This compact e-reader offers a mix of challenges and possibilities.
I’ve tested a ton of e-readers over the years, but the 5-inch Kobo Mini still holds a special place in my heart for one simple reason: its compact size. While it missed out on features like built-in lighting and page turn buttons, its portability made it an e-reader I genuinely wanted to carry around daily. Enter the $69 Xteink X4, which is even smaller than the Kobo Mini and E Ink smartphones like the Boox Palma. It’s delightfully pocket-sized, but its unintuitive design and limited functionality can be frustrating right out of the box. Fortunately, a growing community of users is stepping up to enhance the experience.
Much like the Kodak Charmera, I was pleasantly surprised by how tiny the X4 is in real life. Its 4.3-inch E Ink display is just a smidge smaller than the Kobo Mini’s 5-inch screen, but the X4’s slimmer bezels make it feel significantly more compact. However, my excitement about the X4’s size quickly faded when I tried out one of its standout features.
When the X4 was unveiled last December, it was showcased magnetically attached to the back of an iPhone using its MagSafe feature. This made it seem like a great alternative to traditional e-reader cases for those wanting a secondary screen on their phones. However, the awkward placement of the magnets means I can’t attach the e-reader to my iPhone 16 Pro in any practical way.
This has been a common complaint among X4 users, and the company acknowledged in a statement that “during our early development and testing phase, we worked with a limited range of iPhone models. As a result, on some newer models, the magnetic alignment may not appear perfectly centered.” To address this, Xteink includes magnetic adhesive rings that can be applied to devices for better alignment.
That said, the X4 extends beyond the bottom of my iPhone, so instead of awkwardly trying to use them together, I’ve opted to use it as a standalone ultra-compact e-reader. At under 6mm thick, the X4 fits easily in my daily sling bag and comes with a basic magnetic folio-style case for protection.
The Xteink X4 is one of the most affordable e-readers available, but that low price comes with its own set of challenges and compromises. The 4.3-inch E Ink screen has a resolution of 220ppi, which is lower than the 300ppi displays found on the latest Kindle and Kobo models. While you might notice some jagged edges on fine text if you look closely, it still provides a decent reading experience.
There’s no built-in lighting, so if you plan to read at night, you’ll need a lamp or flashlight. The absence of a touchscreen is another drawback. The X4 has several buttons on its right edge and below the display, but they’re unlabeled, and their functions change depending on where you are in the interface.
To make matters more complicated, three of the buttons are two-sided and perform different actions based on which side you press. It can be quite a challenge to remember which side of which button to press for selecting options, going back, or navigating through menus. This is compounded by the X4’s limited and confusing software.
Unlike Boox’s Palma devices that run Android and allow for video watching and gaming, the X4 is strictly a reading device, supporting only TXT and EPUB files, along with images like JPGs and BMPs, which I had mixed success loading. There’s no built-in bookstore, so you’ll need to find your own DRM-free EPUB files. While Amazon has recently expanded EPUB support, getting ebooks onto the X4 can feel unnecessarily complicated.
The e-reader doesn’t mount as a storage device when connected to a computer, and while you’re supposed to be able to upload files wirelessly via a browser over Wi-Fi or your phone, I struggled to get that feature to work. The simplest method is to transfer files to a memory card using a USB reader, but the X4’s microSD card slot makes inserting and ejecting a memory card tricky without long nails or a paper clip.
Reading ebooks is an acceptable experience, and I appreciate having dedicated page turn buttons. However, if you’re used to a Kobo or Kindle, you’ll miss the options for adjusting text formatting. You only get two font sizes, three line spacing options, and no way to increase margins. Images and illustrations in ebooks often don’t display, most text formatting is ignored, and while you can supposedly load your own font files, I found that feature to be finicky and unsuccessful.
You can navigate to different chapters, pages, and bookmarks, or enable features like auto page turns at set intervals, but doing so requires navigating through a series of menus using the X4’s buttons. It feels overly complicated. You might eventually get somewhat comfortable with it, but it’s not an enjoyable experience.
Xteink has released several software updates aimed at improving the X4’s UI and usability. Progress has been slow, but the company hasn’t locked down the e-reader, allowing a growing community to take matters into their own hands. Installing CrossPoint Reader, an open-source alternative firmware, was a straightforward process that immediately addressed many of the software’s pain points. CrossPoint simplifies the UI, enhances ebook display options, and adds on-screen labels for button functions. It’s also easy to uninstall, but I don’t see myself doing that anytime soon.
The X4 will never replace my Kobo Libra 2, which I rely on for most of my reading. A touchscreen, built-in lighting, access to a comprehensive ebook store, and a user-friendly interface are features I can’t live without. However, over the past few weeks, I’ve taken the tiny X4 with me everywhere. It’s a refreshing alternative to my phone, which is often filled with bad news, whenever I have a few moments to spare, despite its quirks. I’m not a fan of recommending devices that need third-party upgrades to be “fixed,” but the community efforts surrounding the X4 make it a worthwhile option if portability and a bit of tinkering are your top priorities.
