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 :)
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?
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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I love physical buttons and switches, I don’t like an e-reader without page buttons.
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.
🏴☠️
4" screen?!
The replaceable battery is definitely a requirement for me moving forwards on all new tech I purchase.
while it’s nice, i’d argue e-readers use so little battery that even the default should last for at least a decade, but having it is awesome for sure.
$150 for ESP32-S3? Are you serious? My first e-book in ~2008 was much more powerful.
ESP32-S3 seems rather properly sized computing power -wise for this kind of device. And it’s quite low-power as well.
Granted there are some tasks where even this kind device could use some computing, like extracting, indexing and rendering pdfs.
Generally great idea, but the screen size invalidates it for me. Hope they’re successful enough to launch a 2nd round with a 6"+ screen
Low frame rate, black/white e-ink screens are obsolete: https://youtu.be/nHbA2-_qzH4
This is an ebook reader. You don’t need high refresh rate to read books. It’s a waste of power and money.
Yeah, that’s $700.
holy shit, this is insane!
