My Favorite Pocket-Sized E-Readers Are Now Under $60!
In the tech world, it’s usually all about selling you a bigger, better, newer model every year, so it still amuses me that the most talked-about e-reader of 2026 wasn’t the flashy new Kindle or the pricey Boox tablet, but a tiny, affordable e-ink device from a young Chinese tech company. Xteink creates e-readers small enough to fit in your pocket—any pocket—with an attractive form factor that, despite some clunky software, has earned them a devoted online following.
For me, the Xteink X4 was the personal tech upgrade of 2025, and the more compact X3 and more feature-rich X4 Pro are even better this year. Every time I use one of them in public, I get asked what model it is and where I bought it, and I constantly recommend them to people looking for ways to reduce their exposure to negative news and read more. If that sounds like you, now’s the time to buy, because today only, Xteink is offering 15% off the X4 and X3 —the latter was already marked down 13%, so the additional discount brings its price to an all-time low.
Given that the discount brings the price of both devices down to the same sub-$60 mark, if you’re unsure which one to buy, there’s only one factor to consider: the Xteink X4 is quite compact—with a 4.3-inch screen, it’s roughly the size of a small wallet—while the 3.7-inch X3 is even smaller, about the size of a credit card. Otherwise, the devices are quite similar, with the main differences being the X3’s slightly higher resolution (thanks to its exceptionally smaller screen, which increases the pixel count) and different charging cables (to save space, the X3 charges with the included pogo pin adapter, while the X4 uses USB-C).
Personally, I prefer the X3, as the smaller screen is still comfortable to read on, and it’s so small that I often forget I’m carrying it around—until I need to take it out to read while I’m waiting for the subway and I’m not looking at my phone.