Xteink X4 vs X4 Pro vs S4: Which to Buy in 2026?
X4 vs X4 Pro vs S4: the original X4 is discontinued. Buy the X3 ($69, in stock) or the X4 Pro ($99, front light). The S4 stays China-only.
Buy the X3 ($69, in stock) if you want a button-only pocket reader today. Buy the X4 Pro ($99, check live stock) if you need a built-in front light. Hold out for the S4 only if Kindle, Kobo, or Libby is non-negotiable, and accept that means importing from China. The original X4 is discontinued.
The X3 vs X4 size-and-carry split is a separate question: see X3 vs X4. If you’ve never owned an Xteink, read the pre-purchase reality check before you order.
Update, Aug 24 2026: the X4 is discontinued
Xteink confirmed on August 12, 2026 that the original X4 is “officially sold out, and there are no plans for future production,” shifting production to the X4 Pro. The X3 (in stock, $69) and, when stock allows, the X4 Pro ($99) are the two devices still available to order. The S4 remains China-only with no international release planned.
Quick Answer
| If you want… | Get |
|---|---|
| A reader today, DRM-free files, custom firmware | X3: $69, in stock (the X4 that used to fill this row is discontinued) |
| Kindle, Kobo, or Libby support | S4 only, and only by import: China-only, no international release planned |
| A front light without Android | X4 Pro: $99; check live stock |
| Easiest first-Xteink experience | X3 (in stock) or the X4 Pro if a front light matters |
| Open-source firmware on shipping hardware | X3: CrossPoint doesn’t run stable on the Pro yet, and the X4 it also ran on is discontinued |
Two buying freezes keep coming up:
"I want the S4 but won't wait" Buy now
On the rumored spec sheets the S4 adds a front light, a touchscreen, and app support. The X4 no longer ships, so "buy now" means the X3 (in stock, no front light) or the X4 Pro (front light; check live stock). If your reading life doesn't depend on Kindle or Libby, either gets you reading while you watch what the S4 actually delivers.
"X4 owner: upgrade to the Pro, or stick?" Decide now
The Pro shipped, so this is no longer a wait. The community's biggest complaint about the Pro (more on that below) is losing USB-C for a pogo-pin charger. If you read in the dark and can live with a magnetic charging adapter, upgrade. If you're a button purist or you're not giving up your USB-C cable, keep the X4 you already own.
Buy the X3 · $69 at xteink.com or check X4 Pro stock · $99.
Xteink X4 vs S4 vs X4 Pro: spec comparison
The X4 and X4 Pro have shipped internationally; the S4 has not. Read the columns by confidence. The S4 column is reported or leaked, pieced together from official teasers, Joshua Lowcock’s tracker, Notebookcheck, Good e-Reader, and eReadersForum. Treat it as “what’s claimed,” not confirmed. The X4 Pro column comes from Xteink’s product page, confirmed at launch. Where research has no figure, the cell says so.
