5 ms·

EWritable – e-ink tablet news and reviews

89 points by SushiHippie 2y ago

metaphor 2y ago
> Error establishing a database connection
- jethronethro 2y ago
  Wondering if this is the result of the HN equivalent of being slashdotted ...
  - SushiHippie 2y ago
    Probably, before submitting this link everything worked fine, but now I can't even load the page. Didn't knew that so many people on HN look into the "new" tab, that it could crash a website. Here is an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240802013632/https://ewritable.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240802013632/https://ewritable...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - waterproof 2y ago
    We call it the hug of death.
  - tomrod 2y ago
    HN H(ug)o(f)D(eath)
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    I'm always surprised when I see this happen. I could see a quick surge in traffic locking up the server, likely at the database, but I'd also expect that to sort itself out quickly with a reasonable infrastructure setup. I'm seeing a 503 here now, maybe they ran into a hard cap on hosting bandwidth?
    - bee_rider 2y ago
      I think it is just a news site about e-ink devices. Maybe just falling over is a reasonably failure mode and they’ve set up enough infrastructure? The site will be there in a day or soC for people that are really interested, most likely.
  - spudlyo 2y ago
    I think it has to do with the default value of max_connections in MySQL being somewhat low, I think it's like 150 or something.
  - knodi123 2y ago
    > of being slashdotted haha, you're old... :-)
    - jethronethro 2y ago
      Yes, yes I am. Now get off my lawn! :-)
tedunangst 2y ago
The boox air 3 c is currently at the top of my list of useless gadgets I want to play with for a week before placing on the retirement shelf.
- IKnowMazin 2y ago
  Dang, I'm curious what you don't like about it. I've been loving mine
  - zeagle 2y ago
    Just my experience but I felt they are slow fragile and not particularly great on battery life. I think a dedicated device like remarkable or kindle without Android stuff running in the background might make more sense. I sadly recently broke my ultra c with the pressure just from putting on a new screen protector using a cardboard applicator. I was mainly using boox notes with the stylus to read pdfs and pressreader on flights and that was a decent experience. My other criticism is prior to this just having the magnetic pen attach itself damaged the finish on the side. I'm glad you like yours, but the appeal wore off quickly for me and I would suggest any potential buyer familiarize themselves with reports of experiences of trying to get service or warranty on these through the company.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      > Just my experience but I felt they are slow fragile and not particularly great on battery life. I think a dedicated device like remarkable or kindle without Android stuff running in the background might make more sense. I have a reMarkable 2. My primary problem with it is the battery life. If you leave it on, it will, after a certain period of time, overlay a banner on the screen saying it's turned off because of inactivity. But the banner appears to be lying. Leaving it in that state rapidly drains the battery. If you want the battery to last, you need to manually tell the device to shut down, at which point, instead of displaying whatever was last on screen plus a banner explaining how it's shut off due to inactivity, it displays a different screen saying "reMarkable is powered off". At that point, the battery stops draining. I can't understand why shutting off due to automatically-detected inactivity isn't supposed to take the device out of "actively drain the battery" mode. It seems like a huge, unforced usability failure.
jerojero 2y ago
I'm hoping there's a good (and not super expensive) smartphone (without cellular) color e ink device in the future. I know a lot of people want the boox palma to have cellular but... I would prefer for it to be cheaper and retain just wifi. I have one, and I've never felt like I need mobile internet on it and I've also never felt like I would want to replace my phone for it either.
- freddie_mercury 2y ago
  I doubt dropping cellular is going to save any significant money. 4g chipsets are so cheap you can buy an entire 4g phone for $17. A Unisoc T107 is dirt cheap when bought in bulk.
  - jerojero 2y ago
    If only price was correlated to the cost of the implemented features. If they put cellular I assure you they can easily charge an extra 100 dollars for it.
- TechDebtDevin 2y ago
  HiSense makes eink phones you can import from China but need to do your research as far as carrier compatibility.
- infotainment 2y ago
  I'm one of those people who wish the Palma had cellular, and it's exactly for that reason: I want it specifically for use as a phone.
- alisonatwork 2y ago
  I bought a Boox Palma after a couple of eink threads here recently and it primarily exists for me as a replacement phone to reduce eye strain in bed. I can do all the reading I used to do on my phone on the Palma, I can do Anki flashcards, I can comment on HN, I can even watch and get the gist of an embedded short video. It's great! But what was even greater was when I went out for a bike ride last weekend and kicked back on the beach for a bit to do my flashcards in the sun. Except... couldn't sync with AnkiWeb because there was no 4G. Fortunately I had my phone with me too and set up wi-fi sharing to do the sync, but how much better would it have been if I could have left my phone at home? Way better! The eink screen was much easier to read in the sun than my phone ever could be, and the Palma is (slightly) smaller and lighter than a phone too. I would love if it could be my primary bit of kit for traveling around during the day, with just enough connection to sync Anki, download up-to-date weather reports and maybe send the odd email. It probably wouldn't replace my phone for multi-day or overseas trips where GPS and having a legacy phone number/dialer is still useful, but with 4G internet it'd be the perfect day trip device.
funksta 2y ago
