To those of you who have multiple readers…

[bluepeter]

...And another one arrived here a couple of days ago.

This one's the XTEINK X3. The credit card is simply there for scale: it's tiny.

What do I think of it? Well, it's utterly brilliant for portability. If you want one that'll fit in a shirt pocket while you're out and about, this will do nicely. And book storage is impressive. Interestingly, it has none built in: all books are stored on a micro SD card. 16GB is supplied. Replacing this with something larger is a trivial job, though books on the card removed will have to be copied onto the new card if you still want to access them on the reader.

Usability, though, isn't wonderful.

• The firmware is far from being the best I've ever seen. It lacks a lot of the functionality to which I've become accustomed.
• The screen resolution is not great at 259ppi.
• The tiny 3.7" screen can only display about 90 words/page.
• The screen is not touch-sensitive. All navigation is by pressing buttons, and mine doesn't seem to register every button press.
• I don't know what processor it has, but it's inadequate. The reader is pretty slow to respond.

[DJUNGELSKOG]

Originally Posted by PlatinumWarlock

Would you tell me WHY you have multiples? What’s the benefit? Different books from different vendors? Different functionality? Changed brands over the years but kept your old readers?

I have 3.
- My beautiful KL2 never leaves the house as it can't be easily replaced
- I take my Pocketbook Verse Pro with me when I travel as it's replaceable and it fits in most of my pockets
- I also have a very old Pocketbook that lives in our upstairs' bathroom and it's the most important device, according to my missus

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

...And another one arrived here a couple of days ago.

This one's the XTEINK X3. The credit card is simply there for scale: it's tiny.

What do I think of it? Well, it's utterly brilliant for portability. If you want one that'll fit in a shirt pocket while you're out and about, this will do nicely. And book storage is impressive. Interestingly, it has none built in: all books are stored on a micro SD card. 16GB is supplied. Replacing this with something larger is a trivial job, though books on the card removed will have to be copied onto the new card if you still want to access them on the reader.

Usability, though, isn't wonderful.

• The firmware is far from being the best I've ever seen. It lacks a lot of the functionality to which I've become accustomed.
• The screen resolution is not great at 259ppi.
• The tiny 3.7" screen can only display about 90 words/page.
• The screen is not touch-sensitive. All navigation is by pressing buttons, and mine doesn't seem to register every button press.
• I don't know what processor it has, but it's inadequate. The reader is pretty slow to respond.

Why is the text on the screen so uneven?

[Renate]

If I were reading anything on something so small I'd prefer landscape so that not every word is hyphenated.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why is the text on the screen so uneven?

It's a poor photograph, for which I apologise. The reality is better.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Renate

If I were reading anything on something so small I'd prefer landscape so that not every word is hyphenated.

That is an available option.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

...And another one arrived here a couple of days ago.

This one's the XTEINK X3. The credit card is simply there for scale: it's tiny.

What do I think of it? Well, it's utterly brilliant for portability. If you want one that'll fit in a shirt pocket while you're out and about, this will do nicely. And book storage is impressive. Interestingly, it has none built in: all books are stored on a micro SD card. 16GB is supplied. Replacing this with something larger is a trivial job, though books on the card removed will have to be copied onto the new card if you still want to access them on the reader.

Usability, though, isn't wonderful.

• The firmware is far from being the best I've ever seen. It lacks a lot of the functionality to which I've become accustomed.
• The screen resolution is not great at 259ppi.
• The tiny 3.7" screen can only display about 90 words/page.
• The screen is not touch-sensitive. All navigation is by pressing buttons, and mine doesn't seem to register every button press.
• I don't know what processor it has, but it's inadequate. The reader is pretty slow to respond.

The software is lacking? Why don't you install CrossPoint (or any of its forks)?

I've also acquired XTEINK X3 and X4. And while I prefer the higher PPI on the former it's almost unusable since page turns with a full refresh are so slow. I've ended up using only the X4.

I'll probably buy the Onyx Boox Picco when it's released. And either Pocketbook Q or Palma 3.

I now have way too many ereaders, but my favourite is still the Kobo Libra 2. The only things lacking on it are a faster processor and a Carta 1300 screen. And I would buy a Kobo Mini in a heartbeat.

