XTEINK X4 Review

In the past six years of working at home again, I’ve gravitated to physical books over the e-books I’d leaned-on during my travel time. The smell of books, and the feel of paper is a nostalgic and comforting thing. When I’m flying or bicycling elsewhere, the weight and size of US paperbacks doesn’t work well though, so I return to e-ink. My latest purchase, the XTEINK X4, is by far my favorite, and I affectionately call it “Stink”.

A history of single-use readers

I never owned the original Kindle, both because of its cost, and its cumbersome design. My first e-reader was the Kindle Keyboard/Kindle 3, which I broke by dropping it in the bathroom. I tend to read whenever I can, but these plastic and e-ink things don’t cope with a rough-and-tumble life well. I replaced it with a Kindle 4, then a Paperwhite, and eventually in a somewhat ridiculous moment, the $349 Oasis 2. Even with a terrible micro-USB port, the Oasis was a great reading experience, even with the unfortunate ties to Amazon’s monopoly. I used Calibre and a lot of DRM-free purchased e-books to read loads of Scandinavian mysteries and modern literature all over the world, and brought it with me on my commute every day. 2020 retired it.

While unable to travel and not wanting the risk of flights, I bike-packed and camped. On a bike or in a pack, even a small Kindle feels excessive when I have to bring a phone regardless of my load, so I began to read on my iPhone, despite the less-easy-on-the-eyes screen. For a few years it went: books at home, phone on the road—this was not a terrible setup.

In 2023, the Boox Palma came on the scene with super-outdated Android software, but a lovely small phone form factor. I brought it with me on a few trips, and upgraded to the second gen when it launched a year later. For manga and books the slightly smaller screen was still decent, and the device nicely fit in my hand and bags, but it was still a second thing to bring in addition to my phone.

Here comes the Stink

I don’t remember where I first saw it, but my Youtube algorithm is now chock full of the little bastard: the XTEINK X4. It’s about the size of the original iPhone (small), with the thinness of a modern iPad (thin) and it’s magnetic, so it sticks to a metal seatback, post, or night stand. The screen is worse than on a Kindle, and it’s devoid of backlight, but that’s what lamps are for. With third-party OSS Crosspoint software the experience of loading and reading books is perfectly fine—pop out a micro SD card or shoot over ePubs with wifi, then use physical buttons to turn the pages. Manga takes a conversion process to be particularly readable, but that’s painless due to the support of community software too. You can’t buy books on the Stink, but Bookshop has plenty of DRM-free ePubs, and my collection of past purchases is extensive. I still think it’s absurd that physical books don’t include an ebook in the same way that Vinyl usually includes a download code, but I’ll let you determine your mores on “finding” an ePub of a book you already own at least one copy of.

All that aside, the main selling point for the Stink is its size. In a pocket (even a shitty women’s pant pocket), it’s unnoticeable. When I’m headed-out on a ride, commute, or even expect to wait for something, it comes with me without question. The battery life is excellent due to the lack of features like a backlight, but even when it’s in need of charge, it uses the same cable as my phone: USB-C. XTEINK has announced an even smaller version (the X3) that uses a magnetic charger similar to my heart rate monitor, but I think it might be on the wrong side of small.

In review

For now, using and carrying the Stink around is the happiest I’ve been to read on e-ink since I first got a Kindle, and reach for it at home half the time too. I’ll keep buying and keeping books around my house in the same way I buy and enjoy vinyl, but being able to keep reading the same book outside of the house on a device that doesn’t do anything but read is a delight. The price is right, at $70, though unless you want to load it for someone else, I wouldn’t buy this for the sort of person that wants to use their e-reader to buy books or needs a larger screen due to eyesight differences. If you’re like me though: young enough to see it, mobile enough to want it, and into weird little gadgets: Stink out of Stink, would buy again.