Join the discussion

Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.

  • Hacker News
  • I've had an x3 with crosspoint for a couple of months. Overall I love the device, it's making it easy to pull up the phone and read a couple of pages instead of doom scrolling. But a huge drawback is that it's unusable in direct sunlight since the screen fades away. Here is how it looks: https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/comments/1q5fhwf/dire...

    I contacted support and they answered

    "We would like to clarify that on e ink displays, text may appear lighter under very strong direct sunlight. Once the screen refreshes or you return to normal lighting conditions and turn a few pages, the text will fully recover. This behavior is related to the low power design of the display and does not cause any damage to the screen."

  • I got the X4 a few weeks back and installed https://github.com/uxjulia/CrossInk and it has been a dream.
  • Love my X4. Shameless plug, I also built an iOS/Android app to manage books and also send web articles over to Crosspoint

    https://crosspointsync.com/

  • Was just looking at this. What keeps me from buying is the screen is just too small. I'd love to slap this magnetically on the back of my iPhone and have it on the go as a focused reading device but eyes after 40 aren't so happy about reading super tiny characters.

    My two wishes are: to size it up so it is roughly the width of a modern smartphone (2.72" -> 2.8") and decrease bezel size. At these small sizes, even 1/2 to 3/4" screen size increase is a big deal in area gained, which leads to more comfort reading and less line scanning.

    Hope they'll ship one with the size up 4.7" ED047TC1 display [1] instead.

    [1] https://github.com/Xinyuan-LilyGO/LilyGo-EPD47/blob/esp32s3/...

  • I love my X3. I glued its magnetic folio to the back of my Apple Wallet. It turned out perfectly, for me. Pictures below. I've read The Odyssey and several other shorter books on it and have yet to recharge it.

    - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCStWYAAOj6f?format=jpg&name=...

    - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCO8WIAASMEn?format=jpg&name=...

    - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HFaPCPEXgAE3O4z?format=jpg&name=...

  • I got one last April, and love it: https://taoofmac.com/space/reviews/2026/04/04/1800

    I also built two quick hacks for it that people might like:

    - https://github.com/rcarmo/bun-readlater-epub

    - https://github.com/rcarmo/bun-opds-server

  • I have the X4 and the X3 (newer smaller one). I will get whatever the next version is if it has a backlight or more DPI / support for smaller font.

    X4 is great - has usb-c charger and with the cover feels like an easy to pocket and bring everywhere reader. Does not fit on the back of an iphone. I assume the magnet layout works with popular android phones though.

    X3 is also great, actually fits on the back of the phone with the magsafe - magnet is a _bit_ too weak. It does fall off in my pocket frequently but I haven't lost it yet. Does not have usb-c - has weird little magnetic 4 pin charger.

    I will gift my X4 to my brother once I've loaded some more content to it.

    I recommend this for anyone that wants to save web novels for offline reading https://github.com/lncrawl/lightnovel-crawler - Calibre will sync the epubs to the x4 and x3.

    Use the crosspoint OS https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader

    All that said... I do still use my kindle as default. More content accessible more easily, better syncing, backlight

  • Got the X4. Put CrossPoint on it. Works like a charm. The http server accessible over wifi makes transferring books extremely simple. (Shame on the Kindle for locking everything down.) This is proof-of-concept that a microcontroller is more than enough for something like an e-reader.

    I have a Kindle and a Kobo. They are sturdy devices. But the X4 is the one that is a genuine e-reader. Would not get it as my one and only e-reader though as you tend to miss the size and backlight of the larger ones.

    What would I want from future iterations?

    - backlight even if it compromises on battery a bit

    - a bit more DPI

    Everything else is good enough.

Explore Birbla archives