| Spec | X4 (discontinued) | S4 (rumored) | X4 Pro (launched Jul 21) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Status | Discontinued Aug 12, 2026: sold out, no future production planned | Not shipped internationally; no confirmed date. Any “S4” sold on AliExpress/Taobao today is fake: a mislabeled X4 or a scam | Live SKU as of Aug 24, 2026; the $99 Space Black listing still cycles in and out of stock |
| Price | $69 | Not announced internationally | $99 (list $109) |
| Display | 4.3-inch E-Ink, 800×480 | 4.3-inch E-Ink (claimed) | 4.3-inch E-Ink, 219 PPI |
| Resolution / PPI | ~220 PPI | Not confirmed | 219 PPI |
| Touchscreen | No | Yes (claimed) | Yes, plus physical buttons |
| Front light | No | Yes, warm/cool (claimed) | Yes, warm/cool (adjustable) |
| OS | XTEINK OS (ESP32) | Android 11 (claimed) | XTOS (not Android) |
| Chip | ESP32-C3 | Android-capable, unnamed (claimed) | Undisclosed |
| Storage | 16 MB flash + microSD | Not confirmed | 16 GB microSD included, expandable to 256 GB |
| Charging port | USB-C | Not confirmed | Pogo-pin (magnetic adapter included; no cable in box) |
| NFC | No | Unknown | Not confirmed |
| Weight | 77 g | Not confirmed | 72 g |
| Navigation | 3 rockers + power button | Touchscreen (claimed) | Touch + physical buttons (the X4’s bottom buttons are gone; per Lowcock’s hands-on, two side page-turn buttons) |
| Magnetic back | Yes (MagSafe-compatible) | Unknown | Not confirmed |
| Custom firmware | Yes (unlocked units only) | No (Android, no CrossPoint) (claimed) | Not yet: CrossPoint port started (PR #2675) |
| Sideloaded apps | No | Yes, APK sideloading (claimed) | No |
| Kindle / Libby | No | Via sideloaded APK (claimed) | No |
| KOReader | Via CrossPoint | Via Android APK (claimed) | Not yet: waits on the CrossPoint port |
| DRM-free EPUB / TXT | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Wi-Fi | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MP3 / audiobooks | No | Unknown, do not assume | Not confirmed |
The X4 has no “storage” in the phone sense. Its ESP32-C3 carries 16 MB of flash for the firmware; every book lives on the microSD card. Reviews quoting a “16GB” or “32GB” X4 are conflating the bundled card with onboard memory. The X4 Pro’s 16 GB is different and real: an actual microSD card in the box, expandable to 256 GB.
The shipping stand-in for the discontinued X4 is the X3: 3.7-inch, 259 PPI, 58 g, NFC, the same CrossPoint ecosystem, magnetic pogo-pin charging instead of USB-C. A 2-pin pogo cable charges but carries no data, which blocks anyone trying to flash the X3 from a laptop; get the 4-pin data cable if you plan to flash. Size, carry, and charging in full: X3 vs X4.
Which hardware differences decide the pick?
Four differences decide almost every Xteink purchase: front light, touch versus buttons, charging port, and DRM or app support.
Front light
The X4 and X3 have no front light. The rumored S4 is said to add one. The X4 Pro actually does: an adjustable warm/cool light confirmed on the product page. If you read in bed or on planes, that is the reason to pay $99. The workaround on an X4 or X3 is real (Xteink’s own magnetic reading light is about $10, plus third-party clips). It is still an extra thing to clip on, charge, and not crack the panel with.
Clip lights crack bare E-Ink screens
The X4’s E-Ink panel is fragile, and community reports describe screens cracking from a clip-on reading light attached straight to the top of the bare frame. If you add a clip light, use the lightest one you can, attach it to a case rather than the bare device, and never put the X4 in a back pocket. A cracked panel means a DIY repair or a rebuy, not a service center. See screen repairability across the lineup before you buy.
If you already own a white X4 and read outdoors, CrossPoint ships a Sunlight Fading Fix under Display settings made for wash-out in direct sun.
Touchscreen vs. physical buttons
The X4 uses three rockers plus a power button, no touch. The rumored S4 and the shipping X4 Pro both add touchscreens. Physical buttons mean no accidental touches while reading: your thumb rests on a rocker and pages turn only when you press. A touchscreen feels more intuitive on day one and worse if you rest a thumb on the page.
In a thread with 369 upvotes reacting to the July 16 Pro/Gen 2 leak, the top comment argued the touchscreen undoes what made the X4 good: “I think the company does not realize that the simplicity of the device is its biggest selling point… touch screens on ereaders… easy to flip a page by accident… another layer on the screen, so the contrast decreases.” An added touch layer does cut E-Ink contrast. That is likely why the X4 Pro kept physical buttons alongside the touchscreen.
