Looks nice. Personally I don't know I can go back to 220ppi, but if I did I would definitely pay for the touchscreen and light over the X4!
Maybe you already have this, but I'd encourage you to put a "pure" reading mode in there, with no status bars top or bottom. That would probably allow for an extra line.
I wonder if there's also room in the case spec to slot in a magnet here or there. Could make for some creative solutions for covers or stands. Personally I use a Clara BW with a folding cover-stand and it's incredibly convenient.
I really liked their comparison matrix, it's honest about what it does and what it doesn't do. I'll probably go with Kobo + Koreader when my current ereader gives up the ghost, but given that 4" ereaders seem to be all the rage these days, I wish them success.
I'd like to see some corrections to the matrix, Kobo can run custom code and does not require an account. Also "DRM: yes" feels misleading - you can read DRM-free files on one just fine.
I haven't pulled the trigger on the Xteink because of the back/front light missing, but probably will when they're back in stock. I'll check out the pocketbook as well...thanks for the tip.
What I love with my pocketbook is that i can hold the thing by placing my right thumb on the "next page" button and my left thumb on the "previous page" button.
To me it's the most amazing feature of an e-reader against the real book : you can read comfortably with 0 movement. You just mindlessly press the buttons that are already under your thumbs to navigate the book.
And the bonus is that it's clicky and instant, which, as strange as it sounds, makes it the only device that I own that make me feel it's magic. Which is a shame because in another timeline, all our tech should be well designed and magical-like.
I also have Kobo Clara BW, and don't like swipe gestures, or any gestures whatsoever.
I (now) know why I don't like that, because regular book and magazines, you don't have to think about how you hold it. Your thumb isn't going to magically flick a page by accident if you take a firm grip on it. With gestures only e-ink books, I have to take extra caution how I hold it so that it doesn't trigger something.
> Open Book Touch is the device I’ve been trying to build for six years: a small, beautiful, completely open source e-book reader that does one thing and does it well
I almost bought an xteink the other week but held off due to lack of a frontlight option.
I instead resurrected my nook simple touch (2011) with this project [1] from XDA forums, its made it infinitely more usable and still has good battery life.
Thanks for mentioning both of these, the xteink and the nook resurrection. My old nooks are all slimy with the black material liquifying, and unusable just for that, else I'd pursue the XDA option. Looking into the xteink now, else Kobo. The one the post is about seems extremely appealing, but the price is a bit high for me, and the lifePo option makes the lesser one seem even more expensive. I really love e-ink. I could easily go with it for all compute.
Be aware though they're trying to block third party software and their own sucks badly. I don't understand why they try to block this because it makes their hardware actually worth buying.
The official hardware (if you buy through their website or amazon) is not blocked. Only Aliexpress offerings.
But yes, they are coming with a FRONTlit option. Although it'll also have a touchscreen and no front buttons.
I'm hoping maybe in a year or so they make an actual successor with the same button layout, no touchscreen (or with a touchscreen but still with all the buttons) and a better chipset (though nothing major, what the X3 has is enough).
Oh ok but why do they block the Ali ones then? I don't think they're on Amazon here in Spain. And if I have to order from China I'd greatly prefer Ali express because they have good consumer protection.
And yes I meant front light sorry. I didn't know that one won't have buttons.
They're just blocked from OTA updates, you can flash whatever you want on the sdcard and then unlock OTA. (I did this yesterday with an aliexpress version x4)
You can. But if you build your own stuff, you can also easily lock yourself out. That whole mechanism that tells the software to look for a new bin file on the SD card and to use that to update is something that needs to be contained in your software. If you forget it, or you get it wrong, the thing will be bricked.
I was just looking into it, with coupons and ongoing sale, it is possible to buy the Chinese version for about 7,500 JPY (45 USD) on Aliexpress, while on the official website (and Amazon) it is 13,900 JPY. I am not sure if this applies everywhere.
While there is an "unlock" option, it seems it is strongly implied that you should stick to mainstream custom firmware or risk getting stuck with a firmware forever [0].
I understand, I just wonder why they do this. Why lock their stuff down so much? Especially if they offer other channels that don't have this limitation.
You can install custom firmware from the SD card, but you can't enable USB flashing. And the SD card installation depends on the installed firmware; in other words, if you end up with the wrong firmware installed, you may be stuck with it.
I have one. Do not bother. It is too small. I did write my own software for it which was a fun exercise but it remains idle because it is just too small to enjoy reading from.
