GoKawiil
Tech News
E Ink tablets rely on reflective displays rather than backlit or emissive screens, making them easier on the eyes and far more readable outdoors than most iPads, aside from the high-brightness iPad Pro. Devices like the reMarkable Paper Pro also offer longer battery life and lighter builds because their screens only draw power when content changes, unlike an iPad's continuously lit display.
Chinese startup Xteink is following up its compact X4 e-reader with the Xteink S4, a 4.3-inch E-Ink device that ditches the previous proprietary Linux OS for Android 11. This change lets users sideload apps like Kindle, Kobo, and KOReader instead of being limited to DRM-free EPUB files. The S4 also bumps up specs with 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, and a 1,400mAh battery, more than double the X4's 650mAh cell.
Boox has released the Note Air 6C, an update to its Note Air E Ink tablet line, featuring a processor up to 45 percent faster than its predecessor and a 40 percent boost in PDF page-turning speed. The 10.3-inch device runs Android 16 with full Google Play Store access, includes a fingerprint sensor on the power button, four microphones, and ships with the Pen3 stylus that needs no charging or pairing. It starts at $580, a $50 increase over the previous Air 5C model.
Boox has unveiled the Palma 3, its latest phone-shaped E Ink reader, alongside the larger Note Air6 C and Note Mini C. The Palma 3 keeps the same 6.13-inch, 300ppi E Ink Carta screen as its predecessor but adds a new aluminum-and-fiberglass build, a Qualcomm Q-6690 processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, a 16MP camera, and support for an optional active stylus. It ships with Android 16, a major jump from Android 13 on the Palma 2.
Boox has released three new E Ink devices: the Note Air6 C, the Note Mini C, and the Palma 3. The Note Air6 C and Note Mini C are color digital notebooks priced at $580 each, running Android 16 with new AI features like meeting summaries and side-by-side annotation, while the Palma 3 is a $340 smartphone-sized E Ink reader. Only the Note Air6 C is currently available for purchase.
Boox introduced three new Android 16-powered E Ink devices: the Palma 3, a palm-sized ereader now built with an anodized aluminum frame and support for the InkSense Plus stylus, plus a 6.13-inch screen, 128GB storage and a 16MP camera. The company also revealed the 10.3-inch color Note Air6 C with a Dual Notes feature and keyboard accessory, and the Note Mini C, an 8.52-inch color device aimed at mobile professionals with enterprise app access.
Boox has unveiled the Palma 3, an update to its smartphone-sized black-and-white e-reader line, priced at $339.99, roughly $60 more than the 2024 Palma 2. The device keeps the same 6.13-inch E Ink Carta display but adds an anodized aluminum frame with a fiberglass back, runs Android 16, and now supports Boox's InkSense Plus stylus, sold separately for an extra $46.
A developer built Fugleramme, an open-source project that uses a Raspberry Pi, a microphone, and BirdNET-Go's local AI audio classifier to identify birds singing outside a window in real time. Instead of showing a photo or text, the system matches each detected species to one of over 800 hand-curated public-domain natural-history illustrations and renders them on an Inky Impression e-ink panel or a web kiosk, updating only when the birds heard actually change.
A writer purchased a cheap, tiny Xteink X3 e-ink reader after discovering the open-source CrossPoint firmware and quickly loaded books and custom fonts onto it. While experimenting with greyscale sleep-screen images, they found that dark grey rendered as pure black and light grey as near-white, and later noticed ghosting artifacts from previous screens appearing in the viewer app but not on the sleep screen.
A hobbyist bought the Xteink X3 e-ink display for its programmability and, frustrated by having to upload files through a clunky hotspot-based web page, decided to make it work like an actual printer. By implementing the Internet Printing Protocol and advertising the device as an AirPrint-compatible printer named 'penguin' via Bonjour, they enabled sending documents directly from a MacBook's Print dialog to the e-ink screen.
reMarkable has released a software update for its E-Ink tablets that lets users circle any part of the screen to capture and copy it as an image, which can then be repositioned or moved between notebooks. The update also adds green, yellow, cyan, and magenta pen colors, improves grayscale differentiation, and enables importing JPG and PNG files directly from Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive.
M5Stack has launched PaperMono, a compact development device combining a 3.97-inch grayscale E-Ink touchscreen with NFC, LoRa, microSD, RTC and a 1150mAh battery, all powered by an ESP32-S3R8 chip. The product ships in two versions: a full model with NFC and LoRa, and a Lite variant that drops those connectivity options for makers focused purely on E-Ink development. It's available now through the M5Stack Store.