Review: Xteink X4 Ebook Reader
2000-01-01
The Xteink X4 has quickly become my preferred reading device for ebooks. It ticks all the right boxes. On paper, it shouldn't, so I thought about it for a long time before I ordered it. But now I'm happy I did.
So what is it? It's basically a very small and cheap Chinese ebook reader with an eink display. It only costs around 69 USD plus shipping. Because of it's size it's mainly for reading fiction. Don't expect it to work well with complex text books, PDFs, and anything like that. It actually only supports epubs and text, anyway.
The Software
One very important detail though: The standard firmware sucks. No really, it is bad. At least for reading anything not in Chinese (I don't read Chinese). You only have two fonts and they don't look great. They're called small and large. The small one was missing some important latin characters from my native European language, which made it completely unsuable for reading books in my native language. The software worked well enough otherwise, but the UI is cluttered and the newest update had some useless cloud features for syncing notes, I think? I didn't investigate further.
Luckily, there is an alternative, open source firmware called CrossPoint Reader and it's fantastic! It's so polished and clean, the fonts are great (the main one is the same as on Kindles) and you have several font sizes to choose from. Just like with the original firmware, uploading books is easy. You just need another device with a web browser on the same wifi and you can upload books that way. Or you could just copy all your books to the sd-card. They just need to be in the epub format. Easy peasy.
The Reading Experience
The device shouldn't be a good reading experince since it's so small, but it's actually the opposite for me (and many other people, I suspect). Because of it's size, it's really easy to carry with you. I basically have it in the same pocket as my smartphone. The screen is really nice which more than makes up for the small text. In direct sunlight it is a fantastic screen for reading. I've gotten into the habit and doing a bit of reading when I'm just waiting around for something. It has the added benefit of no distractions unlike when reading on a smartphone. The battery life is also phenomenal -- it will last you months on a charge if you are just reading with no wifi.
And All the Rest
As for accessories, I bought the magnetic leather cover, which is really nice. But I also feel it's not really needed. I use it mainly for asthetics though I also helps protect the screen a bit I suppose.
Let me list my favorite features of the hardware:
- Nice physical buttons! And plenty of them so there is more than one way to hold it and flip pages.
- Looong battery life and chargable using usb-c!
- Really good eink screen.
- Small enough to carry in the same pocket as your smartphone.
- Magnetic, so you could attach it to the back of you recent iPhone I suppose. I use a magnetic cover instead.
Some great features of the crosspoint reader firmware worth mentioning are:
- Syncing with other devices using Koreader Sync, if you need it.
- Many options for tweaking fonts and layout. Nice!
- Custom sleep screen cover.
- Firmware updates over wifi.
- File explorer on device.
Some options that you might be used to from other ereader devices, but are missing on the xteink includes:
- No dictionary
- No way to hightlight citations
- No built-in book store -- though it does support OPDS (I haven't tested it)
- No built-in light. You need external light for reading in the dark -- just like with an ordinary book :)
- No search capabilities at all
Conclusion
Great price, great experience. If you are like me, this won't be your only reading device. But maybe it will be the one you use the most during the summer to squeze in a few more books? At least that what's happened for me. Highly recommended!