I really like the thinking of openness behind this device. Could be great as a pocketable "notice board" getting info on a schedule from mobile and "posting" to a pub on device for me to look at when I feel like it and react to messages on my schedule.
Agreed. Half the thickness and ~2x the screen size and it would've been an instant buy. 2x the screen size and same thickness and I'd have to think about it.
As is I'll keep my eyes peeled for future versions, I really like the concept, and deal-breaker might be fixed in the future
Xteink doesn’t have a front light or touchscreen. It can’t keep time. A lot of people dislike the stock firmware. The battery isn’t user-replaceable.
Xteink is smaller, thinner, and magnetic. It’s cheaper and available today. It has physical buttons. There’s a ton of firmware options and community around it already. Some firmwares have apps and games beyond reading if that interests you. Community firmwares vastly open up available file formats.
Both are some form of open, although Xteink probably less so given some models are locked. Both will require some hunting for DRM free ebooks. Both run ESP32 chips, the Open Book touch running a more powerful dual core one.
I love my X3. The size and magnetic feature means I always have it on me for a quick read whenever a moment strikes.
Thanks for the response. I’ve first thought of getting the x3 but then I realized how small it is. What’s your experience? Is it too small? Would you read a whole book on it?
I had similar concerns before I snagged it but I’ve read multiple books on it so far front to back. It’s wonderful. Extremely happy with it. vCodex is a great firmware but even crosspoint is quite good!
My wife reads on a kindle with a larger font and since the margins are much smaller and my font size is a bit smaller as well we’re basically reading similar sized pages.
Some LLM-assisted guesstimating tells me that in terms of raw cost of manufacturing and delivery, given an average (non-voracious) rate of consumption, supplying paper books is still several times cheaper than supplying usable E-Ink devices in non-price-rigged markets.
Supplying kids textbooks in India in paperback, for instance, is at least 5-6x cheaper than supplying them the same in an E-Ink reader despite the ginormous (10-12x assuming 6-7 books each year) difference in freight volume.
This is 10 year old ebook technology for the sake of being "open", when one can just install KOreader on a Kobo.
KOreader fixes nearly all of the annoying bullshit in Kobo's firmware, which frankly, is terrible. The UI is poorly organized (why the hell is night mode so hard to get to!?), crashed routinely (just like it did ~10+ years ago...), and page changes are painfully slow, barely any improvement from the much older Kobos. It also provides support for remote libraries and a slew of other features. The UI isn't very clean, but it has a ton more features.
I've never understood how my much newer Kobo is just as slow as my first Kobo reader which was 10+ years ago, or why both of them rather frequently hang and have to be power-cycled.
kind of what i was thinking, but i didn't want to be a buzzkill. if you can get over the terrible usb charging, an old kindle with KOreader and calibre sync is amazing, and will be a much, much nicer hardware than this thing that only an engineer could love.
I had this opinion before I actually used a smaller device. I now have xteink x3 which is 3.7” and it’s just awesome. After a couple of minutes it disappears in my hand like I forget I’m even holding a device. I wouldn’t use it for graphical novels but for regular books it’s just perfect
> Cyrillic scripts like Russian and Ukrainian are supported via GNU Unifont, along with Arabic and Hebrew.
So much for proper typography...
I guess it's still useful for an ocasional Cyrillic word inside an English text, but reading a book set in GNU Unifont is not going to be a pleasurable experience.
This looks nice - I think ‘small enough to be pocketable’ is an important form factor. Reading preferences are a very personal thing, and for people like me - who feel they internalize more effectively when reading from a physical book better than when reading from a screen - this form factor makes owning one more worthwhile.
I have always wondered why the form factor that has been settled on for e-readers was ‘book-like’, other than the obvious screen-size advantages. I wonder if there is a better form-factor out there and if anyone has any ideas. Electronic devices don’t need to resemble the thing they are replacing, and it’s sometimes better that they don’t.
I know a lot of people lust after the clamshell e-reader imagined in the film It Follows. [1]
The haptics of a physical book are, I think, what helps me better remember them, because memory is intrinsically linked non-digital sensory information like touch, and smell.
I’ve personally tried a few prototypes to try to bring unique sensory inputs to individual books read digitally to help me remember each one better: converting an AliExpress Game Boy into one to enable more haptic and visual differentiation; generative ambient & binaural music that is automatically created based on the text shown.
Each did help, to an extent, in preventing the way everything I read on an e-reader slightly blurs into indistinct memories of ‘reading generally’, rather than ‘reading this specific book’.
