Xteink X4 Classic: a Tiny but Great E-Reader (Shallow Thoughts)

Xteink X4 Classic: a Tiny but Great E-Reader

I got my husband an Xteink X4 Classic e-reader for his birthday after reading Hollie's comments on the X4. After seeing it, I immediately ordered one for myself.

First impression: it's startlingly small, thin and light. Even after seeing photos, I wasn't prepared for this butterfly-weight device. You could carry it everywhere and never notice. And yet the e-ink screen is crisp and clear: despite its tiny size, it's completely fine for reading books. And it's so easy to hold in one hand.

The Xteink comes with a great collection of classic (out of copyright) books. Most ebook readers I've seen come with one or two books, usually nothing I actually want to read, but I really like the collection they put on the Xteink. The ones I've already read are good enough to justify a re-read, and there are some classics there that I never got around to reading. I'll be keeping all of them on the device for times when I don't have a book lined up.

It needed no setup at all; you can set time and wifi password and so on, but you can jump right in to reading without any of that. I had a book I was most of the way through on my Kobo, so I popped out the X4's SD card (included), copied my book to /Books, inserted it back into the device, and there was the book.

Reading

On the stock firmware, navigating to the chapter where I'd left off was ridiculously hard, and the smallest font available was a little bigger than I wanted (even though I'm to that age where my eyes aren't great any more and I sometimes need larger fonts). But actual reading worked great: page turning was fast on text pages. I finished the book and it was absolutely fine.

I got the X4 Classic, which has buttons and no touchscreen or light. There's also a smaller X3 model, and a newer X4 Pro that has a light and a touchscreen. The button-based models have page back and page forward buttons located on the left and right edges, easily usable by both large and small handed people (Dave and I are at opposite extremes there). There's also a power button, located high enough that you're not likely to hit it accidentally, and two rocker buttons along the bottom that are used for navigating menus.

The book I was reading did have a few images at beginnings of chapters, and page turning was quite a bit slower there. The images took forever to load, and once they did, they were just an unrecognizable smears.

Crosspoint

One great thing about Xteink is that their readers are open. You aren't limited to the stock firmware; there are lots of alternate systems you can run, and they're super easy to install, no fighting with bootloader unlocking or hacky jailbreaks or anything like that.

I should mention that there's a locked-down version meant for the Chinese market; apparently if you buy an Xteink via sites that cater to China, it's a little cheaper but you may get one with a locked bootloader. It's possible to unlock it, personally, I'm willing to pay a little more for the freedom of an open bootloader.

The most popular alternative system is Crosspoint, so that's where I started.

Crosspoint is easy to install, and much better than the stock firmware, giving you faster image loading, much better font options, more control over things like sleeping and page refreshes, and lots of other good features I'm just beginning to explore. One of my favorites is the "Quick Resume" sleep screen, which stays on the page you're reading when it sleeps instead of showing a wallpaper or cover image. I've always wished for that option on other e-readers!

Scroll down on the Crosspoint GitHub page for instructions on how to flash it. I used the web installer, which worked even on Firefox. You have to use Xteink X4C as the model, not Xteink X4, or you get: Connected device is an ESP32-S3%2C but the Xteink X4 uses an ESP32-C3. Wrong device selected.

Apparently on some devices you might have to flash twice, for reasons no one has quite figured out, but I didn't need that; for me, flashing was painless, fast, and worked the first time once I got the fiddly USB cable connected well enough (the first several times, the flasher didn't see the device).

So far, the only thing I don't like about Crosspoint is its default fonts, but that's curable and I'll write about that separately.

Good and Bad (there's nothing ugly)

Xteink's website makes a big deal of their mag-safe ring you can use to clip the e-reader it to the back of your phone. I really don't get that. Why would I want to make my phone any thicker than it already is? Why would I want to give up the incredible smallness and lightness of the X4 and have to hold something as heavy as a modern oversized phone? (Even if the X4 didn't protrude down below the bottom of my phone due to where the rings are placed.) I suppose a magsafe ring might be useful for making a hands-free stand for the X4, but mostly I expect to be using it handheld.

I'm not crazy about the power connector. It's magnetic, but the magnets aren't very strong and don't stay in place very well. To charge the device, find the most flexible USB cable you have, place the e-reader face down, carefully put the magnetic thingie in the right place, adjust the angle til the charge light comes on, then carefully back away and don't touch it til the charge light goes white. Anything involving a USB transfer, like flashing new firmware, may require more fiddling and several tries: the charge light being on doesn't mean the connection is good enough for a transfer. I'll definitely be using the micro SD card to install new books and fonts — though the microSD slot is a bit fiddly too, so be careful. When I was experimenting with fonts, I got the SD card stuck once and had to dig it out with a pin.

But that's a very short list of complaints. Really, this device is super cool, it's reasonably priced, and it's just SO CUTE and SO UNBELIEVABLY LIGHTWEIGHT. I've been wishing for many years that someone would make an e-ink reader around this size, but the Xteink X4 is much better than what I was hoping for. It's a beautiful piece of hardware, plus you can easily flash free open source software.

If you get one, be sure to read Hollie's Xteink page (the same one I linked above) because it has lots of good advice and links to plenty more helpful pages, so I haven't tried to copy all those links here.

Dave and I are both really enjoying our X4s. I'm not entirely sure what we'll use them for in the long run: we both have Kobo Claras that work fine for bedtime reading. But I'm sure we'll find a use for something so small and light. I'll certainly be bringing mine to my next doctor appointment, or anything else that involves a waiting room.