[hpulley]

My wife is NOT tech savvy but she uses it fine. I am here for support when needed of course. Her Windows laptop needs a lot of support but I think this is expected of Windows but not a tablet and certainly not an ereader.

It is hard to second guess Kobo on their design decisions without knowing their requirements and constraints but I would have designed it differently, that is for sure. People need toaster simplicity so I would preload a working OS and 20 free books and games, app titles and have it ask on initial boot up: do you have a Kobo account? Do you want to make a Kobo account? Or do you just want to read something? If there is no wifi available or the server is unavailable you could still read a book or play Angry birds which means a good xmas morning out of box experience. You could set up wifi and do updates later, optionally. Perhaps there wasn't time to get the software ready before manufacturing started, the schedule may have been too tight, I am in the biz so I know it is way harder and more complicated than it sounds. They send Mars landers to space before the landing software is done and I guess xmas is almost as hard a date as the launch schedule but it is a risky way to ship.

Nowadays with this class of device people need it toaster simple or back it goes... Future Shop is no hassle so they don't care, exchange or return? Return it is... thank you for choosing Futureshop.