Maybe the e-reader has to be as personally customizable as a cyberdeck for those of us who kind of need the other sensory inputs. So it’s good that the firmware on this one seems to be open-source, but I haven’t yet read through it to understand the extent of that.
Personally, having a book-like form factor is a property that moves it into it's own tactile/haptic experience. These small newspaper-column width readers seem to just take you further down the 'reading generally' path.
While I appreciate the sentiment of physical books, I simply don't have the physical space for my book collection, and it seemed frivolous to make that a meaningful requirement of my living space. On top of that, my reading-distance eyesight has started to go, and it's so much simpler to bump the text on a book-sized reader than it is to manage reading glasses.
Disappointed to see how many of the comments here are fairly negative. Especially for a site that so values true open source.
While this isn't the ereader for me (I need a larger screen and buttons), I absolutely love the idea and passion behind this project. I will look into supporting, if finances allow, as its something I could easily gift to younger members of the family.
This is so cool, I love seeing more and more epaper projects! I would love some deeper technical blogs like what Eric Migikovsky is doing at Pebble.
It was surprising to see Arduino vs ESP-IDF even mentioned as a real decision to be made for a market product. The battery life would obviously be nowhere near optimal, but I'm surprised if you could even keep a real project of any scale manageable within the Arduino framework.
devindotcom | 23 hours ago
Maybe you already have this, but I'd encourage you to put a "pure" reading mode in there, with no status bars top or bottom. That would probably allow for an extra line.
I wonder if there's also room in the case spec to slot in a magnet here or there. Could make for some creative solutions for covers or stands. Personally I use a Clara BW with a folding cover-stand and it's incredibly convenient.
cyberax | 23 hours ago
aidenn0 | 23 hours ago
crtasm | 22 hours ago
HaloZero | 12 hours ago
hamdingers | 23 hours ago
That's too bad. For whatever reason I find swipe gestures on e-ink annoying. I currently use a Kobo Clara BW and miss dedicated page-turning buttons.
I see they're offering the print files for the case, maybe there will be some pins on the ESP32 exposed somewhere for adding buttons
kjs3 | 21 hours ago
pjerem | 17 hours ago
kjs3 | 8 hours ago
tiagod | 21 hours ago
wolvoleo | 18 hours ago
pjerem | 17 hours ago
To me it's the most amazing feature of an e-reader against the real book : you can read comfortably with 0 movement. You just mindlessly press the buttons that are already under your thumbs to navigate the book.
And the bonus is that it's clicky and instant, which, as strange as it sounds, makes it the only device that I own that make me feel it's magic. Which is a shame because in another timeline, all our tech should be well designed and magical-like.
Semaphor | 16 hours ago
neoden | 18 hours ago
InsideOutSanta | 12 hours ago
Ciantic | 6 hours ago
I (now) know why I don't like that, because regular book and magazines, you don't have to think about how you hold it. Your thumb isn't going to magically flick a page by accident if you take a firm grip on it. With gestures only e-ink books, I have to take extra caution how I hold it so that it doesn't trigger something.
mimo84 | 22 hours ago
1. A dictionary
2. A flash card creation functionality
joeycastillo | 22 hours ago
kjs3 | 21 hours ago
lossyalgo | 21 hours ago
paulcole | 22 hours ago
What makes this beautiful?
holysoles | 21 hours ago
I instead resurrected my nook simple touch (2011) with this project [1] from XDA forums, its made it infinitely more usable and still has good battery life.
[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/nst-g-the-phoenix-project.4673934/
eth0up | 20 hours ago
5k cycles would be nice.
wolvoleo | 18 hours ago
Be aware though they're trying to block third party software and their own sucks badly. I don't understand why they try to block this because it makes their hardware actually worth buying.
jerojero | 16 hours ago
The official hardware (if you buy through their website or amazon) is not blocked. Only Aliexpress offerings.
But yes, they are coming with a FRONTlit option. Although it'll also have a touchscreen and no front buttons.
I'm hoping maybe in a year or so they make an actual successor with the same button layout, no touchscreen (or with a touchscreen but still with all the buttons) and a better chipset (though nothing major, what the X3 has is enough).
wolvoleo | 16 hours ago
And yes I meant front light sorry. I didn't know that one won't have buttons.
rkachowski | 15 hours ago
leobg | 15 hours ago
jwrallie | 14 hours ago
While there is an "unlock" option, it seems it is strongly implied that you should stick to mainstream custom firmware or risk getting stuck with a firmware forever [0].
