It really is a nightmare, and even worse when you have to log into a service that doesn’t have a “sign in on another device by entering this one time code” offering, and worse still when you use a password manager and your password is a long string of random characters. In this scenario, I’ve gone so far as to ADB into my device and use adb shell input "whatever I would have had to type on the TV", which somehow feels faster.

My last two devices, the fancy new Chromecast 4K, and then an Nvidia Shield, both use Google’s regular keyboard when it can and is nicer in comparison. Still many streaming apps force you to use the built-in alphabetic keyboards instead of using the one provided by the OS.

Another Kobo Libra 2 user here. In addition what other’s have said about wanting to escape Amazon’s reach, its also pretty open as far as these types of devices go. I use Overdrive (Libby) a lot and it’s integration is pretty nice, though it is certainly not hard to use with a Kindle anyways.

If you like to tinker with your devices, Kobo devices won’t try and stop you from doing so. The following projects give you a lot of customization options to get exactly what you want out of your Kobo:

• KOReader - This also works with a jailbroken Kindle, though it’s much easier to get going on Kobo. Tons of customization options and has very flexible style overrides and lots of plugins.
• Plato is another reader application though only supported for Kobo devices. Does not feature as much customization as KOReader, but does more than the stock reader and has a very nice UI.
• Even if you stick with the stock reader, there are a number of patches you can apply if there are things about the stock software that bug you.