The original reason I ventured into Android ereaders was that they had better dictionaries. While that is still the case, the reader.dict wiktionary based dictionaries with in-built support for morphology has made any ereader viable.

[cellaris]

Originally Posted by kandwo

The software is lacking? Why don't you install CrossPoint (or any of its forks)?

I've also acquired XTEINK X3 and X4. And while I prefer the higher PPI on the former it's almost unusable since page turns with a full refresh are so slow. I've ended up using only the X4.

I'll probably buy the Onyx Boox Picco when it's released. And either Pocketbook Q or Palma 3.

I now have way too many ereaders, but my favourite is still the Kobo Libra 2. The only things lacking on it are a faster processor and a Carta 1300 screen. And I would buy a Kobo Mini in a heartbeat.

The original reason I ventured into Android ereaders was that they had better dictionaries. While that is still the case, the reader.dict wiktionary based dictionaries with in-built support for morphology has made any ereader viable.

I, on the other hand, prefer the X3 (after trying out all the Crosspoint forks, I settled on Crossink). And I’m keen to see how KOReader performs on the S4. It’s clear that there are no issues with installing it, but we’ll have to see if the developers can control the screen refresh rate and the lighting. Without that, I wouldn’t be particularly interested.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by kandwo

The software is lacking? Why don't you install CrossPoint (or any of its forks)?

That's certainly a possibility, and might well happen. I'm aware of CrossPoint, and of the fact that some folk prefer it. I just haven't yet got round to looking at it in enough detail to decide.

Originally Posted by kandwo

And I would buy a Kobo Mini in a heartbeat.

I can understand that. You might have seen my photo above, showing mine. It's a terrific reader, and still perfectly usable. But it's a bit dated: It's really pretty thick from front to back - especially if compared with a Boox reader; and the screen contrast is poor on he earlier, Viziplex, ones. The bezel has rather sharp edges making it a bit uncomfortable to use. Now, if there was an updated Mini, that'd be well worth buying.

[kandwo]

Originally Posted by cellaris

I, on the other hand, prefer the X3 (after trying out all the Crosspoint forks, I settled on Crossink). And I’m keen to see how KOReader performs on the S4. It’s clear that there are no issues with installing it, but we’ll have to see if the developers can control the screen refresh rate and the lighting. Without that, I wouldn’t be particularly interested.

You don't mind the heavy ghosting on the x3?

Originally Posted by bluepeter

That's certainly a possibility, and might well happen. I'm aware of CrossPoint, and of the fact that some folk prefer it. I just haven't yet got round to looking at it in enough detail to decide.



I can understand that. You might have seen my photo above, showing mine. It's a terrific reader, and still perfectly usable. But it's a bit dated: It's really pretty thick from front to back - especially if compared with a Boox reader; and the screen contrast is poor on he earlier, Viziplex, ones. The bezel has rather sharp edges making it a bit uncomfortable to use. Now, if there was an updated Mini, that'd be well worth buying.

Oh, I meant that I would buy an updated Kobo Mini, if released

[cellaris]

Originally Posted by kandwo

You don't mind the heavy ghosting on the x3?

I can’t see any difference between the X3 and the X4 in terms of ghosting. Apart from the smoothing effect that anti-aliasing has on fonts (which I prefer so that the text always looks even and free from pixelation), I don’t notice any ghosting when I’m reading. I’ve set the screen refresh to every 15 pages and manually assigned it to a key in case I need to use it, although I rarely do. And I usually have it set to refresh with every page turn on all my e-readers. I find it more annoying to refresh the screen than not to. It may be one of the compromises I make with these rather rudimentary devices, but I’ve got used to using it this way and it doesn’t bother me whilst reading. There are some CrossPoint variants that offer a faster and smoother screen refresh, but CrossInk works well for me.

[latepaul]

I used to say my ideal ereader would be a Kobo Mini with a light. I'm not sure that's true any more (aging eyes).

I got an Xteink X4 Pro and it's small and got a light but obviously it's a bit smaller than a Mini but it does have a light. And whilst bluepeter was blaming the quality of the photo, the text rendering is not as good as I'd like it to be. It's better on Crosspoint/Crossink than the stock firmware but it's still not amazing. But then it's a small screen with a modest dpi. Form factor is amazing for portable use though.