[0] https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader#usb-l...
wolvoleo | 8 hours ago
Mikhail_Edoshin | 16 hours ago
InsideOutSanta | 12 hours ago
pizzafeelsright | 7 hours ago
The correct size is 6" or so diagonally.
zoom6628 | 20 hours ago
Grombobulous | 20 hours ago
amarant | 9 hours ago
As is I'll keep my eyes peeled for future versions, I really like the concept, and deal-breaker might be fixed in the future
onemoresoop | 19 hours ago
chewmieser | 10 hours ago
Xteink is smaller, thinner, and magnetic. It’s cheaper and available today. It has physical buttons. There’s a ton of firmware options and community around it already. Some firmwares have apps and games beyond reading if that interests you. Community firmwares vastly open up available file formats.
Both are some form of open, although Xteink probably less so given some models are locked. Both will require some hunting for DRM free ebooks. Both run ESP32 chips, the Open Book touch running a more powerful dual core one.
I love my X3. The size and magnetic feature means I always have it on me for a quick read whenever a moment strikes.
onemoresoop | 7 hours ago
chewmieser | 4 hours ago
My wife reads on a kindle with a larger font and since the margins are much smaller and my font size is a bit smaller as well we’re basically reading similar sized pages.
vjvjvjvjghv | 18 hours ago
dartharva | 18 hours ago
Supplying kids textbooks in India in paperback, for instance, is at least 5-6x cheaper than supplying them the same in an E-Ink reader despite the ginormous (10-12x assuming 6-7 books each year) difference in freight volume.
KennyBlanken | 18 hours ago
KOreader fixes nearly all of the annoying bullshit in Kobo's firmware, which frankly, is terrible. The UI is poorly organized (why the hell is night mode so hard to get to!?), crashed routinely (just like it did ~10+ years ago...), and page changes are painfully slow, barely any improvement from the much older Kobos. It also provides support for remote libraries and a slew of other features. The UI isn't very clean, but it has a ton more features.
I've never understood how my much newer Kobo is just as slow as my first Kobo reader which was 10+ years ago, or why both of them rather frequently hang and have to be power-cycled.
nekooooo | 5 hours ago
goodpoint | 16 hours ago
iammjm | 9 hours ago
demetrius | 15 hours ago
So much for proper typography...
I guess it's still useful for an ocasional Cyrillic word inside an English text, but reading a book set in GNU Unifont is not going to be a pleasurable experience.
functionmouse | 10 hours ago
gabriel666smith | 15 hours ago
I have always wondered why the form factor that has been settled on for e-readers was ‘book-like’, other than the obvious screen-size advantages. I wonder if there is a better form-factor out there and if anyone has any ideas. Electronic devices don’t need to resemble the thing they are replacing, and it’s sometimes better that they don’t.
I know a lot of people lust after the clamshell e-reader imagined in the film It Follows. [1]
The haptics of a physical book are, I think, what helps me better remember them, because memory is intrinsically linked non-digital sensory information like touch, and smell.
I’ve personally tried a few prototypes to try to bring unique sensory inputs to individual books read digitally to help me remember each one better: converting an AliExpress Game Boy into one to enable more haptic and visual differentiation; generative ambient & binaural music that is automatically created based on the text shown.
Each did help, to an extent, in preventing the way everything I read on an e-reader slightly blurs into indistinct memories of ‘reading generally’, rather than ‘reading this specific book’.
Maybe the e-reader has to be as personally customizable as a cyberdeck for those of us who kind of need the other sensory inputs. So it’s good that the firmware on this one seems to be open-source, but I haven’t yet read through it to understand the extent of that.
[1] https://collider.com/it-follows-clam-phone/
1shooner | 2 hours ago
While I appreciate the sentiment of physical books, I simply don't have the physical space for my book collection, and it seemed frivolous to make that a meaningful requirement of my living space. On top of that, my reading-distance eyesight has started to go, and it's so much simpler to bump the text on a book-sized reader than it is to manage reading glasses.
condwanaland | 15 hours ago
While this isn't the ereader for me (I need a larger screen and buttons), I absolutely love the idea and passion behind this project. I will look into supporting, if finances allow, as its something I could easily gift to younger members of the family.
Huge congrats getting it to this point!
jackb4040 | 12 hours ago
It was surprising to see Arduino vs ESP-IDF even mentioned as a real decision to be made for a market product. The battery life would obviously be nowhere near optimal, but I'm surprised if you could even keep a real project of any scale manageable within the Arduino framework.
thazework | 9 hours ago
Not a selling point. You shouldn't be aloowed to call it an e-reader if it doesn't have physical turn page buttons..