A Kindle is a physical device and a tab is a tablet (I initially thought it was browser tab)? My family sat/stepped on two Kindles (crushing the screens to oblivion) growing up and nobody has dared buy another one since; I don't know if it's time to reconsider.

I bought a Kindle for this (programming books and PDFs) but was quickly disappointed

The device itself is pleasant enough

But I should have guessed, the experience for managing any content bought/downloaded from outside Amazon is almost unusable

> the experience for managing any content bought/downloaded from outside Amazon is almost unusable

Not at all.

I buy EPUBs from all kinds of vendors, across multiple languages. I also have many downloaded from Standard Ebooks [0].

All EPUB works fine, and provides great experience- as long as a file does not contain one of the following- custom page illustrations, syntax highlighted code, graphs, charts, maps, math equations, color comicstrip etc.

Just use PDF in tablet or laptop for arxiv papers, math/programming books, etc.

Use Kindle for recreational reading- like novels, poetry, essays, etc. I am a huge fan of reading since basically learning to read. And I love Kindle! Am a user for last ~10 years.

[0]: https://standardebooks.org

the EPUB files work fine

and it's possible to load PDFs on there

my complaint is that the tools for organising and managing the library are crap

Yeah definitely. It's very slow, and the screen refresh rate is sometimes frustrating.

But that is how it manages to hold its charge for a full month!