The Xteink X4 Pro pocket e-reader is currently on sale for $89, down $10 from its usual $99, making it one of the cheapest e-readers available right now that comes with both a front light and a touchscreen. The discount is running as part of Prime Big Deal Days, though the X4 Pro does not carry an official Prime Deal tag.
It is a niche bit of kit, no question. A screen roughly the size of a credit card is not going to suit every reader. But for anyone who has ever wished their e-reader could disappear into a jacket pocket, this is a serious option, and at $89, the price of entry is low enough to find out.
What the Xteink X4 Pro Pocket E-Reader Actually Offers
The X4 Pro is the latest model from Xteink, the Chinese tech startup that made a dent in the e-reader market with the launch of the original X4. The Pro version keeps the same compact footprint as the base model but adds a temperature-adjustable front light, a touchscreen, a faster processor and more memory.
According to Xteink’s own specs page, the display is a 4.3-inch E Ink panel running at 219 PPI, respectable sharpness for a screen this size. The device weighs 72g and measures 111 × 69 × 5.95 mm, which is genuinely shirt-pocket territory. For context, that is lighter than most smartphones by some margin, and thin enough to forget you are carrying it.
Battery is a 1,100mAh cell. Storage comes as a 16GB microSD card included in the box, with the slot expandable up to 256GB if you want to load it with a serious library. That expandable storage is a detail worth sitting with: at 256GB, you are talking tens of thousands of e-books, which is either reassuring or faintly absurd depending on your reading pace.
The DRM Question and How It Compares on Price
There is one genuine catch, and it is worth being straight about it. The X4 Pro cannot load books from your existing Kindle library. It reads e-books that are free of Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, which means you will need to source your titles accordingly. That extra step puts some people off, and fairly enough. But for readers already comfortable with DRM-free formats, or those happy to make the switch, it opens up a wide ecosystem.
On price, the comparison is pointed. Even at full retail, the X4 Pro at $99 is $50 cheaper than the entry-level Amazon Kindle following that device’s recent price increase. At $89, the gap widens further. You are not getting Kindle’s ecosystem integration, but you are getting a front light, a touchscreen, expandable storage up to 256GB, and a device that fits in places a standard e-reader simply will not.
The experience of reading on a screen this small is genuinely closer to reading on a phone than on a full-size e-reader, but the E Ink display brings the eye-strain relief that makes the format worth bothering with in the first place. Anyone who has read on a phone for any length of time and found it wearing will likely notice the difference quickly.
The $89 sale price is live now via Prime Big Deal Days. Whether the discount holds beyond the event, the full retail price of $99 remains $50 below the entry-level Kindle.
