As someone who actually started reading more with bigger screen sizes[1], this article is really not jiving with me and is light on details. I still don't understand why I'd prefer this to a Kobo. Other than the size, what is the benefit?
[1] I read more with a 7" than a 6" and even more with an 8".
1. Yes, the size. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about "do I really want to bother with this in my pocket, I'm just going to the store."
2. The ecosystem. There's a lot of different firmware forks, people tinker and optimize. Which is important, because that helps with..
3. The UI. There's only a few buttons, no touch screen, so the power on experience sends you straight into the last page you were reading, and there's not a lot of farkles trying to drive engagement.
4. No touch screen. The buttons aren't very soft, and there's no touch screen, so you can just toss it back in your pocket, without turning it off, and pick it back up.
5. It's cheap, and it is not linked to my accounts. I'm not terribly worried about theft or someone accidentally knocking it out of my hand.
All that comes down to just.. no ceremony. No unlock the screen, push past the notifications, find the app, wait for Kindle to pass some advertising back and forth with Amazon. Nothing. Pick up the book, read the next page while you are waiting for coffee to steep.
That said, there's some suck to be had:
6. No frontlight. You can't read in the dark without a separate light.
7. No, the font rendering is not perfect, the DPI is pretty low. This is not the most beautiful screen. But it's pretty readable. I got over it.
8. It's a pretty small screen. If you have awful eyesight, you're going to go through a lot of page turns. But if you are prone to skipping ahead and scanning, you might actually read more of the book this way.
9. It is not fast. The firmwares I have used all do some indexing at the start of each chapter, and it can take a few seconds.
10. The vendor either doesn't quite understand its customers (it seems like xteink got lucky sometimes) or is scrabbling through parts bins and unable to communicate with its customers. The X4 Pro really confused its fans.
I think it really just comes down to "this thing is too simple to become more fucking adtech pretending to be useful."
The size is pretty much the selling point compared to other e-readers. The screen quality isn't great, it doesn't have more features than the rest or anything else, but it's tiny and I can lie down on my back holding my arm up in the air for longer than with my phone, so reading at the beach is comfortable for example. If you like bigger devices, you won't like any of the Xteink devices I think.
Then the device is not for you. I have this and it’s amazing for me. Being able to pocket this and whip it out during moments I would’ve doom scrolled has been great for my reading.
I think for ebooks this isn't for me. I like to focus when reading ebooks so quickly whipping it out when I have only a few minutes (the way I do with my phone) isn't for me.
I'm wondering what other uses this could have other than reading books.
As an example, it would be great if I'm reading an article that I could just send a screen reader version of the article to this. Not sure how easy it is.
I do want a bigger phone at some point than the 6" I have now. But, I will say, when I read, it definitely is me using the same top of the screen all the time. I'll literally open notes in split screen even if I don't intend to write, just to reduce the reading area. To an area considerably smaller than this tablet. I don't want to have to move my eyes so far up and down. Having two or four or ten times more words on screen doesn't feel like it helps me to actually read.
(There is some benefit to having having a "shape" of the page, in terms of remembering where you were at a given point in the story sometimes, but that fades fast.)
[1] I read more with a 7" than a 6" and even more with an 8".