is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
I’ve used and reviewed dozens of e-readers over the years, but the 5-inch Kobo Mini remains my favorite for one simple reason: It was small. While it lacked useful features like screen lighting and page turn buttons, its size made it an e-reader I actually wanted to carry every day. The $69 Xteink X4 e-reader is even smaller than the Kobo Mini and E Ink smartphones like Boox Palma. It’s satisfyingly pocketable but also frustratingly unintuitive and functionally limited out of the box. That could be a deal-breaker were it not for a growing community of users working to improve it.
Like the Kodak Charmera, I was pleasantly surprised at how small the X4 is in person. Its 4.3-inch E Ink screen is only a bit tinier than the Kobo Mini’s 5-inch panel, but the X4’s bezels are much slimmer, making the e-reader feel significantly smaller. The joy of nerding out over the X4’s size was quickly cut short when I tested one of its most compelling features.
The X4 is about half the size of the Kobo Libra 2 (bottom) and much smaller than the discontinued Kobo Mini (middle).
When the X4 was announced last December, Xteink shared photos of the e-reader stuck to the back of an iPhone using its MagSafe feature. It made the X4 seem like a better alternative to e-reader cases for those wanting a second screen on their phones, but the odd position of its magnets makes it impossible to stick the e-reader to the back of my iPhone 16 Pro in any usable way.
This was the only way I could stick the X4 to my iPhone 16 Pro’s MagSafe mount without using the included adhesive magnetic rings. Even with the X4 properly aligned on the back of my iPhone, the e-reader extended too far off the bottom for me to use it this way.
It’s an issue that many X4 users have complained about, and in a statement emailed to The Verge, the company explains that “during our early development and testing phase, we worked with a limited range of iPhone models. As a result, on some newer models, the magnetic alignment may not appear perfectly centered.” As a work-around, Xteink includes a pair of magnetic adhesive rings that can be stuck to devices to allow for proper alignment.
However, the X4 also extends past the bottom of my iPhone, so instead of trying to awkwardly use the two together, I’ve been using it as a standalone ultra-compact e-reader. At less than 6mm thick, the X4 takes up very little room in the sling bag I carry every day and is protected using a basic magnetic folio-style case that’s included.
The Xteink X4 is one of the cheapest e-readers on the market, but that price comes with some challenges and compromises, including a 4.3-inch E Ink screen with a 220ppi resolution. That’s less than the 300ppi e-paper screens on the latest Kindle and Kobo e-readers. You’ll see jagged edges on fine text if you look hard enough, but it’s enough resolution for a pleasant reading experience.
... continue reading