Mine is the newest model, purchased less than a year ago. So I think that’s just how it works.
The problem is that the Kindle only ever finds one word when deconjugating. You can cycle through multiple results, but that seems to be post deconjugation. For example, I just saw なって and long tapped it which highlighted なっ. This gave three dictionary entries for なう (which is apparently a word?) and none for the obviously correct なる. If I force it to highlight なって it correctly results in なる being shown.
Then it‘s in fact very bad! My dict (not on Kindle, though) does the highlighting as told, but then shows all fitting words at once. So you just have to scroll. Sorry, I just couldn‘t imaging such bad things even exist…
hmmm… on further fiddling, it looks as though it works for verbs with kanji but not あります or なる。 When I highlighted the whole word of ありませんでした it still didn’t find it! Silly thing. Or maybe I don’t know how to hightlight? You drag those handle things up and down right? It automatically highlighted あり and even if I dragged the bottom handle down to た it still just looked up あり。
Anyway, I think I can live with that. In the worst case its no worse than a paper book but I can get books from Amazon in Oz.
So this is a preview, I’ll share my experience more in depth as I use it more.
I ended up buying a Xteink X4 mini e-reader. I’ve been eyeing one, but I never have gone through it because of the lack of Japanese support and epub support.
Turns out that now that’s fixed by the community, it has japanese support, epub support, vertical text support, word/dictionary look-ups, translations, Koreader/Calibre syncing, so now it’s a very nice little device. It even has some stats!
Oh I’ve been eyeing one of those for a while.. they’re still a little pricey (and I’d have to figure out what I’d want to do to make sure I could sync reading progress across devices), but seeing it with Japanese support makes it tempting.. I’m looking forward to your updates as you use it more!
There’s no backlight, but that’s not different than holding a book, so you have to deal with that.
The model I got has no touchscreen, but I prefer the buttons, specially for such a small device, avoids accidental touches. The device is small enough to fit in your pocket comfortably, so you can read on places where you would feel lazy to bring out the (e)book out of your backpack because maybe you only have 5 minutes free.
The lack of Japanese support and ePubs was what was keeping me out of this device.
The custom firmware fixes all of those. You have progress sync if you use KOReader across devices, although I haven’t set it up myself yet. When I read on my tablet or desktop I use ttsu reader, maybe I should move to a desktop version of KOReader, to keep everything neatly.
The ePubs can be optimized for the device without additional software, you just connect the device to your wifi, input the URL that it gives you, and it’s drag and drop.
I don’t consider 45€ pricey for such a device, although that’s a personal opinion. I’m using it way more than my android e-Ink device, which I might end up selling to be honest. (I recently got rid of an e-Ink phone too, because it was getting ignored as being inconvenient to bring two phones around too)
If you think of it, please do an update after 6 months or so so that we can know if you’re still using it or if it’s gone the way of your e-ink phone.
At some point, I’ll no longer be able to repair my ancient kobo mini and this or the pro version look … promising? maybe? Anyway, count me as interested in your experience.
Well, yeah it depends on context I guess. If I get a kindle for 99EUR, in a vacuum, it’s a better deal. If I buy it and don’t end using it, then thats the more expensive one.
Will definitely do. So far, I’m bringing it to work, which is something I didn’t do with the other devices I had, other than the e-ink phone, which lasted about a couple days until I was irritated with it.
If I forget, poke me and I’ll reply with an update.
I’ve seen the pro, there’s also another model upcoming that’s been leaked, I think it’s the X4C. The problem with those is the Pro has a touchscreen, which I’m iffy in such a small device (shouldn’t be a problem if you can disable it I guess?), and that it uses a propietary pogo pin for charging and data transfer instead of normal USB-C.
The X4C moves in the same direction having pogo pins, same as the X3. The only one with standard USB-C is the normal X4.
The custom firmware is definitely carrying the device. I didn’t keep the original firmware much, but I don’t think I’d stand for a custom app and other shenanigans. The good thing is you can flash whatever you want, even if your device is “developer locked”. There are ways to flash. Not sure if that will carry in the future or you will be forced to buy the developer versions of the device.
How easy was it to set up the new firmware, rather how long did it take? Currently using Onyz Boox with tsutsu and yomitan - its great but will be travelling about a bit soon and fishing around in my bag for it (especially the pen/stylus) whilst in a cramped plane-seat is a pain.
For that price, might get one to play with, but not if its a ton of hassle to set-up.
Very very easy, just throw the update.bin on the SD card and request it to update from the SD.
Took me around 30 seconds to start the process, the device itself took maybe 2 minutes, but that’s expected due to the low processing power it has.
I’m thinking exactly the same, on September I have 30h+ scheduled of flights, so I think this would be the ideal device to just have around for whenever I feel like reading.
The look-ups won’t be as easy as Ttsu+Yomitan+Pen though, so take that in mind. You might want to keep harder books on the more convenient device.
Maybe the pro model has good look-ups with it’s touch screen, but I’m not sure if I want to gamble on it, right now I’m satisfied with this device.
Yes, a simple calibre plugin is able to unlock them.
I know the feeling too well, and I’m not happy about the fragmented library either, but hey, Amazon made it easier by removing books from my library that they were considered problematic, so the fragmentation started even before I looked at other stores.
Fingers crossed that Rakuten doesn’t feel the need to be an ass about the DRM. I’m happy to give them money if they continue like they are, and to be fair, they seem to not have updated it over what they already had long ago.
Manga also makes it way more complicated for me. With novels, I can easily copy over my DRM-free files manually to an e-reader. But I read manga on my iPhone or iPad, which cannot sideload content.
I’m not sure manga would be a wise idea on such a tiny device, although there’s an option to divide it into panels to make it manageable, but yeah I get the point.
Part of the reason of why still I have an android e-ink device is to have the official apps all running there, if it came to the worst case scenario.