Joshua Lowcock’s hands-on of a pre-release unit found the touchscreen “laggy,” with a visibly cheap touch layer (“you can see the touch screen layer from certain angles… like small microdots on the screen”), and his verdict is blunt: “I would not buy the XTEINK X4 Pro yet until they fix the touch lag.” That is one reviewer’s early pre-launch unit, but it is the first real answer to whether the touchscreen is actually good.
Can the Pro’s touchscreen be switched off? An owner in a launch thread reports “there is already an option to turn off the touchscreen while reading,” and it appears in the launch trailer. Treat that as owner-reported, not vendor-confirmed. Xteink’s product page markets touch and buttons as a choice but doesn’t document the toggle, and no press reviewer has walked through it.
Charging port and battery
The X4 Pro has no USB-C port. It charges over a pogo-pin connector (the same style the X3 uses) and ships with a magnetic adapter that also fits the X3, but no charging cable, so you supply your own USB-C cable for the adapter. That is the most-repeated launch-day complaint. The top comment on the July 20 spec thread (81 upvotes) reads “the removal of usbC to pogopin alone is enough for me to stay with X4. I dont want to be having a dedicated charger. I hate that,” and it repeats in the “torn about the X4 Pro” thread. If a dedicated adapter is a dealbreaker, keep the X4 you already own.
The Pro’s battery is confirmed at 1,100 mAh, a real jump over the X4’s 650 mAh cell, but the front light draws power the X4 never had to. Lowcock’s pre-release unit hit “some wildly fast battery draining issues” with the light on, life that “drained in minutes,” which he suspects is “(another) software bug.” A retail-unit video review reports the opposite: the bigger cell “helps offset how much more of it the front light uses up.” A heavy-reader thread asked whether the bigger battery outlasts the X4 for someone reading 5+ hours a day. No definitive shipping-unit answer yet.
The rumored S4 is said to carry a larger battery, but Android draws more continuously than the X4’s bare-metal ESP32 firmware, so don’t assume the read-time ratio matches the capacity ratio.
DRM, apps, and Kindle
The X4, X3, and X4 Pro read DRM-free EPUB and TXT only. None of them run the Kindle app, connect to Libby/OverDrive, or touch Kindle Unlimited. The rumored S4, on Android 11, would change that via sideloaded APKs: Amazon distributes the Kindle APK from its own site, and Kobo and Libby’s Android apps can be sideloaded.
If your library is locked in Kindle’s ecosystem, CrossPoint cannot open DRM-protected EPUB. The legal path is to read DRM-free books you already own or buy DRM-free from the start (Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, many indie stores), and, for books you’ve purchased, to de-DRM your own library before converting. We don’t publish a step-by-step for that, and we don’t endorse stripping DRM from books you don’t own. If Kindle or Libby is non-negotiable, the S4 is the only Xteink candidate, and owning one means importing.
Why the X4’s firmware still matters
The best argument for the discontinued X4, and for the shipping X3, is not a spec. Both sit on an open ESP32 platform that a real community has built on. That does not exist for the S4 today, and it is not stable on the X4 Pro yet.
CrossPoint is the main firmware for the X3 and X4. Current stable is 1.5.0 (August 2026). CrossPoint cannot run on an Android S4 (different processor). On the X4 Pro the port has started: an open pull request the maintainer calls “the base for the x4Pro work,” plus an available tester beta, nothing stable yet. Forks, formats, and which build to flash belong on the firmware comparison.
The firmware lockdown that blocked custom firmware on some units (reported around early May 2026) only affects devices bought from AliExpress, Taobao, and other Chinese domestic retailers. Units from xteink.com and Amazon are not affected, per Xteink’s own statement. The X4 Pro product page adds an Unrestricted Firmware Guarantee: official-website units are exempt from third-party firmware restrictions. That is a legal “won’t be locked” promise, not a sign CrossPoint runs on the Pro today. The community’s purchase gate, from a launch-week thread, is blunt: “wait until cross point is ready and proved working on the pro.” If CrossPoint is why you own an X4, that is the bar before buying the Pro.
