I have an e-reader that I love, the Kobo Libra Colour. I got it two years ago on release, since being able to see the illustrations and covers of my books in color was (and is) very important to me. It’s still an excellent e-reader, and I use it a lot.

So what the heck am I doing getting a new device??

Two years ago when I upgraded from the Clara HD to the Libra Colour, I was excited to have something a little bigger, hoping to be able to read manga and other color content on it. It’s worked great so far, and the buttons make for a comfortable reading experience. But I have one problem with it.

Even though I knew the Libra Colour was bigger, I wasn’t really prepared for how much that 1 inch upgrade would affect it’s portability. The Clara HD was just small enough (and rectangular enough) to fit into most of the small purses and bags I owned, meaning I could take it anywhere! And I did take it everywhere, even for regular errands. However, the Libra Colour is just too big for those bags. Its square-ish shape doesn’t fit into my purses, which means I have to use a very specific bag to cart it around.

I don’t mind carrying the Libra Colour around for travel or other circumstances where I know I’ll be doing a lot of waiting. I’ve taken it with me on every vacation thus far.

But I dislike having the size of my ereader dictate which accessories I can and can’t use on a daily basis. I wanna be able to use small purses again, or even just use my pockets sometimes. The Libra Colour’s size is too conspicuous and inconvenient to whip out casually while running my errands.

​​​I was mildly interested in the Boox Palma and other devices like it, but it’s a little too pricey as a secondary device. The XTeink X4 grabbed my attention right away because of it’s low price ($50-70). The other thing that drew me to it is the fact that there is a ton of community support for the device, and there are new features being added to the main custom firmware, Crosspoint, every day. So finally took the plunge and bought one!

I got super excited about the support for KOreader sync and OPDS functionality, so I went to the trouble of setting up Grimmory and Instapaper-to-OPDS (I made this!) in order to make downloading books and syncing between devices easy.

​Grimmory was actually way cooler than I was expecting, giving me the ability to sync my purchased DRM-free books with a store-like experience similar to the official Kobo. And I can keep using the Kobo store at the same time! How awesome is that! I’m now able to read the same books between both devices, and sync progress between them. I can even download articles from Instapaper!

It’s not quite seamless since there’s a bug right now where Koreader progress doesn’t sync back to Kobo as well, but it still saves to Grimmory, so I can just look up where I was.

Pictured above is Crosspoint, but I’m now on CrossInk since it has released the multi-opds browser feature first. I also appreciate the font selection and the UI touches, so I may stick with this firmware for now. I’ve had a blast reading on it so far, but it’s definitely a more minimal experience in comparison to reading on my Kobo.

I’m so excited to keep using the X4 and take it with me everywhere!