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FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

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Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#141

Post by stevesimmons »

nehal3m wrote: post #132
imzadi wrote: post #5

I got an Xteink X4 a few weeks ago and love it. I've tried out a few different firmwares but haven't settled on one yet. I love the screen and how simple the interface is. It's kind of a pain in the butt getting my Kindle books on there, but worth the effort. It's also encouraging me to buy books outside of the Amazon ecosystem. I've been getting more stuff from Humble lately.

Seems cool, ordered one. I like my Kobo but the ability to shove it in a pocket seems sweet.

I got an Xteink X4 a month ago. It's perfect: none of the distractions of a phone, battery life measured in weeks, small enough to carry everywhere, cheap enough that I don't worry about anything happening to it.

So far I have only read one book on it. But that is Tolstoy's "War and Peace" (361 chapters, 1300 pages in paper editions), which I'd never managed to read more than a few tens of pages of before.

Which is pretty solid proof of how nice the X4 is.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#142

Post by stevesimmons »

stevesimmons wrote: post #141
nehal3m wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems cool, ordered one. I like my Kobo but the ability to shove it in a pocket seems sweet.

I got an Xteink X4 a month ago. It's perfect: none of the distractions of a phone, battery life measured in weeks, small enough to carry everywhere, cheap enough that I don't worry about anything happening to it. So far I have only read one book on it. But that is Tolstoy's "War and Peace" (361 chapters, 1300 pages in paper editions), which I'd never managed to read more than a few tens of pages of before. Which is p…

By the way, I'm in the UK. I bought it on eBay UK from a guy named "Reliable Trove" who imports them and reflashes them with CrossPoint.

I know it's not hard to do, but I needed it to work first time before my summer holiday, couldn't wait for a Chinese import, and had no spare time to mess around with putting new firmware on it.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#143

Post by kstrauser »

stevesimmons wrote: post #141
nehal3m wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems cool, ordered one. I like my Kobo but the ability to shove it in a pocket seems sweet.

I got an Xteink X4 a month ago. It's perfect: none of the distractions of a phone, battery life measured in weeks, small enough to carry everywhere, cheap enough that I don't worry about anything happening to it. So far I have only read one book on it. But that is Tolstoy's "War and Peace" (361 chapters, 1300 pages in paper editions), which I'd never managed to read more than a few tens of pages of before. Which is p…

I use it for my daily commute, spending my ride reading instead of doomscrolling. I just finished “A Confederacy of Dunces” and now I’m on “Lonesome Dove”.

I didn’t imagine how much I’d use a tiny, pocketable reader. I love it.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#144

Post by kstrauser »

BeetleB wrote: post #62
IshKebab wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Remarkable tablets are pretty big and have a large community.

Fair point. I was looking into them recently, and can't recall why I ruled them out. I think it may have been because of the size of their color tablets - either too small or too large.

Their software suuuuucks. They market it as a paper notebook replacement, and it’s alright for that. Anything other than that is out of scope. Good reading experience? No: it’s a notebook, not an e-reader. Organization with tables of contents and links between documents? No: Paper notebooks don’t have tappable links, so neither should this. Dictionary? LOL no: That’s not how books work.

If you can live with its many, many, many weird limitations, the hardware is delightful. I returned mine after I had it for a month, though, and bought a Nomad. Remarkable makes good devices but I couldn’t abide the shoddy software.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#145

Post by kstrauser »

dominotw wrote: post #16

xteink seems to be everywhere these days. Did it really "kill doomscrolling" for anyone?

It did for me. I put it in my jeans pocket when I head out the door in the morning: grab backpack, phone in one pocket, reader in other. Then I actually read books in my queue to and from work. It’s the similar routine as grabbing my keys as I head out.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#146

Post by Eueudhsbsj32 »

imzadi wrote: post #5

I got an Xteink X4 a few weeks ago and love it. I've tried out a few different firmwares but haven't settled on one yet. I love the screen and how simple the interface is. It's kind of a pain in the butt getting my Kindle books on there, but worth the effort. It's also encouraging me to buy books outside of the Amazon ecosystem. I've been getting more stuff from Humble lately.

The newly announced pro version with a front light looks prerfect for me.

Do you use it with a dictionary? I like the full 1 GB English wiktionary loaded in Aard2 on my Boox. It has etymology and can look up Latin and other non-English words. But I imagine it may be too heavy for a ESP32 device..

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#147

Post by bunderbunder »

joshstrange wrote: post #140

KOReader support (not just KOReader sync) has become my new line in the sand for an e-reader. I'm currently using my jailbroken Kindle PW5 and loving it. KOReader paired with BookOrbit is my sweetspot and I love having all the data under my control. If my Kindle died today I'd probably grab a Kobo and put KOReader on it. This project is very interesting to me but they seem to want to "own" the whole software stack, i…

Pretty sure all we’re waiting on is someone to put in the effort to port KOReader to the platform.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#148

Post by imzadi »

Eueudhsbsj32 wrote: post #146
imzadi wrote: post #5

I got an Xteink X4 a few weeks ago and love it. I've tried out a few different firmwares but haven't settled on one yet. I love the screen and how simple the interface is. It's kind of a pain in the butt getting my Kindle books on there, but worth the effort. It's also encouraging me to buy books outside of the Amazon ecosystem. I've been getting more stuff from Humble lately.

The newly announced pro version with a front light looks prerfect for me. Do you use it with a dictionary? I like the full 1 GB English wiktionary loaded in Aard2 on my Boox. It has etymology and can look up Latin and other non-English words. But I imagine it may be too heavy for a ESP32 device..

Some of the firmwares have dictionaries, but I don't use it myself.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#149

Post by imzadi »

stevesimmons wrote: post #142
stevesimmons wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an Xteink X4 a month ago. It's perfect: none of the distractions of a phone, battery life measured in weeks, small enough to carry everywhere, cheap enough that I don't worry about anything happening to it. So far I have only read one book on it. But that is Tolstoy's "War and Peace" (361 chapters, 1300 pages in paper editions), which I'd never managed to read more than a few tens of pages of before. Which is p…

By the way, I'm in the UK. I bought it on eBay UK from a guy named "Reliable Trove" who imports them and reflashes them with CrossPoint. I know it's not hard to do, but I needed it to work first time before my summer holiday, couldn't wait for a Chinese import, and had no spare time to mess around with putting new firmware on it.

Just FYI for anyone reading this. "Easy to do" is an understatement. It's merely a matter of connecting the reader to the PC with a USB cable and then click the button on the webpage. The whole process is automated and done over the web.

Re: FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers

#150

Post by imzadi »

exhumet wrote: post #136
timw4mail wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite at this point is Witch reader ( https://github.com/jpirnay/witchhunt-reader ). All the features of Cross-point, with better book rendering, and more features. I've tried a lot of the various alternatives, and keep coming back. If you want all your book series displayed together, AALU ( https://github.com/dawsonfi/aalu ) might be worth a look. And Crosspoint OS itself is still really nice.

any that support custom fonts without jumping through hoops? none of them support atkinson hyperlegible for my adhd ass lol

I use an accessible font myself. There are steps to getting the font installed, but you only have to do it once. You basically just download it, convert it, and then upload it to a specific folder. The upload part is the main hassle, because it doesn't attach to the PC like a drive. You have to remove the SD card, open the SD card on the PC or phone and move the font (or book) to the SD card, then put the SD card back into the reader.
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