Small eInk device

[flips01]

Hi! I haven't been paying attention to new products for a while, but is there a nice, really small eInk devices (like Kobo Mini or even smaller) out there, with front side lighting, that I should consider?

Tried searching a bit, but only found 6" devices ...

[JSWolf]

No 5" eInk Readers had a front light. You'll only get a front light on 6" to 9.7". And as for small 5" Readers. I don't know if anyone still makes such. Kobo no longer does. And you don't want any 5" Reader older and a Kobo Mini are they are slow (battery may not last long) and can tend to crash (or run really really slow) on modern eBooks with hi-res images and most likely have a Pearl screen and not a Carta screen.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by flips01

... but is there a nice, really small eInk devices

The only one that I am aware of is YotaPhone.
There is supposed to be a new one coming out in September.
You can still buy YotaPhone 2, but the sale for 120Euro has ended a few months ago.

[flips01]

Originally Posted by kacir

The only one that I am aware of is YotaPhone.

There is supposed to be a new one coming out in September.

You can still buy YotaPhone 2, but the sale for 120Euro has ended a few months ago.

I was hoping there would be a Kobo Mini HD Glo H2O by now 😁 ... But this phone looks interesting ... Hopefully the newer version will have newer Android than 4.x ...

[barryem]

It's worth noting that the Yota Phones e-ink screen isn't lit.

I'd also like a small front-lit e-ink reader. For me a phone size reader with lighted e-ink would be ideal. I did recently switch to a Samsung Galaxy s5 phone with an AMOLED screen which is a big improvement over LCD for reading, since it has no backlight. But it's still not nearly as good as e-ink.

Barry

[kacir]

Originally Posted by barryem

It's worth noting that the Yota Phones e-ink screen isn't lit.

Yes, YotaPhone 2 e-ink screen is unlit.
You are supposed to use the AMOLED screen when you need light.

I am not aware of any front-lit reader with e-ink less than 6", except for Onyx Boox InkPhone 43 with 4.3" screen.
You can search my posts about the phone. The front-light is *very* uneven, software is abysmal, screen and black bezel are not matte but shiny. The rubbery surface on the back and sides started to blister and peel off after short period of use - possibly because I handled the phone with hands with some residue of sun-screen on my fingers, but it is difficult not to, if you want to use it on the beach.

Recently Nate at the-digital-reader.com reported that YotaPhone 3 is, according to some Russian speaking blogs, supposed to come out in September. We do not know yet whether it is going to have front-lit e-ink.

[graycyn]

Sony PRS-350 with lighted cover is probably the closest thing to a 5" front lit reader. But they are slower and you'd want to find a used one where the battery was reasonably cared for.

However, they get pickier about epubs made for modern high resolution devices and might bork on books containing larger SVG images, I was testing same just yesterday, a 1MB full page SVG image caused the PRS-350 not to open a book. Same epub was fine on Sony PRS-T2, and my Kobos.

If you primarily read all text books, then the Sony still does a pretty good job. The lighted covers are not easy to find though.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[HarryT]

Moved to the "Which one should I buy?" forum.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Sony PRS-350 with lighted cover is probably the closest thing to a 5" front lit reader. But they are slower and you'd want to find a used one where the battery was reasonably cared for.

However, they get pickier about epubs made for modern high resolution devices and might bork on books containing larger SVG images, I was testing same just yesterday, a 1MB full page SVG image caused the PRS-350 not to open a book. Same epub was fine on Sony PRS-T2, and my Kobos.

If you primarily read all text books, then the Sony still does a pretty good job. The lighted covers are not easy to find though.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

A 5" screen is abysmal for text books. Most text books are PDF and they will be garbage on a 5" eInk screen. Also, the 350 is old and slow with a low resolution Pearl screen. There's also a chance the battery has had it. Basically, the 350 is not worth it. Given that it won't run with some eBooks with hi-res graphics or if it does run, it can run very very very slow when displaying hi-res graphics. Also, the version of RMDSK is old. There's no hyphenation. The 350 is just going to cause you no end of problems. So don't bother trying to find one.

The smallest decent Reader with a front light is 6".

[kacir]

Originally Posted by flips01

Hopefully the newer version will have newer Android than 4.x ...

I purchased one on sale for 120Euro. It came with Android 4.4.
It was not possible to update to 5.0 "over the air" so I have downloaded the official updater from YotaPhone official site to a Windows PC and downloaded 5.0 firmware of my choice. There were various versions available.
I was able to flash to 5.0 without a problem. No hacking required. Just run some command-line tools and then bite your nails for an hour or so, until the update is finished ;-).
Nowadays there is even official update to 6.0, but only for "European" version of YotaPhone 2. The ones that were on sale were "Chinese" models (different LTE bands) do not have official update to 6.0 available, but some people have used firmware from the other model successfully. I am not going to bother with mine.

So, there is *very* high probability that YotaPhone 3 will come with something better than Android 5.0 and high probability that it will be 6.0 or better. With the possibility to update later.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

A 5" screen is abysmal for text books.

Pretty sure that when graycyn said "all text books" they meant books that were just text only rather than text books.

[kacir]

An update about YotaPhone 3
https://www.engadget.com/2017/06/18/...napdragon-625/