Oh yeah definitely. It’s a slow EInk Android tablet on a very old version of Android. If you need more than just an EReader it’s the only reputable brand.

I don’t think you’ve used anything but a Boox in a long time, and have forgotten what the standard is. Boox has 1/10 the battery life, takes forever to wake up, and doesn’t support deep sleep properly (so it either drains battery when sitting idle, or shuts off entirely taking 5+ minutes to power back on). It’s decent hardware with very badly designed software. Neither Kobo or Kindle devices have these problems, they have battery that actually lasts, deep sleep when idle for any length of time, and power back up, even from deep sleep in 10 seconds or less.

For me? Basic functionality. Even the Pixel 9 Pro is laggy as hell just opening apps like Garmin. God forbid I try to use the browser for anything. And that’s a flagship phone.

I know it’s the crazy badly designed apps, but I can’t change that. What I can change is a phone that can run them.

Also, it’s nice to be able to occasionally take a picture that’s not completely washed out and looks like it was taken with a pre-OG Razer flip phone. No joke, I have pictures from that old flip phone 120x120 pixel screen!) from 20 years ago that look better than what came off the mid range phones I’ve tried in the last few years. I’m confident it’s just poor implementation of much more capable hardware, but it doesnt change the fact that I can’t even expect to use it for the most basic of functions.

I’m willing to settle for having to buy a google pixel for instance (which is always a 2 year old design by the time it’s released), and wait a bit before it’s supported, but I’m never interested in a mid-range device. I dont care how much I support your mission, I’ll throw a couple hundred at you as a donation before I even consider that. And that’s assuming I’m buying the device at mid-range price. It’s out of the question that I’d ever pay flagship prices for it.

Let me know when you have something that’s closer to a 3 year old flagship and we’ll talk, otherwise stop throwing your time and money at making a phone for a market that doesn’t exist.

I’ll never understand why privacy companies do this: sell a thoroughly mid-range phone for a flagship price. The privacy OS market in my experience is largely either tech nerds with enough cash to splash out on a new/second unnecessary device just so they can play around with trying to get the new OS working for themselves, until it eventually becomes their daily driver, or poor students who got a beat up phone from their friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s ex-girlfriend’s roommate and are slapping this alternative OS on it to use as their main with all consequences be damned. Obviously there are people in the middle there, but tjoses eem to be the two primary groups. So the bulk of people you’re selling to are those who want a higher end phone primarily, and probably would be willing to pay for it. Instead, they make a mid-range device that has low margins, often in small quantities because they throw in some niche feature that costs a ton to add to the existing design like a hardware kill switch, and then charge flagship phone prices for a mid-range device.