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Boox Picco unveiled: Petite 3.97" e-reader with Pomodoro, microSD, and MagSafe
(www.notebookcheck.net)
XTEInk success! They did something right if there are copycats
this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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Heck yeah. My X4 is a daily carry for me and with CrossPoint, it becomes a better device on the regular. Genuinely happy to be early on this particular train.
I was wondering how this is an improvement over the X3 I picked up at a small discount for almost 50% cheaper?
I’m glad for this but what killed XTEink for me was the removal of USBC.
They say they’re bringing it back (after the user backlash)
Why do I need a slightly smaller, less capable phone to stick on the back of my phone?
I hate that this tech is still so expensive.. It has been 20 years, yet an eink phone with the specs of a $30 boost phone is like $300
E-ink is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more battery efficient and more pleasant to read: If you just want to read an ebook, this will let you read for days without charging.
I don't have one of these but I do have a Kobo Libre and it's great if you like reading. I charge maybe once or twice a month if that.
reTerminal Sticky is at least marketed as something you can stick on the fridge for groceries, notes, or just play around with any other DIY scenario you can think of. And it has some dev framewrok, for half the price. Not sure what Boox are offering, other than a smaller factor than their other e-readers, same-ish polish, but no Android or diy capability?
It’s a very tiny device. Are there any prev owners here? Can you actually read from this? This is gonna take 4-5 flicks to advance the span of a normal book page, right?
Right, and yes, I read a lot on a similar device.
Pics to give you an idea: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=xteink4+review+photo&t=fpas&ia=images&iax=images I believe I set my fonts smaller than on these.
It's just very convinient to carry it around in a pocket and take out at any moment vs conventional A5+ ereaders. I didn't use them that much for that reason, but that thing is great in crowded busses or wherever. Strong edge2edge grip makes me overlook the amount of text it can display easily.
Where it has problems though is that it reads only epubs (text files) and preferably lighter ones too. PDFs are out of the question, manga/comic books. Not only because it's just 480x800px - many cheaper ebooks still manage it with similar pixel count - but because of it's serious hardware limitations.
If you sail the high seas, there is not much problem finding books of, say, Terry Prattchet or Michael Parenti in epub. But that means this device is solely dedicated to reading books, a subsection of them that someone cared to properly digitize to share or sell. Skimming through articles and documents, scrolling thtough scans, manuals, formatted textbooks is out of scope here. It does one thing, last weeks, and doesn't feel like a huge commitment while carried around.
IMHO, as long as you can browse Lemmy threads on your phone without aids, it's not too small, and I'd rather look at what one wants ebook for, if what you want to read fits what this reader can open.
Calibre will happily convert PDF to EPUB, FWIW. Pictures may be a problem with this device, and formatting may be iffy, depending on the source, but you can do it.
I can happily bake you a cake. Doesn't mean you'll want to eat it.
What kind of cake are we talking here?
I have a boox, and it's great! I wouldn't mind having a little one like this that you can basically toss along with you anywhere. Always a few minutes to read a book instead of scrolling.
Why three cameras?
Does it need a camera?
That's an iPhone...the white rectangle on the bottom is this device
Ah OK
It’s attached to the back of an iPhone in the title picture
I'm in the market for a new e-reader and this is attractive even in the elusive price category.
I’d encourage you to look at XTEINK. They kind of started this “baby e-reader” trend and the bonus with their stuff is there’s custom firmware available that makes it SO MUCH easier to use.
Boox has been pretty not-transparent on their intention to support custom firmware and……… I’ve used some of their android based devices. They’re nice, but their attempt at “simple” for an e-ink display leaves a lot to be desired.
This one is Crosspoint compatible already. Must be ESP32-S3?
From what I have heard it is actually running a fork of Crosspoint by default.
Cool, did they bother to make the source available I wonder? MIT so they don't have to, but personally I'd trust the open version more.
That I do not know. I would hope so.
Looks like the magnet is not buildin. It is attached to the case. Is that different on XTEink devices?
Afaik it is built in. Xteink SE also has USB C and a backlight but it runs android. Currently for sale in China only. Time to see if I want to read actual books first then maybe time to get one of these things 😂