elijah.run/blog/xteink4

the xteink4 got me reading again

published 2026-06-26 | tags: #reading #gadgets

Table of Contents

A few weeks ago I bought the xteink4 on a whim based on a co-worker's suggestion. Best $60 I've spent in a looong time.

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What makes it awesome

I carry this thing around with me all day every day and I have been reading waaay more than before. Let's get into why.

I am busy so convenience is king

Between family, friends, job, exercising, and sleeping I have maaaaybe 2 hours a day to myself if I'm lucky. That time though is usually spent playing games, writing this blog, or hacking on a game -- things that require sitting down at a desk and focusing for a block of time.

I've found that when I lower the barrier to entry for a task, I usually start doing it more.

I'm able to keep this device with me literally at all times. It slips in my bag right next to my phone, barely taking up any space. The battery seems to never die, lasting well over a week, so it's low maintenance. Those together mean I can turn it on, read what would be the equivalent of 1-2 pages, and put it away without skipping a beat.

Sure I can carry some small books around with me all day, just in case I get a few minutes to read one or two pages, but it's size is nice because regardless of the size of the book I will have it with me 24/7.

Thriving open source community

One surprise upside to this device was finding that it had a huge and thriving ecosystem of firmware hackers -- mainly readme.club. Custom firmware, sharing background images, and just a vibrant community of excited users was a real happy accident on my part -- I just got it because it was cheap(ish) and I don't love my Kindle.

I'm currently using the most common (non-stock) firmware: crosspoint which I still can't get over that you can just... load firmware onto this thing using a webpage... we really do live in the future.

It's shockingly easy to flash new and even custom firmware on the xteink, which is exciting! I might even vibe-code my own with Rust -- I've been wanting a good flashcard app and this seems like a good device for that...

Downsides

It's not all perfect, but the downsides are [for me] easy enough to overlook.

DRM Free epubs are hard to find [legally]

I am really sad at how difficult it is to get an epub for a device like this. I tried purchasing and downloading a book from ~3 online ebook retailers and each of them had some DRM scheme that was way above my pay grade.

There are of course tons of sites you can use to download epubs if you just search "X book epub", so there are ways to get what you want to read on this thing, but it's sad that there's no legal way to get many books onto the device.

Before this I was an avid Libby user, getting almost all of my reading from the library. Sure you have to wait a few weeks for the popular stuff, but I'm a slow ready so that wasn't an issue. I wish there was some way to load Libby books onto this, and maybe with custom firmware there is, but not that I could find in 2026.

There are some custom firmware that support alternative formats, like markdown, so you could in theory use this to read blogs, emails, whatever! It's just a small e-ink screen with a wireless connection running a binary blob!

[Debatable] missing features

Software fixes most issues, but there are also some hardware features of the hardware I should mention.

  1. There is no backlight. This isn't a deal breaker for me, but I do enjoy the backlight on my Kindle Paperwhite. It's difficult not being able to read in bed without waking up my partner.
  2. No touchscreen. This is a feature for me, but everything is controlled by one of the 7 buttons (1 power, 3 rockers). It's a little clunky at first, but it's nice not accidentally turning the page as much as I do on the touchscreen Kindles.

Over all I really like this thing. I've been reading way more than before due mostly to the fact that I can have it everywhere, so any time I can fit 5 minutes of reading into my day it's there and I don't have any excuses.