For the past month I’ve been trying to use the Xteink X3 with the stock software that it ships with, and it’s been a thoroughly miserable experience. The device is literally a piece of junk if you’re trying to use it as intended.
It was so bad that I was starting to think I got a faulty X3, or maybe the microSD card was corrupted, but I think the stock software is just so poorly coded that it’s the root of all the problems because I haven’t had any issues since installing CrossPoint 1.4.1.
I was trying to hold off on installing alternate software on the X3 since I already have the Xteink X4 with CrossPoint installed. I wanted to give the stock software a fair shake since I only used it for a week or so on the X4.
My main complaint with the stock software on the X4 was a bunch of formatting issues with EPUB ebooks. English-language ebooks aren’t formatted properly in a number of ways, but I don’t recall experiencing any freeze-ups on the X4.
On the X3 I kept encountering one problem after another, to the point where the device was unusable because it kept freezing up so often, and it would do weird things like repeating the same lines endlessly (as shown in the picture above). It got to the point where I just kept grabbing the X4 instead since it actually works. I’ve been dragging my feet on posting a review of the X3 because I just haven’t wanted to use it.
Then I finally got around to installing CrossPoint on the X3 and all the problems went away—it hasn’t frozen up once. The same books that were locking up the X3 with the stock software are working perfectly fine with CrossPoint.
Given my experience, I would 100% not recommend buying an Xteink ereader unless you’re willing to install custom software on it. Luckily, that’s super easy to do and it only takes a minute or two. You can flash CrossPoint onto an Xteink X4 and X3 directly from the CrossPoint website using a web browser and the USB cable that came with the device.
If you’re planning on getting an Xteink ereader, do yourself a favor and avoid using the stock software. It’s that bad. Good thing there’s an open source alternative, and there are some other alternatives to CrossPoint as well, but I haven’t tried any of those yet.
I’ve been loving CrumBLE on my x4. It lets you optimize a book when you transfer it so it doesn’t lag trying to index every time you load an image or start the next chapter. Crosspoint is definitely the most widely used and maintained, but CrossInk, CrumBLE, Inx, and a number of others like papyrix and aalu are constantly being worked on.
Very active community on Reddit and discord too. Super cool to be able to interact with devs and see bug reports fixed in a day or two.
I’m currently using Witch(hunt) Reader because of its EPUB rendering. A lot of the EPUBs I read have special formatting, like small caps, and Crosspoint/CrossInk, as much as I love them, do not render them as well as Witch(hunt) Reader!.
I bought an X3 last week. First thing I did with it was set up the wifi and then update its firmware. I’ve no complaints; haven’t seen any compelling reason to switch to some other firmware.