The wireless page-turning Kobo Remote is an absolute piece of junk. It’s made of not one but two of the worst kind of plastics you can hold — a sweat-inducing smooth polycarbonate on top and a grime-attracting grainy PET on the bottom. From the way the parts are assembled to the type of button switches used, everything seems to have been done to maximize flimsiness and creakiness. Judging by the size of its logo, Rakuten Kobo is incredibly proud of this €29.99 study in penny-pinching.

The remote is a bit small (10 × 3 × 2.25 cm) for my big hands, but the main button seems to have been modelled on my thumb. The overall shape is atrocious, though. You either nestle your index finger around the “ergonomic” divot in the back, in which case you have to overextend your thumb to press the button, or you squeeze the button in between your thumb and index finger, in which case the divot is in the way.

I’m convinced the remote has been designed around the battery compartment instead of, you know, an actual human hand. At least it uses a single AAA battery that’s supposed to be removable… if you can open the incredibly tight battery door. But you know what? In spite of everything, i found the Kobo Remote to be the perfect companion for my Kobo Libra Colour.

Once it’s paired, it reconnects in a fraction of a second and can even wake the e-reader with the press of a button. On the train or in bed, i prop up the Libra Colour with its SleepCover and then can read in pretty much any position without straining my hands. I’ve got into the habit of simply dropping the remote when i need to grab something else and let it dangle from its wrist strap.

It’s made me acutely aware of the way that my hands influence my reading — i prefer softcovers over hardbacks, e-readers over softcovers, e-readers with buttons over e-readers with touchscreens, and now e-readers with wireless remotes over e-readers with buttons. The Kobo Remote might be an absolute piece of junk, but i dearly missed it when i forgot to pack it on this week’s work trip.

Movies

Superman by James Gunn. Superman has always been a superficial hero. He’s too alien to pass as an undocumented immigrant; too messianic to function as an exemplar; too red, white, and blue to have a consistent set of ethics; and even his biggest weakness is too neat (and too external) to have any moral significance. But at least he was something. James Gunn has robbed him of everything – backstory, personality, motivation, the tiniest shred of common sense – and made him a mere casualty in the launch of the umpteenth reboot of the comically bad DC cinematic universe. Woof.

Things

Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 3. Speaking of my work-provided “beast of a laptop”… David Hill has been a faithful steward of Richard Sapper’s original design, and in the ten years since he left Lenovo, not much has changed. Nothing looks like a ThinkPad except for another ThinkPad, and if i have to work on a PC, i’m not mad that it’s a ThinkPad. The build quality is excellent, the screen is fine for the price, the trackpad is more than decent, and most of all, the keyboard is outstanding.

It would be a perfectly good laptop… if Intel and Microsoft hadn’t fallen so far behind in energy management. Windows keeps such a tight leash on the Intel Ultra 7 155H chip that, most of the time, this “beast of a laptop” feels slower than the slowest of smartphones. Even after tweaking every energy setting i could find, i have to use a 4K monitor to make sure the Nvidia RTX 500 graphics card kicks in and more power flows through the system. What a shame.