Should you wait for a new Kobo instead?
No. As of July 2026 no next-generation Kobo panel is announced (earliest realistic consumer devices on that tech land in 2027), and Kobo raised prices on current models in mid-May. If Kindle- or Kobo-style app support is non-negotiable, the S4 is the Xteink to track, and tracking is all it is.
Which Xteink should you buy for your use case?
Match how you read to one card. The X4 is discontinued, so every “buy now” row is the X3 or the X4 Pro.
Read DRM-free EPUBs, want a reader today
Buy the X3
Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, Calibre files: any DRM-free EPUB source is already covered by the X3, in stock at $69. The X4 used to be the default here. The S4's touchscreen and front light are real claims, but not improvements you need if your reading life already works.
Read Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, or Libby loans
S4 only, by import
The X3, X4, and X4 Pro cannot help you here. The rumored S4's sideloaded Kindle APK and Libby app address this directly. There is no international release planned, so owning one means importing from China with no warranty path.
Read in the dark or want a front light
Buy the X4 Pro
Adds a warm/cool front light and a touchscreen while keeping Xteink's own OS (XTOS), not Android. It shipped July 21 at $99. CrossPoint doesn't run on it yet, so if custom firmware is why you own an X4, wait for a working port. Our X4 Pro launch hub tracks the port and stock.
Smallest body, NFC, or you want to read more and scroll less
Buy the X3
Most pocketable body, crispest small-screen text, NFC tap-to-open shortcuts, same CrossPoint (plus X3 forks like INX). A button-only reader with no browser and no notifications is the point; the S4's app store is the wrong direction if you are escaping the phone. Trade-off: a magnetic pogo-pin cable instead of USB-C. One owner wrote it "saved 8 hours and 40 minutes of doomscrolling by… READING! This is the first book I've finished in years."
Developer or firmware tinkerer
Buy the X3, watch the X4 Pro
With the X4 discontinued, the X3 is the shipping way into CrossPoint and the fork ecosystem. The X4 Pro's chipset is undisclosed and CrossPoint isn't fully ported (PR #2675). The Unrestricted Firmware Guarantee promises official-store units won't be locked down. That is a legal promise, not a working port.
Defecting from a Boox Palma 2
Lean S4, if you will import
The S4 maps closest to the Palma's Android-on-E-Ink experience, close enough that reviewers have floated it as a Boox Palma 2 alternative if the price holds. The X3 and X4 are focused reading tools, not Palma-style tablets.
Buy the X3 · $69 at xteink.com or check X4 Pro stock · $99. Flash setup is in the CrossPoint flash guide.
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between the S4 and the X4 Pro?
Different products, and only one has shipped. The S4 is reported to run Android 11 so you can sideload apps, but it is China-only with no international date. The X4 Pro shipped July 21, 2026 at $99, running XTOS, Xteink's own OS, not Android. Both add a touchscreen and front light to the X4's form factor. Want Android apps: the S4 is the only candidate, and as of August 2026 that means importing. Want a front light and touch while staying off Android: buy the X4 Pro.
Are "X4 V2 Pro," "X4 Pro," and "X4P" the same device?
Yes. All three names refer to the one product that shipped July 21, 2026 as the "X4 Pro," tied together by the FCC filing under model number 2BTR9-X4PRO. It is not the S4 and not a new base X4. A fourth name, the "X4 Gen 2," surfaced on July 16, 2026 via leaked AliExpress seller slides: a lighter refresh of the base X4 with no front light and no touchscreen, still unreleased. See our X4 Pro launch hub.
Will CrossPoint run on the S4?
No. CrossPoint is firmware for the ESP32-C3 chip in the X3 and X4. An Android device uses a different processor. An Android S4's community path would be KOReader's Android build, not CrossPoint. Details sit on the firmware comparison.
