17th April 2026 - XTEINK X4
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have recently acquired a XTEINK X4, a teeny tiny and simple ereader. 
It is palm sized with a business card sized screen. There is no 
backlight and controls are done using switches. There are 4 on the 
bottom of the screen and 2 on the side along with a power switch on 
the side too. 

It is a compromised device in that it is based on a ESP32-C3 
microcontroller. However, it is cheap enough and small enough to 
become an ever present companion. I spent about 40 something pounds in 
the end with Alibaba. I am sure there are cheaper but I am lazy when 
it comes to searching on that site. 

The firmware is what you would expect from cheap Chinese stuff. It is 
functional but not optimal. Thankfully Dave Allie has created 
Crosspoint [1]. This can easily be flashed to the device using an 
online tool [2]. While it takes a while to backup the device, you can 
quickly upload new firmware. I did have to change the permissions for 
the port before the website would communicate with the device. I ended 
up using chmod 666 thanks to some help on the github page for a fork 
of Crosspoint, Papyrix [3]. You can also use TRMNL on this device if 
you follow their BYOD programme [4].

As a device to use, it is slow to open books but the screen refreshes 
quickly enough. I found the page turn to be fine. The device feels 
nice in the hand and I remain surprised by having an ereader in my 
palm. There are ways to load books through internet methods but the 
easiest has been to load via the micro SD card. 

All in all, it is a fun device and one I look forward to keep in my 
pocket. I may even get another for use with TRMNL. Why? Well, why not 
play. 

Links
~~~~~

All links are HTML.

[1] 
https://github.com/crosspoint-reader/crosspoint-reader?tab=readme-ov-file
[2] https://xteink.dve.al/
[3] https://github.com/bigbag/papyrix-reader
[4] https://trmnl.com/blog/xteink-x4-dashboard