New e-reader (xteink x4)

First of all, hello corpse hand jumpscare, don't ask me why this image got completely desaturated when I converted it into a webm. I am NOT editing it further, too lazy!

A few months back I started looking for a smaller e-reader. I love my beat up Kobo Libra H2O like you wouldn't believe, but since I've been looking to shed all and any weight from my bag I noticed my kobo is too heavy and bulky to carry around all the time and I needed to go smaller. If I'm wearing one of my smaller bags it also just doesn't fit into them. I do a lot of reading on public transport and outside in general, so I need something small and portable. Libra isn't exactly tablet sized, but it's a medium sized e-reader still, and with extended use I've learned it's too big for me outside of the comfort of my apartment.

The e-reader market has kind of had a resurgence in the past few years, for starters there's been some breakthroughs in the commercial e-ink technology such as colored e-ink. I personally find it unnecessary and I hate that it's driving out my fav kobo black and white readers out of the market (or so I've heard). Some new design choices are also being made, such as seamless glass layers, which makes the readers more sensitive and the lighting different (for better or for worse). This is why I said "kind of" a resurgence, the thing with e-readers is that the e-ink technology from today vs 20 years ago has hardly changed. You could buy one of those neat discontinued mid 2000s Sony e-readers (PRS-505 from 2007!) that are so expensive due to scalpers and hype rn and you'd have a grand old time using them, because they're just as good if not better than the e-readers of today. However, there exists a section of the market that's actually introducing something new and that would be chinese e-readers that run on android Ink OS, essentially making them e-ink phones. They come with tons of features, seem more customizable and most importantly - they come in small sizes! I started exploring my options, and I looked at a couple of contenders such as the Boox Palma, Hisense HiRead and Xiaomi InkPalm. Then I looked at the prices... The thought of spending so much (200+€) on an e-reader, when I paid 20€ for my used Kobo seemed stupid. Even the older versions of these e-readers were still pretty high price wise.

I continued searching a bit more, because I remember seeing some small DIY rudimentary e-readers being made by hobbyists on a few sites and I considered this option because I really wanted something rudimentary, compact and not bloated. I came across an e-reader that has apparently been blowing up in popularity, Xteink X4. The company behind it is new and they just started selling the e-reader 6 months-ish ago.

The e-reader is really tiny - size wise it reminds my of my old Samsung Galaxy Mini (that I had all up until 2016, I miss that little lime green accented brick, it was so ergonomic lol). It doesn't have a touch screen; it relies completely on buttons. YAY! Something that might be a dealbreaker for many is the fact that it has no frontlight, but that doesn't bother me much because I have my home e-reader for night reading if necessary. It comes with 4 front buttons, and 2 side buttons for navigating, and has a usb-c charging port. It also comes with a 32gb micro sd card but I think it's really shitty and I'll have to replace it. Most importantly, it cost me only 60€! You can get it for as low as 40€ if you peruse AliExpress well, but I was lazy and went with their official site. Something else that's really neat is that the devs heavily support flashing and custom firmware, so the cfw side of the community is well maintained and developed despite being so fresh. The original firmware is lacking so everyone suggests to move to the cfw right away and that's what I did. I set up koreader sync and now I can sync between my kobo and X4 (although now that I'm writing this the morning after I got it, I've been having some issues LMAO). I also set up file transferring through a calibre plugin. One downside is that the usb-c port is only meant for charging, but wireless file transfer is made really simple with the cfw called crosspoint, or you can use the micro sd usb card reader that comes with the e-reader.

There's also sleep wallpapers and you can set up them to cycle between multiple images which is cute and necessary. AND it has a charm strap. It doesn't have any fancy features, but this is all I needed, and I'm so happy with it. I just got it today and spent most of the day setting everything up (including stuff on my Kobo because I never bothered connecting it to the Internet before lol...) so I've only read about 30 pages, but I've got no complaints so far. In a couple of weeks/months I'll make a proper update on how good it is for actual reading but considering this reader has everything I like and doesn't have anything I dislike feature wise I don't think I'll be overly disappointed lmao.

There's also a lot of gadgets associated with it, like magnetic stickers that allow you to stick it to the back of your phone, little magnetic frontlights, clip on frontlights, it can all be bought for pretty low prices on your usual sites like aliexpress.

Also, notice the size difference between the x4 and my samsung s23 plus, both with their covers on.

One disclaimer I'd like to give if you're thinking of ordering is that they're frequently out of stock, and Chinese New Year made them fall behind on orders at the moment, so it might take a while for the delivery. There's also two subreddits for the ereader, r/xteink and r/xteinkereader, the latter of which is larger and led by the actual company. There's been some complaints that they delete bad reviews or something which created the need for the former subreddit but usually the type of complaint/issue people seem to have is delivery taking too long, their site not really having well integrated delivery tracking/slow support or someone's ereader getting damaged during delivery, so in my opinion nothing too scathing. I lurked the official subreddit for a while and I can say they do let people discuss things critically but sometimes a post will mysteriously disappear a few weeks in. It's good that there's an alternate subreddit, I'm not a fan of company led subreddits lmao.

Lastly, here's some horrible comparison images between the X4 and Kobo Libra h2o, the lack of natural light in my room in the morning is horrible but the parts that got focused on look clear enough to be able to distinguish the differences I guess. First image is my usual reading setup on kobo with inverted colors and a frontlight, and the second image is with those things turned off to mimic X4's screen setting. Click on the images to see them in full size! I might retake these later if I'm feeling inspired...