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Reading books on a train or bus may sound fancy and fun in theory, but it can be quite complicated in practice. In the name of convenience, you probably prefer reading on your phone rather than lugging around a full-size book. After all, your phone fits in one hand, can easily be slipped into your pocket, and isn’t as heavy as a physical book.
But there are several reasons why reading on an e-reader is better than reading on your smartphone, and one of the biggest is eye strain. Staring at your device for long hours can be quite tiring for your eyes, especially with the screen at full brightness. The problem is that most e-readers like the Kindle and Kobo aren’t as portable as a phone. They are almost as big as a tablet and can be difficult to hold in one hand without using a handle. As a middle ground, you can opt for a smartphone-sized e-reader with the same e-ink screen as the Kindle, like these devices.
Boox Palma2
Measuring 6.3″ x 3.1″ x 0.31″ and weighing just 6 ounces, the Boox Palma 2 looks like any other smartphone. It uses a Carta 1200 e-paper display with a resolution of 300 PPI. And like a Kindle, this display also comes with two-tone front lighting, allowing you to change both the brightness and warmth to your liking. Although the Palma 2 uses e-paper, it still responds quite well to touch, thanks to Boox Super Refresh technology. This makes the screen smoother and more smartphone-like than that of a Kindle.
When it comes to reading, the Palma 2’s reading interface is just as minimal as any other e-reader. It includes standard elements like pages, battery life, and time, as well as familiar Kindle tools like highlighting, translating, and customizing text. If you’re a fan of audiobooks, the Palma 2 has Bluetooth and its own speaker for added convenience. On the other hand, the device’s battery life is estimated at around a week or two, depending on how much reading you do per day.
In addition to being an e-reader, the Boox Palma 2 works like a smartphone. It runs Android 13 and is powered by an octa-core processor, with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which can be expanded via microSD card. Since it is an Android phone, it comes with the Play Store installed. This means you can download all sorts of apps, from social media apps like TikTok to productivity apps like Gmail. Another notable smartphone-like feature of the Palma 2 is the 16 MP rear camera with LED flash, especially useful for scanning documents.
XteinkX4
The Xteink X4 is the definition of a portable e-reader for on-the-go reading. It measures just 4.49″ × 2.72″ × 0.23″ and weighs 2.6 ounces, making it even smaller and lighter than your typical smartphone. It fits easily in your pocket, but you can also attach it to your phone using the magnetic back or wear it on your wrist with a strap threaded through the built-in lanyard hole.
On the hardware front, the X4 comes with a 220 PPI e-ink display that can be used in portrait or landscape mode. However, it does not include a front light or touchscreen function. It has dark mode, so you can still read comfortably in dimly lit environments. For navigation, the X4 still uses physical buttons. Moving on to storage and battery, its storage is not built in, unlike the Kindle. Instead, you get a 32GB microSD card in the box, which can easily be upgraded to 512GB. Its battery has a capacity of 650mAh, so if you read for one to three hours a day, expect the e-reader to last up to 14 days. The X4 works with EPUB and TXT files and supports font customization using your own BIN font files.
Viwoods AiPaper Reader C
Featuring a 6.13-inch 3-color Kaleido e-ink display, the Viwoods AiPaper Reader C is one of the coolest e-ink gadgets you can buy on Amazon, and for good reason. It is specially designed for manga and comic book readers, but also for textbook readers who prefer a touch of color to monochrome screens. In addition to color, e-ink offers 150 PPI resolution and cool and warm front light that you can manually adjust to suit your needs.
If you normally read color books, you can easily leave AiPaper Reader C’s default settings as is. But there’s actually a grayscale mode you can enable to turn the screen into black and white for better focus. This is one of the e-reader’s four refresh modes, along with Best Display Mode (adjusts the contrast to maximum), Quick Mode (allows you to turn pages smoothly but quickly), and Quick Refresh Mode (automatically erases ghosting).
Like a smartphone, the AiPaper Reader C works with 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. It has a 2,580mAh battery that should last you at least a few days if you primarily use the device for reading. Since the e-reader is powered by Android 16, you can install just about any third-party app you want.
What really sets the AiPaper Reader C apart is its built-in AI. You can enable it via the side button and use it to get content summaries, ask author questions, and pretty much everything else. It allows you to use models from ChatGPT, Google Gemini, DeepSeek and Qwen. All of these features are packed into a smartphone-sized form factor – approximately 6.28″ x 3.16″ x 0.26″ – but still very lightweight at 4.9 ounces.