Technology

Better screen for reading, waaaay better battery life.

While I agree that this sounds like all the drawbacks of an ereader with none of the bonuses of a phone, I think compartmentalisation is a pretty big factor. If the back of your phone is for reading, some people will be less likely to get distracted while their phone is flipped over - even though they're literally holding the likely source of their distraction.

Edit: I feel stupid, but it occurs to me that you don't have to have it attached to the back of your phone. I'm actually considering getting one now....

article is hidden behind a paywall, so i can only speak about my experience with a standard ereader.

i love to read and not get distracted by something during that. a regular phone keeps getting me distracted and a e-ink display is way more pleasant to read than a regular screen imo. the main problem i keep running into is that my regular ereader is too big for most pockets which is the reason i dont have it with me most of the time.

soooo such a small reader would let me read at times and places where i would simply dont do anything at best or doomscroll at worst while i could also judt read a good book.

that being said i dont own such a small ereader and wont buy one because keeping two devices synced while reading a book would be either too much hazzle or simply impossible to do.

In my case it’s that hard separation between devices. I like reading on the eink screen compared to the phone screen, and there are no notifications to interrupt me. It helps too that the ereader is just ready to use, no decision to fight about what app to open. I tightly manage notifications only phone and it’s still too much of a draw to go doomscroll instead of read. I frequently pull just the reader out and leave the phone so I just use the magnetic attachment to keep them together.

So I bought one of these for my wife a couple months ago and she loves it. She likes that the eink screen is easier on her eyes and that it removes the temptation to open up social media and doom scroll. I do however have a few gripes about the X3.

First, the biggest issue for me is the device isn't backlit. For my usage pattern that's a deal breaker. The upside is that the company just released the X4 Pro and that is backlit, although it's also a bit pricier (not by a ton, it's still just barely sub-$100, but it's noticeable). My wife has a rechargeable light that attaches to the X3 magnetically which she's happy with, but that's not for me.

Second rather than using something sensible like USB-C it uses a semi-proprietary magnetic charger with pogo pins. Not only is that another annoying cord to keep track of, but it's unacceptably easy to short the charging cable and start a fire. I really hope they see reason and release a later revision of the device that uses USB-C (the slightly larger X4 does include USB-C charging, but that model is discontinued).

Third the buttons are kind of hard to press at times. This is more of a nitpick but I've got larger hands/fingers and it ruins the ergonomics of the device for me.

Fourth, these devices have an incredibly small quantity of RAM and as such they have to get clever just to open and display ebooks. They heavily cache indexes to the SD card to speed up access and those indexes take time to generate. When you first open a book and periodically while navigating you'll be subjected to very long pauses while the firmware generates and saves that books index files.

Overall the devices are interesting, and I can see how some people could find them useful/enjoyable, but they're also far from perfect and there's a lot of room to improve.

Yeah, I just open up Lithium and read on my phone. The only downside is to have to cram Brightness in case I'm out during the sun, but the advantage is that I always have my phone with me, and I can read everywhere. Some years ago I uninstalled all my brain rot apps, and made the switch: feel like scrolling, go scroll a book. Since then I have read hundreds of books.

My dream device would be one with a full eink screen + querty keyboard in the front, and a nice 120hz OLED display in the back with a camera that pops up from the inside of the device at the top.

Removing DRM from kindle books is trivial with a calibre plugin.

why would you run android on eink anyway? refresh rates are garbage for anything but reading and owning a distraction free device is one of the biggest upsides of ereaders, for me anyway

i did root my kindle (got it as a present) and even a terminal is horrid to use... actually just ordered an xteink and really looking forward to an unlocked bootloader from the factory ^^

p.s. also i just got an email that they released a newer version which seems to have a better soc (don't read comics but if that's a reason maybe they're already improving on that) edit: and it's still half the price, most of which is probably the display itself tbf D:

I'm not one of those people because idgaf if someone wants to read on their phone, but I do own an e-ink device for my books.

I think there's a big difference in eye strain and comfort when it comes to actually reading a substantial amount of text, which isn't what most people are doing on their phones all day.

The possibility of being distracted by all the apps on your phone is probably another big reason to use a separate device.

Not justifying gatekeeping, but there are legitimate reasons for people not wanting to read on their phones.