Xteink X4; My impressions after two months
Overall Impression
It's been a bit more than two months since I got my Xteink X4 and I finished 3 books on it that I'm a bit slow on reviewing. As a device, it's everything I needed and it's really perfect. I use it both when I'm at home and when I'm outside, but I still use my kobo libra h20 for comfy book reading with a Bluetooth page turner or when I'm reading manga due to its size. Both devices cover all my reading needs and getting the xteink definitely increased my reading times.
Firmware
I'm not interested in frequent firmware shopping but I swapped to a firmware called crossink which is a fork of the largest and most popular crosspoint firmware. I swapped for two reasons, I like the fonts more and it's got reading stats.
Do I recommend it
I'm not sure if I can recommend buying it as it is at the moment. Sadly, right after I got my xteink the subreddit got flooded with people posting about their xteinks arriving with broken screens. Yes each word in that sentence is a different link. It seems like a manufacturing issue that applies pressure to a specific point on the screen which causes it to crack/break in the same exact place every time. Furthermore, instead of the official xteink representatives in the official subreddit taking note of it or acknowledging it, they suddenly started locking firmware and disabling flashing with no notice. Excerpt from this customer service message:
Previously, we noticed that some users who tried using third-party firmware encountered problems such as poor optimization, frequent crashes, and even screen damage. Some users who later reverted to the official firmware experienced issues like being unable to access reading records, Wi-Fi records not opening, and the book transfer page failing to launch, and subsequently applied for official repairs.
It came across as them blaming the customers for the broken screens, when that is clearly not the case. After some subsequent drama in the subreddit the xteink representatives clarified that only Chinese devices on aliexpress or taobao and other platforms will be locked, as a way of preventing people of taking advantage of the deals these sites provide, and in hopes of pushing sales towards their official site, basically. I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the post where they state that lmao.
Jailbreaking software came out pretty much right away so that's not an issue, and the warranty for this device is ridiculously short so it's not like there's anything to worry about there anyway, adding to that, international devices are apparently not locked. However with this weird direction the company took I can't really say they're reliable or dependable, and who knows what'll happen in the upcoming weeks. The favor of the community has been more or less restored now that the official xteink mods have clarified some things but overall it was kind of a dick move, especially the screen damage comment. Worth noting that customer service comment came from the... Taobao shop? So maybe it's not as official and the company itself can't be fully blamed for it.
The device is cheap so if you want to risk it... go ahead. I know I would've been super apprehensive had I not ordered the device and saw all of this happening lol. It doesn't seem like there's many similar devices on the market at the moment, xteink is really the only one filling this niche of cheap, small and basic ereaders, although even they are looking to expand onto the android ereader market with the newest xteink s4, which hopefully doesn't mean that they'll shelf the x3 and x4... It's a bit of a chaotic situation with things changing rapidly, which is why I can't 10000% recommend it and say "you'll get a functioning product" lmao. For what it's worth, the posts regarding the broken screen stopped being as frequent, so hopefully that has been fixed? Lastly, it seems like the broken screen is an issue tied to the X4, and not the smaller X3, so that would be the safer choice. If you're desperate for such a device, I advise on waiting a couple more months and seeing how things develop!