URL for the crowdfunding: https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/open-book-touch
Specs:
- Display: 4.26" e-paper touchscreen, 480 × 800 px, warm + cool frontlight
- Processor: ESP32-S3 dual-core, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth LE
- Memory: 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM
- Formats: EPUB and plain text, no DRM
- Storage: microSD card slot
- Interface: USB-C with integrated LiPo charging
- Dimension: 78 × 120 × 10 mm, about 85 g
- Open source: MIT-licensed firmware, open hardware (to be released at shipping)
It also has a replaceable 800 mAh battery, I found it cool :)
that screen… alas, too small for me. I use a Kobo Libre Colour now
No physical buttons and a tiny screen? Yeah I’m gonna pass
Kobo Klara is $159 has a 6" screen, supports 15 file formats, 16 gb of storage and a 1448 x 1072 resolution with Dark Mode
I see people get excited about this. But if you are realistic, buy a Kobo e-reader and you are good.
Copy-pasting me own comment from under this CNX post
I am a BOOX Leaf user. Very much frustrated with BOOX. They do not release the GPL code. I quite like a cheap e-reader with too > long battery life. But I have several criticisms on this thing:
- It uses ESP32-S3. It’s Xtensa. Worse software support. Didn’t the folks stop their Xtensa line?
- Isn’t 8MB (PS)RAM short?
- The screen supports only 2 bit grayscale. And they haven’t written what screen they are going to use. That makes a realdifference. I already feel the difference between me BOOX Leaf with Carta 1200 and me brother’s BOOX Go 7 Color with Carta 1300.
- If you want to simply sideload normal DRM-free epubs, all of those devices support it.
- If you are fine going for an AP, you can install custom software like koreader on many devices including Pocketbook and Kobo ones. Not sure why it has written you cannot run custom code on Kobo Clara BW.
Regarding the last point, I do want a decent e-reader like Leaf I have but with Linux support. To make us closer to the goal, I have > extensively contributed to postmarketOS wiki: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Category:Ebook_reader
As I have written in the respective wiki pages, both PocketBook and Kobo openly permit running custom OS/firmware on their ebook readers if you can go outside warranty.
Cross posting me comment from CNX:
Lemme clarify something about the earlier comments I had. If we see this device as a start to liberate the world of e-readers, it could be a very good effort. If it goes well, I would appreciate it very much. But as a device to use as a real e-reader daily, nope it isn’t.
If the efforts of Open Touch people lead us into an open e-reader ecosystem, it makes all sense that the first open hardware e-reader doesn’t catch many eyes. Perfect is achieved step by step. It doesn’t come for granted for free. However, going for ESP32-S3 still would be a valid criticism.
Why is it buttonless??? We like physical buttons, how are we supposed to turn it on/off??? This is just confusing lol
I think they mean no buttons on the front. Something lime Kindle Paperwhite 10th gen I have used. You can see power button on the side when you look at the pictures in the article.
Why is buttonless a selling point?
Not trying to be snarky, genuinely wondering.
i first read bottomless and was even more confused… anyway, i guess it’s an esp community (iot) thing where you usually work with momentary switches;)
This just won’t do it … replacable battery is awesome but a 4” screen is absolutely a niche …
First steps are still steps. I am more excited about faster e-ink displays that are currently being developed.
You can easily load alternate firmware on a Kobo.
KOReader or something different?
Ugly and small, cool idea tho
The specs vs the price does match up.
The specs are an absolute joke. Even my Sony PRS from 2008 comes with 64MB RAM and physical buttons.
This thing will choke on epubs with embedded fonts, if it doesn’t just plainly ignore them (which it seems like it will, since they’re talking so much about their own custom font).
Neat idea, but I fear it’s destined to fail. I also think it’s too small. The PRS-505 is six inches and I wouldn’t go any smaller than that for comfortable reading.
MIT licenced firmware… Another bunch of libertarian kids who don’t know better.
Like they don’t know everyone likes buttons, specially page turn buttons,
I only vaguely remember hearing nerds debating between the GPL licenses and MIT, way back when…What makes the MIT license libertarian?
I guess by not enforcing openness through copyleft? It’s free at the source code, but it doesn’t protect freedoms.
I love physical buttons and switches, I don’t like an e-reader without page buttons.
yes and no, I went from a Kindle which has no buttons and was pocketable, to a Kobo Libre Colour, buttons and not pocketable. The Libre screen is also not as crisp as the Libre, it does have e ink colour which is kind of nice but not as useful as a crisp screen.
This. I don’t see why “no buttons” is supposed to be appealing? I’d much prefer only buttons, no touchscreen.
Can’t be cheap being a crowdfunded product, but not expensive either. The biggest turn-away I can see is the small screen. Most e-ink readers nowadays start at 6". A 4.x" screen will lose a considerable chunk of potential backers.
Yea, the screen makes it an instant turn off for me. Small and low res. Modern e-Readers like the kindle, kobo, etc. have screens basically as sharp as printed paper at a similar size as a book.
And with software like calibre, I don’t really see a reason to switch away from my kindle…I switched to kobo only because kindle - I don’t want to be an amazon billboard. I’m 100% calibre too, tho kobo do sell some drm-free ebooks.
My PW 3g was the absolute best ereader ever. Snappy page turns, perfect soft lighting, infinite batteries… funny unlimited worldwide wikipedia. Fuck amazon.
Thats the biggest issue for me.
I would carry around something with the thickness of a textbook and a 7+" screen, but under 6" is a nonstarter for me. I’d end up with text so large I’d be reading one sentence at a time.
4" screen and 16MB flash is a joke. Ebooks are small, but not that small. Considering how many used, end of life Kindles there are out there stuck on old easily jailbroken firmware, I don’t see why anyone would ever choose this as an alternative. The software for jailbroken Kindles is incredibly mature and at the point of “just works”. E-ink technology hasn’t progressed much in the past ten years, so you really don’t miss out on anything by buying a $30 used one.
Edit: just realized it has micro SD support. So my storage concerns are invalid. It’s still incredibly clunky looking though, a 1cm thick device with only a 4" screen sure is something. My eyes probably couldn’t handle it even with the largest font.
To be fair, eBooks have just gotten that big in recent years because the publishers are lazy and cram uncompressed embedded fonts into them.
I always strip out embedded fonts from my eBooks with calibre and I have seen books being reduced from 20MB to 400KB. 🤣
This won’t make this a good device due to a myriad of other reasons, though.
Yeah, definitely think there are use cases for this (look at how popular the xeink X4 has gotten), but a device smaller in most dimensions than modern smartphones isn’t gonna make a good general purpose ereader for many people
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