotate the display automatically.