Can I read my Kindle library on the X4?
Not directly. The X4 reads DRM-free EPUB and TXT only, so it can't open DRM-protected Kindle files, and neither can CrossPoint. The legal path is DRM-free books you buy or download, and de-DRM of books you already own before converting. We don't publish a how-to and don't condone removing DRM from books you don't own. If keeping a Kindle or Libby library is non-negotiable, the S4 is the only Xteink that might help, by import.
Are S4 listings on AliExpress real?
Press coverage from Good e-Reader and Notebookcheck confirms the S4 is on sale domestically in China, at roughly CNY 339 (about $50). It has not shipped internationally. Any "Xteink S4" sold to you outside China is grey-market at best and a scam at worst: one documented case had packaging printed "XT-X4-BLK" on an item sold as an "S4." Per Joshua Lowcock's tracker, Xteink has no plans to release the S4 internationally as of August 2026.
Does the firmware lockdown affect my X4?
Only if you bought from AliExpress, Taobao, or Chinese domestic retailers. Per Xteink's own statement, units from xteink.com and Amazon aren't affected. If you have a locked unit, see the locked vs unlocked buying guide.
Can the X4 Pro's touchscreen be disabled?
Owner-reported yes, not vendor-confirmed. An owner in a launch thread says there is already an option to turn off the touchscreen while reading, and it shows up in the launch trailer. Xteink's product page markets touch and buttons as a choice but doesn't document the toggle.
Do my X4 cases or screen protectors fit the X4 Pro?
No. The Pro is a different shape: 111mm tall against the X4's 114mm, it drops the X4's bottom button row, and it charges over a pogo-pin port instead of USB-C, so cutouts don't line up. The community reached the same conclusion from the dimension sheet on launch day. Xteink sells Pro-specific accessories: a magnetic case ($8.99), a protective case ($3.99), an adhesive metal ring ($4.99), and a magnetic charging adapter ($5.99, which also fits the X3).
Is the X4 Pro actually in stock?
It launched July 21, 2026 at $99 in Space Black. The 500-unit first batch sold out on launch day, and stock has been intermittent since. Shopify listed it available again on August 24, 2026. Check the product page before you order.
Is there an X3 Pro?
No. There is no evidence one exists. It shows up as buyer speculation (a 43-upvote comment in the July 20 spec thread reads "I'll wait for the X3 Pro"), not as a leak or an announcement. The only real unreleased Xteink devices right now are the S4 (Android, China-only) and the leaked X4 Gen 2. Don't hold out for a product nobody has actually reported.
Isn't $99 just Kindle Paperwhite territory?
A launch-week thread raised it: at $99, one commenter called the Pro "literally into Kindle territory." They are not the same product. The X4 Pro is smaller, pocketable, and runs unlocked firmware by guarantee. The Paperwhite is a 300 PPI, IPX8-rated device backed by Amazon's book ecosystem, and usually costs more than $99 at full price. If Kindle's ecosystem and screen quality matter more than pocketability, see X4 vs Paperwhite.
Keep reading
Guides that pick up where this one leaves off.
Xteink X4 Discontinued: What to Buy Now (X3 vs X4 Pro)
The original Xteink X4 is discontinued. Buy the $69 X3 for buttons or the $99 X4 Pro for a front light. Do not wait for the S4 unless you will import from China.
Xteink X4 Pro (V2 Pro): Confirmed Price, Specs, Stock
The Xteink X4 Pro (also called X4 V2 Pro) launched July 21, 2026 at $99. Confirmed specs, stock, naming vs S4, firmware status, and unknowns.
Official Xteink
The X3 is the one you can buy today
15case is 15% off plus a free case. X4 Pro restocks in waves.
-
Buy the X3Xteink X3
In stock$79$69 -
Check X4 Pro stockXteink X4 Pro
Front light$109$99
Compare the lineup on the device hub .