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Posted by felixdoerp 6 hours ago

The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader(blog.omgmog.net)
91 points | 80 commentspage 3
NDlurker 5 hours ago|
I've had the X3 for a month and I love it. It's so small I forget it's in my pocket and have almost washed it a couple times. I'm working on custom firmware for it, so I ordered an X4 when they had the 20% off sale to test on there too.
timw4mail 4 hours ago||
As a crazy person with both, I have mixed feelings between them.

In favor of the X3:

- Crisper text

- Whiter display

- Slightly better battery life

- Top-mounted power button (subjective)

In favor of the X4:

- Larger display

- Plain USB-C charging

- Slightly better custom firmware support

- Backward and forward button on the same side (subjective)

automathematics 4 hours ago||
link the custom firmware!
WithinReason 5 hours ago||
CrossPoint 1.4.0 came out 2 hours ago:

https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader/relea...

camel-cdr 5 hours ago|
I skimmed over the project a bit. It seems quite ambitious to aim to reimplement epub, considering that means supporting HTML, CSS, SVG and JavaScript.

Is there a ebook format that isn't just build arround the concept of a webbrowser?

timw4mail 4 hours ago|||
While I agree in terms of modern browser expectations (and books absolutely should not need JavaScript), I think books in HTML makes a lot of sense. HTML was meant for sharing text documents, after all.
sieve 4 hours ago||||
epub is overkill for a vast majority of books.

A format that only supported

- headings

- paragraphs

- emphasis (bold/italics)

- bullets

- inline images

is good enough. A simple container with a TOC pointing to text blocks/files within it that can be processed very cheaply.

Unfortunately, with something like epub, you lose all the simplicity because you want to support every single feature even if rarely used.

lisnake 4 hours ago|||
HTML and CSS is enough for 99% percent of epubs, and that's the only subset of epub standards that Crosspoint tries to support
camel-cdr 4 hours ago||
Isn't HTML and CSS already a huge surface to support, unless you are happy with a subset?
dfee 4 hours ago||
i bought a pocketbook era lite recently, and it's a bit too locked down for my tastes - though usable. i kinda just want a dumb appliance. actually, i want a linux appliance. this probably sounds very "not productized" to a PM, but 99% of what's on there i don't want: a book store, games, etc.

i wish there was just an SDK for building apps (i'll vibe code towards a great epub experience, i'm fine with that). and, i'm fine plugging it in via USB or even SCPing files over wifi. but, it sends my reading progress to a server every time i use it which is highly annoying and concerning. however, the form factor is sufficient.

i guess i was hoping it'd be more aligned with steam's direction with their steam machine.

camel-cdr 4 hours ago|
> i wish there was just an SDK for building apps (i'll vibe code towards a great epub experience, i'm fine with that)

That seems to be what crosspoint-reader is: https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader

thenthenthen 4 hours ago||
Hijacking … i have some random e-ink displays (from a bought product)… there seem to be 6 lines to the mcu (or 7, havent measured). Any 2026 tips on approaches to reverse engineer this to run on an arbitrary hobby mcu like esp32? Oh the mcu seems to be a WinnerMicro W100 Series MCU (arm m3)
dmitrygr 4 hours ago|
there are 4 or 5 command sets, you can safely try them all. for that few wires, it'll be spi
shorsher 5 hours ago||
As someone who has resisted buying an e-reader for years because I "prefer physical books", I finally purchased a Kobo Clara BW and love it. Even though I usually only read one book at a time, having my whole library in a small form factor is really wonderful.
hxii 4 hours ago||
I’ve been looking at these for a while, hoping the custom firmwares for it will become more popular, as I was considering getting this for my six-year-old.

The disabled usb is certainly a bummer. I wonder how they disabled it though – is there a hardware difference?

cbushko 4 hours ago|
Crosspoint is very popular and very easy to flash onto the device.

Locking and preventing flashing of firmware only happened in China.

crtasm 3 hours ago||
This page mentions international models, but seems it's still possible to flash them in any case

https://crosspointreader.com/#unlock-tool

also: https://crosspointreader.com/unlocker

dgrabla 5 hours ago||
I love this thing and I use it a lot more than my kindle and my kobo (with koreader). I really like the form factor and the fact that goes out of sleep almost instantly and goes to sleep equally as fast. It seeps battery. It is perfect the way it is.
crimsdings 4 hours ago||
Have the X4, the size is perfect - I always have it in my pocket and can read a view pages whenever I am waiting for something. Reduced my phone usage / doom scrolling nonsense with it. Best 50€ spent in a long time.
galleywest200 5 hours ago||
I love my X4. I throw it in my backpack or pocket when I take the dog to the park and read a few pages when we sit in the shade.
kandros 4 hours ago|
been using on the back of my phone for a few months, my most satisfying hardware purchase in a long time
automathematics 4 hours ago|
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
kandros 3 hours ago||
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

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