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The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
61–70 of 193 posts
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#62been using on the back of my phone for a few months, my most satisfying hardware purchase in a long time
what phone does it fit on? I have the X3 coming today for this very reason. The x4 is just too big and the magnets misplaced to fit on any phone I own
iPhone pro max, fits nicely even with a cover, i also have a x3 but slightly prefer the bigger screen of x4’s but portability on is the read deal
Just seeing it act as a trigger to read for me, especially when book cover as standby background
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#63I have one of these and they're great. If you get one though, you really do need to convert to XTC for not terribly jagged glyphs -- https://x4converter.rho.sh/
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#64Oh it comes with custom firmware? This is very interesting. I would love to be able to modify some UX and I am sorry, but I need to get the following out of my head. All the e-readers I have had have made it impossible to turn off features like: 1. Selection highlighting... I never use highlighting when reading fiction, but whenever I am not careful enough when turning a page, it'll go crazy with highlighting. Flashi…
The X4 doesn't have a touch screen, so you're safe on those points. The next iteration will do though, although I think you will be able to turn it off in the reader view.
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to see a phone case which this inserts into --- bonus points if there's a way to use it as a status display for the phone for use in bright/direct sunlight.
The obvious innovation is to just make the back of the phone case an eInk display. No need for all the bulk when you can merely have an app on your phone that controls the case-display and the phone can output whatever reader app you want to it like a companion/IoT device. Or it can be a little bit bulkier and just be a dedicated ereader that is shaped like a phone case. Either way works.
The phone case idea would be nice, but then the device has to be replaced when the phone is replaced.
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#66I've looked at this device and I wonder how good the layout engine is. Screenshots never show text with any hyphenation going on which makes me wonder if it even supports hyphenation. One of the images on the Amazon page for the reader has somebody holding one beside their laptop and if you look at the screen, it looks terrible. There are even words jammed together ("would be most suitable forthe job"). I love that i…
The layout engine is limited. It does flow text quite well, but when I had mine (the screen broke a few months ago) I was working on adding more features to the rendering engine.
It's easy to write a HTML & CSS layout engine to support most of the epub spec, but hard to do it well on such a constrained chip. Even things like nested lists and inline code snippets are a challenge.
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#67I love my X3. I glued its magnetic folio to the back of my Apple Wallet. It turned out perfectly, for me. Pictures below. I've read The Odyssey and several other shorter books on it and have yet to recharge it.
- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCStWYAAOj6f?format=jpg&name=...
- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCO8WIAASMEn?format=jpg&name=...
- https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCPEXgAE3O4z?format=jpg&name=...
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you on every bit. I love my Kobo Libra 2 and it lives on my nightstand table. It's an excellent reader. The X4 with CrossPoint is an alright reader, but I've been chewing through books on my morning commute because it fits in my jacket pocket and I can have it out on the train without bumping into other people. It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment when I'm…
> It's not the best reader I own, but it's the best reader I have on me at any given moment This. The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader. The battery lasts for weeks. It is so open that you could probably write your own firmware for it based on CrossPoint or similar for your own needs. Needs some iterative development while ruthlessly culling requests for random features.
> The form factor is almost the right one for an e-reader.
It truly is. It fits perfectly in one hand without stretching uncomfortably, so I can hold it for longer than any reading session I've had without making my hand get stiff. While holding it in the normal way, my thumb naturally rests on one of the side buttons, which I've mapped to "next page".
If I were to hold out my hand, and someone put an X4 in it, I wouldn't have to move a muscle and it'd be in the right position for me to read for hours with just the periodic button tap.
Everyone's different, of course. It's guaranteed to be too big or too small for others, and that's cool. For me it feels like someone custom designed it based on a model of my hand.
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#69For those who can afford it, I can recommend the Boox Note for the ebook reader. It comes with full Android, so you are not limited to books but can read news, Hacker News, and other doomscrolling that fills the Internet. In a pinch, you can also connect it to a Bluetooth keyboard and use it as a development terminal. SSH terminal looks gorgeous on e-ink.
> It comes with full Android, so you are not limited to books but can read news, Hacker News, and other doomscrolling that fills the Internet. That sounds like an anti-feature. When I first bought an ereader over 15 years ago, I intentionally chose one that didn't support Wifi for this very reason. I want it primarily for reading documents. But then again, I guess Boox is meant more to be a tablet than an ereader. Al…
Boox devices vary on battery life. The thin ones usually have ~12h of reading time per charge and don't lose as much charge while sleeping as android phones do, but a bit more than a kobo. The batteries size is optimized to be just big enough that charging is not particularly burdensome in practice. My only complaint is the flat bezels which are no good for fragile eink screens.
Re: The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader
#70Got the X4. Put CrossPoint on it. Works like a charm. The http server accessible over wifi makes transferring books extremely simple. (Shame on the Kindle for locking everything down.) This is proof-of-concept that a microcontroller is more than enough for something like an e-reader. I have a Kindle and a Kobo. They are sturdy devices. But the X4 is the one that is a genuine e-reader. Would not get it as my one and o…
There are rumors they will release a V2 Pro version with touch and backlight in the second half of this year. They also have already announced the S4 that is basically the same device, a bit ticker with touch and backlight and running android.
It has perfectly usable buttons. Adding touch feels like straying from the core proposition to have a minimal reader.