I’ve used and reviewed dozens of e-readers over the years, but the 5-inch Kobo Mini remains my favorite for one simple reason: It was small. While it lacked useful features like screen lighting and page turn buttons, its size made it an e-reader I actually wanted to carry every day. The $69 Xteink X4 e-reader is even smaller than the Kobo Mini and E Ink smartphones like Boox Palma. It’s satisfyingly pocketable but also frustratingly unintuitive and functionally limited out of the box. That could be a deal-breaker were it not for a growing community of users working to improve it.

Like the Kodak Charmera, I was pleasantly surprised at how small the X4 is in person. Its 4.3-inch E Ink screen is only a bit tinier than the Kobo Mini’s 5-inch panel, but the X4’s bezels are much slimmer, making the e-reader feel significantly smaller. The joy of nerding out over the X4’s size was quickly cut short when I tested one of its most compelling features.

When the X4 was announced last December, Xteink shared photos of the e-reader stuck to the back of an iPhone using its MagSafe feature. It made the X4 seem like a better alternative to e-reader cases for those wanting a second screen on their phones, but the odd position of its magnets makes it impossible to stick the e-reader to the back of my iPhone 16 Pro in any usable way.

It’s an issue that many X4 users have complained about, and in a statement emailed to The Verge, the company explains that “during our early development and testing phase, we worked with a limited range of iPhone models. As a result, on some newer models, the magnetic alignment may not appear perfectly centered.” As a work-around, Xteink includes a pair of magnetic adhesive rings that can be stuck to devices to allow for proper alignment.

However, the X4 also extends past the bottom of my iPhone, so instead of trying to awkwardly use the two together, I’ve been using it as a standalone ultra-compact e-reader. At less than 6mm thick, the X4 takes up very little room in the sling bag I carry every day and is protected using a basic magnetic folio-style case that’s included.

The Xteink X4 is one of the cheapest e-readers on the market, but that price comes with some challenges and compromises, including a 4.3-inch E Ink screen with a 220ppi resolution. That’s less than the 300ppi e-paper screens on the latest Kindle and Kobo e-readers. You’ll see jagged edges on fine text if you look hard enough, but it’s enough resolution for a pleasant reading experience.

There’s also no screen lighting, so if you’re planning to read before bed, you’ll need a lamp or a flashlight. The lack of a touchscreen is more frustrating. The X4 features several buttons on its right edge and below its display. They’re not labeled, and their functionality varies depending on where you are in the UI.

Further complicating matters, three of the buttons are two-sided and do different things depending on which side you press. It’s frustrating to try and remember which side of which button you need to press to make a selection, jump back to a previous screen, or simply navigate a list of options. And it’s not helped by the X4’s limited and confusing software.

While Boox’s smartphone-size E Ink Palma devices run Android and let you do everything from watching videos to playing games, the X4 is solely focused on reading, with support limited to TXT and EPUB files, plus images like JPGs and BMPs, which I had limited success loading. There’s no built-in bookstore so you’ll need to source your own DRM-free EPUB files. That’s a little easier now, thanks to Amazon recently expanding support for EPUBs, but just getting ebooks onto the X4 feels harder than it could be.

The e-reader doesn’t mount as a storage device when connected to a computer, and while you’re supposed to be able to wirelessly upload files from a browser over Wi-Fi or your phone, I didn’t have much success in getting that to work. The easiest way is to copy files to a memory card using a USB reader, but that is needlessly complicated by the X4’s microSD card slot that makes inserting and ejecting a memory card difficult without long nails or a paper clip.

Reading ebooks is an okay experience, and I’m always a fan of dedicated page turn buttons. But if you’re familiar with a Kobo or Kindle, you’ll find yourself sorely missing options for adjusting text formatting. You only get two font-size choices, three line spacing options, and no way to increase the margins around text. Images and illustrations in ebooks are simply not displayed, most text formatting is ignored, and while you’re supposed to be able to load and use your own font files, it’s another finicky feature I had no success with.

You can jump to different chapters, pages, and bookmarks, or turn on features like auto page turns at set intervals, but doing so requires opening and navigating a series of menus using the X4’s buttons. It feels unnecessarily complicated. It’s an experience you’ll eventually get marginally comfortable with, but not one you’ll ever enjoy.

Xteink has already released several software updates improving the X4’s UI and usability. Progress has been slow, but because the company hasn’t locked down the e-reader, a growing community has taken it upon itself to improve the X4. Installing CrossPoint Reader on the X4, an open-source alternative firmware, was a simple process that immediately solved many of the pain points of Xteink’s software. CrossPoint simplifies the X4’s UI, expands the options for how ebooks look, and adds onscreen labels for what each button does. It’s also easy to uninstall, but I don’t think I’m ever going to.

The X4 will never replace the Kobo Libra 2 I use for most of my reading. A touchscreen, lighting, access to a robust ebook store, and a UI that doesn’t have me pulling my hair out are features I can’t do without. But over the past few weeks, I haven’t left the house without the tiny X4. It’s a welcome alternative to my phone (that always seems full of bad news) if I have a few minutes to while away, despite its frustrations. I don’t like recommending devices that require third-party upgrades to be “fixed,” but the work being done by the X4 community makes the e-reader worth considering if pocketability — and a little tinkering — is your priority.

Photos by Andrew Liszewski / The Verge