To get back to the OP, while text selection has never been great on Kobo, the issue is often exacerbated by poor hardware, be it crappy IR grids (at least for precision work, and that's not limited to Kobo, the original Kindle Touch was painful to use that way, too), or the infamously terrible capacitive grid of the Aura One.
With my admittedly limited panel of devices, the Forma is much less frustrating to use for that purpose than my H2O.
Speaking of Android and third-party apps, I'll remind everyone that KOReader runs pretty neatly on Android now, it's in F-droid, and it might even work on your e-ink Android device, too. And if it doesn't, someone will probably try to help you make it run there, if you're willing to put in some work
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