I’ve been using my brand-new XTEINK X4 for a bit now.

I never would have thought to buy an e-reader this small until I started this community and began reading about the XTEINK line.

And wow, I’m glad I did. Holy crap!

This is the first e-reader I’ve bought in quite a while, and I’m loving this thing. The screen is super crisp, page turns are fast, and the size is perfect for carrying around.

The original operating system it comes with is pretty rough. But after reflashing it with CrossPoint, this is probably my favorite e-reader I’ve ever owned. It is perfect for just tossing in my pocket and taking everywhere.

I’ve been reading on it while waiting for my kids to come out of school, during PTA meetings, and even at a school volleyball game last night. Whenever there was a delay or nothing was happening, I just pulled it out and read for a few minutes.

I love this thing.

The company is XTEINK, based in Shenzhen, China. Its founder is Crusoe Hu. Hu described XTEINK as a “small team based in Shenzhen” working on compact E Ink devices.

He said the goal was simple: make a reader small enough that people would actually carry it everywhere instead of leaving it at home like a larger Kindle.

That is exactly why I like it so much. I don’t need a front light, touchscreen, or a bunch of extra features. I just want a tiny reader I can keep with me and actually use.

For this regular XTEINK X4, the specs are:

• Display: 4.3-inch black-and-white E Ink

• Resolution: about 220 ppi

• Touchscreen: No

• Front light: No

• Controls: Physical buttons only, including page-turn and navigation controls

• Processor: Espressif ESP32

• Storage: Ships with a 16 GB microSD card Maximum microSD capacity: Up to 256 GB

• Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz

• Bluetooth: Yes

• USB: USB-C, mainly for charging and serial communication rather than normal USB mass storage

• Battery: 650 mAh

• Claimed battery life: Up to about 14 days, based on 1 to 3 hours of reading per day

• Dimensions: 114 × 69 × 5.9 mm, or about 4.49 × 2.72 × 0.23 inches

• Weight: Around 74 to 77 grams, or roughly 2.6 to 2.7 ounces

• Magnetic back: Yes

The key thing about the original X4 is how stripped down it is. It is basically a 4.3-inch E Ink screen, an ESP32 microcontroller, physical buttons, a microSD card, and a battery inside a very thin case.

CrossPoint takes that simple hardware and turns it into a much better reading device. Love it.

In the near future, humanity begins harvesting geothermal energy from the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean. The environment is so hostile that the workers stationed there have been surgically altered so they can breathe seawater and survive enormous pressure. The people chosen for the job are also psychologically unusual, because ordinary personalities tend to break down under the isolation and darkness.

At the center of the story is Lenie Clarke, one of these modified workers. Life on the ocean floor begins changing her and the other crew members in unexpected ways.

Starfish mixes hard science fiction, deep-sea horror, psychology, biotechnology, and a growing sense that something much larger is happening beyond their isolated station.

Watts offers the novel legally free on his website under a Creative Commons license.

Ok, wowsa, this was some drama. The original Astak OS sucked. Very plain and the books looked terrible on it. So I really wanted to get OpenInkpot on it.

I wrote about little about this OpenInkpot system before. It's an early open source project from several years ago.

It took me forever to track down working versions that are still hosted on sketchy outdated websites.

Some of the directions weren't in english. So I was expecting to totally brick this.

But it worked. And it's a slighty updated version from the one I was running on my BeBook, so I went and updated that one too.

Now both are working fine!

Amazon introduced the Kindle DX in May 2009 as a much larger companion to the Kindle 2.

Its defining feature is a huge 9.7-inch E Ink display, compared with the standard Kindle’s 6-inch screen. That because Amazon aimed it partly at people who wanted to read textbooks, newspapers, technical documents, and PDFs without constant zooming or page turning.

It still sucks for PDFs though. I have found that really the only option for me to enjoy PDFs is to use a tablet.

The DX launched at $489. One of Amazon’s most expensive Kindles. It also has a full physical keyboard, automatic screen rotation, free cellular Whispernet service (no longer a thing), and native PDF support.

The DX was an unusual machine even for its time. Its 1200 × 824 E Ink screen gave documents far more room than a normal Kindle, and an accelerometer automatically switched between portrait and landscape orientation when the reader was turned. It ncluded about 4 GB of internal storage, with roughly 3.3 GB available to the user. Like the Kindle 2, it also supported text-to-speech, Audible audiobooks, and MP3 playback through its speakers and headphone jack.

Amazon updated the line with the Kindle DX Graphite in 2010. Besides its darker graphite-colored case, the important change was an improved E Ink Pearl display with substantially better contrast. The price also eventually fell from the original $489 to $379. Amazon promoted the DX for college students and professional readers, but that market never developed as strongly as expected. Tablets such as the iPad were arriving at the same time, while ordinary 6-inch Kindles became cheaper and lighter. The DX just got stuck as an awkward middle ground between an e-reader and a tablet.

The DX never became mainstream, but its enormous E Ink screen still gives it a charm that that no other Kindle from its era has.