I’ve used and reviewed dozens of e-readers over the years, but the 5-inch Kobo Mini remains my favorite for one simple reason: It was small. Although it lacked useful features like screen lighting and a page turn button, its size made it an e-reader I actually wanted to carry every day. The $69 It’s satisfyingly pocketable, but disappointingly not intuitive and functionally limited out of the box. This may not be a deal-breaker if there is a growing community of users working to improve it.
Like the Kodak Charmera, I was pleasantly surprised by how small the X4 actually is. Its 4.3-inch E Ink screen is slightly smaller than the Kobo Mini’s 5-inch panel, but the X4’s bezels are much thinner, making the e-reader feel much smaller. The joy of understanding the X4’s size was quickly diminished when I tested one of its most compelling features.
When the X4 was announced last December, Xteink shared photos of the e-reader stuck to the back of an iPhone using its MagSafe feature. This makes the
This is an issue that many X4 users have complained about, and said in a statement emailed to them The VergeThe company states that “During our early development and testing phase, we worked with a limited range of iPhone models. As a result, on some newer models, magnetic alignment may not appear perfectly centered.” As a workaround, Xteink includes a pair of magnetic adhesive rings that can be stuck to devices to allow proper alignment.
However, the At less than 6mm thick, the X4 takes up very little space in the sling bag I carry daily and is protected using a basic magnetic folio-style case that is included.
The Xteink This is less than the 300ppi e-paper screens on the latest Kindle and Kobo e-readers. If you look closely enough you’ll notice jagged edges on fine text, but it’s enough resolution for an enjoyable reading experience.
There’s also no screen lighting, so if you plan on reading before bed, you’ll need a lamp or a flashlight. What’s more disappointing is the lack of a touchscreen. There are several buttons on the right edge of the X4 and below the display. They are not labeled, and their functionality depends on where you are in the UI.
Making matters more complicated, the three buttons are double-sided and do different things depending on which side you press. It’s frustrating trying to remember which side of which button you need to press to make a selection, go back to the previous screen, or simply navigate the list of options. And it wasn’t helped by the X4’s limited and confusing software.
While Boox’s smartphone-sized E Ink Palma devices run Android and let you do everything from watching videos to playing games, the There’s no built-in bookstore, so you’ll have to get your own DRM-free EPUB files. It’s a little easier now, thanks to Amazon, which recently expanded support for ePUBs, but getting ebooks on the X4 feels harder than it could be.
The e-reader doesn’t mount as a storage device when connected to a computer, and while you should be able to upload files wirelessly over Wi-Fi or from the browser on your phone, I didn’t have much success getting it to work. The easiest way is to copy files to the memory card using a USB reader, but this is unnecessarily complicated by the X4’s microSD card slot which makes inserting and removing the memory card difficult without long nails or paper clips.
Reading e-books is a great experience, and I’ve always been a fan of dedicated page turn buttons. But if you’re familiar with a Kobo or a Kindle, you’ll find that there are a lot of options for adjusting text formatting. You only get two font-size options, three line spacing options, and no way to increase the margins around the text. Images and illustrations in e-books aren’t displayed at all, most text formatting is ignored, and while you should be able to load and use your own font files, this is another quirky feature I had no success with.
You can jump to different chapters, pages and bookmarks, or turn on features like auto page turn at set intervals, but doing so requires opening and navigating a series of menus using the X4’s buttons. This seems unnecessarily complicated. It’s an experience you’ll eventually feel a little comfortable with, but not one you’ll ever enjoy.
Xteink has already released several software updates improving the UI and usability of the X4. Progress has been slow, but because the company has not discontinued the e-reader, a growing community has taken up the task of improving the X4. Installing CrossPoint Reader, an open-source alternative firmware, on the X4 was a simple process that immediately solved many of the problems with Xteink’s software. CrossPoint simplifies the X4’s UI, expanding options for how ebooks look, and adding onscreen labels for what each button does. It’s also easy to uninstall, but I don’t think I’ll ever uninstall it.
The X4 will never replace the Kobo Libra 2 that I use for most of my reading. A touchscreen, lighting, access to a robust ebook store, and a UI I can’t do my job without. But for the past few weeks, I haven’t left home without the little X4. It’s a welcome alternative to my phone (which always seems to be full of bad news) if I have a few minutes to spare, despite the frustration. I don’t like to recommend devices that require third-party upgrades to get “fixed,” but the work being done by the
Photos by Andrew Liszewski/The Verge
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