The problem with the e-Ink tablets

I’ve had my eye on e-Ink table for awhile. I’d something a bit less locked down than a Kindle, that I’d mostly use for reading and notes. Being able to pop online to look things up is nice. Access to my RSS feeds, read later, and email are nice touches that a Kindle simply doesn’t offer.

The problem is that all of the possible candidates are made in China by Chinese brands.

From Chuck’s review of his Hisense A7:

After my initial excitement subsided, I quickly realized that that the device is filled to the brim with bloatware and spyware. I can honestly say that the out-of-the-box experience is worse than a stock carrier-issued Samsung device. It regularly pings Chinese servers like qq.com (a massive Chinese tech company) and taobao.com (the Chinese equivalent of Amazon.com). Despite ripping out as much of the pre-installed garbage and some sketchy system applications via adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 [application name], these pings persisted. After several hours of tinkering, I eventually determined that they’re actually occurring at a system/root level (thanks to the network monitor application PCAPdroid). Rooting could be part of the solution here, but although progress has been made, it looks like a difficult process.

No thanks.

Yes, you can argue that Western devices have their own layers of spyware. But there’s a categorical difference to owning a device that’s part of the Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran axis.