Assuming that the device has an up-to-date browser available for it. And today, that usually requires having a multi-MHz multi-core processor and GiBs of memory. No matter how lean your actual application/website is.
I have a stack of E-Ink readers, all in terrific condition. My favorite is the B&N Nook Glowlight 3. When it was new just about five years ago, I could install a web browser on it via ADB and it would work reasonably well. Today, all the browsers are bloated beyond installable and usable.
I feel your pain, though I blame the websites more than the browsers. I can run full firefox on my OG pinephone as long as the sites I visit aren't running a pile of JS lunacy.
My Onyx Boox runs Firefox happily too, but for that and the pinephone I'd recommend trying out a Gemini browser (there are several on fdroid). It's lacking plenty, but has an old-web feel, no sites are slow, and you can handily use it on old devices.
> I feel your pain, though I blame the websites more than the browsers.
I blame the standards organizations.
I love the Boox devices as well. My Note Air 2 Plus is almost two years old, it is a terrific machine. I'd love to know what your use cases are. I mostly use it for taking notes and reading - including on the web - but I'm rather unhappy with most browsers on it including Firefox. For one thing, Firefox on Android has almost no keyboard support.
Oh yes, I think the web standards orgs are culpable (especially W3C) for not making it fast and simple to implement the features PHBs demand. This is surely in spite of the good people working on their behalf, and more a sad molochian consequence of regulatory capture big big adtech.
My Boox Color 7 was originally bought for terminal work and I connect it to my bluetooth keyboard and use tailscale and termux to make it a nice e-ink "dumb terminal". It's also nice for reading books on, and downloading said books (though I miss Kindle's email transfer method). I did try watching a YouTube video on it once, the result was almost watchable and far better than expected.
> Assuming that the device has an up-to-date browser available for it.
Not necessarily. You can target older devices with old browsers if you want, by carefully choosing JS/CSS versions and features, or just by making sure your code degrades gracefully.
The older browsers that would run on these devices have known exploitable security issues. The newer browsers are very heavy because they support navy features and expect that the hardware is newer.
The problems begin accruing before the user even types in your URL.
I have a stack of E-Ink readers, all in terrific condition. My favorite is the B&N Nook Glowlight 3. When it was new just about five years ago, I could install a web browser on it via ADB and it would work reasonably well. Today, all the browsers are bloated beyond installable and usable.