https://liliputing.com/xteink-blocks-installation-of-custom-...
Moreover, it's a bit of a crazy looking hack too, by doing a MITM attack.
I'm curious to see what exactly is the seam between the Xteink brand and its upstream supplier(s).
It's like the brand company was against the firmware lockdown in the first place. It would be neat to better understand the Chinese consumer devices ecosystem.
In actuality there are several forks, and the original Crosspoint Reader really got the ball rolling, but now seems to get stuck in discussions. The forks (especially the one I linked) has progressed much further and has better KOReader sync (as in actually syncs to the correct XPath position instead of some close-enough position), bionic reading, streamlined UI, etc. Give that one a shot!
The discussions are pretty sane, but I've seen how once there's a PR that's ready to go and everyone agrees is ready to go it won't be merged because there's not enough people to review the code.
Maybe a lot of people who would be reviewers have decided instead to maintain their own forks. But yeah, the discussion is fine.
Not sure what KOReader is but the fonts included in this one and the overall reading experience is solid.
https://aftermath.site/xteink-x4-cheap-hackable-ereader-cros...
These things are teeny-tiny.
I comfortably fit around half a page of a real paperback book on the screen. Its not the biggest compromise ever and for the size its great.
You know how they say "the best camera is the one you have with you" well the same goes for an ereader. I do have my bigger e-reader but it doesn't fit in my pocket, it fits in my bag and that's believe it or not a big difference.
I also have a more expensive "phone sized" ereader, and its fine. The size is really good and I've read many books in it. The issue is that it feels like carrying two phones, its the size and weight of a modern phone. The X4 is like 80gr. Its significantly smaller.
- Almost no formatting on the ebooks you upload (no bold text, missing glyphs, no images/cover art) - The book had to be rendered before being uploaded. I suspect they were uploading series of bitmaps. - This meant if you wanted to change portrait/landscape or change font size/type you had to re-render the book - Bitmap fonts were very ugly.
Overall it was barely workable. More of a proof of concept. The CrossPoint firmware on the other hand:
- Actually renders books as you would expect, in a pleasing manner, formatting and all - Much more reader configuration on device: font settings, margin, spacing, alignment, progress display - Update via USB or OTA - Multiple ways to get your books: Connect to your Calibre library to push or pull books (thanks for introducing me to Calibre!), USB, Wireless file transfer - Sync progress via KOReader
It's the best gift the community could give to the manufacturer. With only the default firmware my X4 would have been in the junk drawer within a week, but now I carry it every day, I've shown it to so many people. It's a marvel. With the news about them attempting to lock it down I can't recommend it anymore. Why would they do that?
In the next release I will fix a bug to enable file search for the copyparty opds as well.
Someone is working on a more DIY device that can run this firmware.
I used a reTerminal as a bedside weather station UI recently, works rather nice
Not exactly reading devices, yes, but they are open hardware
Repairable, sure; hackable, not really.
Only drawback, the magnets are not in the right position to piggyback on an iPhone's MagSafe.
But I read there's also an "X4 v2 pro" coming with frontlight: https://www.joshualowcock.com/xteink/xteink-x4-v2-pro-xteink...
So I'm waiting to see which one will be the best price/quality in this regard.
The lack of consensus on what features are essential in an e-reader must be hard to manage. Surprisingly exotic features sometimes.
- No deal, this e-reader doesn't let me play chess.
- No deal, this e-reader doesn't support bluetooth page-turning.
- No deal, I don't actually look at the screen I use text-to-speech.
You're right though, the crosspoint firmware is supposedly exclusively for reading.
Btw, did Onyx publish sources as required by GPLv3 for that device? AFAIK there are no sources in the open (if I am not mistaken ) and I have no idea what can push them toward publishing them.
P.S: Shameless plug, I also built an OSS iOS/Android app to help syncing files and clipping web articles/blog and sending to X4 on the go https://crosspointsync.com/
Anyone know if there is remote chess for this?
Well because people like it better!
(I do have a kobo, it's too big.)