posted in Technology
Tiny E-Reader Is the Best Piece of Technology in Years - The Atlantic
www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/09/xteink-e-reader-best-technology-years/688539/Replying to @doopinglouie@feddit.org
I’m glad it got the author of this article to read more, but there’s no real mention of why someone would use this instead of the myriad phone apps for reading already in existence, including the one that you have to download special software to get to run on this thing.
The TikTokification cannot be much different between this and a phone screen. You can only fit a few sentences on a phone screen in the first place, so I can’t imagine there’s a real change even when you halve the size.
Traditional ereaders have a place for a variety of reasons and this seems to go against everything someone would want in an ereader. I really just don’t understand this product and there was nothing that helped explain it’s purpose in contrast to the phone it’s presumably going to be attached to. Really wish they bothered to address that point at all.
Replying to @MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
While I agree that this sounds like all the drawbacks of an ereader with none of the bonuses of a phone, I think compartmentalisation is a pretty big factor. If the back of your phone is for reading, some people will be less likely to get distracted while their phone is flipped over - even though they’re literally holding the likely source of their distraction.
you can’t overstate how much nicer it is to read on an eink screen compared to a phone. but the magnet gimmick is silly, it’s hard to use it like that and negates one of the main benefits, which is how light it is
I have an eink ereader, and it really is wonderful, but I absolutely would not use it as much if it was the size and shape of my phone. For short stretches I guess it’s fine, but one of the reasons I got an ereader is because my phone was so ergonomically bad for reading.
i’ll try not to sound like a shill here (i bought the x4 a few months ago) but i thought the same and tried it anyway due to how cheap it was. the text can of course be set to the same size you like it on a normal ereader but it’s so light that you can hold it in thumb + forefinger without effort, i quickly came to prefer it over the old kindle paperwhite i was using
Honestly, people seem to really like them based on the comments here. 70 seems silly to essentially combine two products I already have, but I may give it a week or so and if it’s still top of mind go ahead with it. I really appreciate people bothering to share their experiences with it, since I really was not convinced by the article.
Replying to @MountingSuspicion@reddthat.com
I think of it less as “combine”, and more “separate” on purpose. There’s the images pointing out how much stuff one had to carry before that a smartphone replaces as one slab but… it doesn’t do most of those things as well.
I really like my X4 from that standpoint. It’s much longer battery than my phone screen grants, and I don’t have to open any menus to toggle anything to say “go away, notifications”, or anything like that. I’m separated from everything else on my phone while I read on it.