Ewritable is definitely my go-to resource for comparing eInk tablets (I'm a big fan of the space). Hopefully it survives the hug of death soon so more folks can discover his hard work. I also came across https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/ https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/ lately, which has a lot of niche and older devices, but doesn't have the same depth of coverage for the bigger incumbants.
- nicoloren 2y ago
  I tried to make a similar website [1] but find very difficult to present this type of information on mobile. So I made a full text search, but still doesn't do the trick very good. I'd like to see a good responsive library to show this kind of comparison tables on mobile (that's where all my website visitors seems to use). [1] https://world-of-ereader.com/find-e-reader.html https://world-of-ereader.com/find-e-reader.html
- saad1121 2y ago
  [dead]
TheHumanist 2y ago
Not the most mobile-friendly site
- jesse-stewart 2y ago
  Came here to find this comment
Modified3019 2y ago
If anyone running a site like this finds this thread, I’d like to suggest that always declaring the PPI is important. At least to me. I straight up am not ever going to buy anything with less than 300 PPI, because that’s the point where I stop noticing the pixels. So being able to filter out everything that fails that saves a lot of time.
linsomniac 2y ago
I've had a Kindle Scribe for just over a year, and my micro review is: "It's like paper, only much more expensive." The writing experience is good. I use it for largely bullet journaling of things I need to do. It works well, but honestly a paper notebook would work nearly as well. I had hoped to get nebulous other benefits, I'm not exactly sure what, but maybe exporting or templates or viewing from multiple locations. But the software is fairly slow and fairly minimalistic. Honestly: It's an e-reader with minimal pen functionality. What it has over a notebook is: It lays flat, and it's easy to erase. I do use it every business day. Downsides: Page flipping is maddeningly slow, and the pencil is $50 if I lose it, and $1 nearly every time I drop it (replacing the nib). I've had a number of close calls where I thought I lost it and didn't look forward to the cost of replacement. I'm amazingly close to selling it on ebay and replacing it with either a notebook and pen, a Boox Note Air 3 (non-color). I hear ReMarkable is coming out with a new one soon too.
- lowkey 2y ago
  A few years ago I supported a Kickstarter project for a paper notebook that may be a great fit for your needs. The Rocket Book is a wire bound paper notebook that has icons on each page and a mobile app. When you take a picture of a page with your phone it automatically syncs to your favorite cloud apps. As a bonus, it is designed to work with a special heat sensitive erasable pen so the notebook is reusable. Simple pop it in the microwave under a mug of water for 1 minute and the book comes out blank and ready for reuse. I am not affiliated and ultimately decided to type my notes or use an iPad but wanted to suggest it for those who prefer paper. https://getrocketbook.com/ https://getrocketbook.com/
  - geoelectric 2y ago
    Looks like current ones are water-washable instead of microwavable, which I assume has the disadvantage that you need to do it page by page. But you can use off the shelf Pilot Frixion pens with all of them, including the OG Wave version (which they do still sell as one of their cheaper ones, but looks like it can only take a few erase cycles). This looks surprisingly good. The app that does the scanning and transfer to other services has a 4.7 on the iOS App Store, so I assume it works reasonably well, and I don’t see any subscription fees whatsoever. $20-60 for a notebook is pretty dear, but certainly cheaper than $200-300 for an e-ink tablet as long as you can get enough reuse out of them.
m463 2y ago
I really liked my remarkable 2 for the feel of writing. Honestly what stopped me from using it is the lack of backlight (since most of my use is reading ebooks)
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  I like mine, but my uses for it may not be that common ( I let my kid doodle in it; I write a journal; I have some books in it, but I don't remember last time I read a book there ). I have some minor beefs with it for the price, but by far it was the best experience in terms of 'feeling' of writing as if it was paper.
fsiefken 2y ago
boox air 3 (non-c) is my favorite reader ever, i can run android apps like lichess, hive, logseq, hacki, termux, chatgpt. write on it with a stylus, take notes and read books in a large format. it has a nice interface, unfortunately no buttons, is thin, has good battery life and bluetooth and wifi support so i can use it with a foldable keyboard and it doubles as a grayscale xfce machine.
minimalist 2y ago
Every now and again, I see stories about Onyx and their tablets pop up and I have to dust off this old comment of mine [0]. I've since sold the tablet and picked up a remarkable that I am very happy with and have modified in many ways. Long story short: - Onyx still doesn't release kernel sources - Onyx still uses outdated and vulnerable builds of Android, with questionable settings such as disabling SELinux - Their devices are very chatty back to servers in the PRC. - Their digitizer API is still hostile to developers. - They shut down their support forums when the chorus of disgruntled customers began to get too loud And even worse, they are using "anti-China movement" as an excuse to not comply with the GPL. This company is shit and no one should give them any money. And yet, all of these "review sites" (full of every kind of affiliate link imaginable) can't help themselves from riding the gravy train of free product from this company. Edit: And then there are large threads like this [2] where people recognize all the problems and try to "secure" their devices. （ ´_ゝ`） [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543 [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin... [2]: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=64718a04c72a8ced8063cf8c09167f72&t=349930 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=64718a04c...
- r-spaghetti 2y ago
  I have the same experience with a Onyx Boox. No more updates after 1 year. As (european) consumers rights require a working product for at least 2 years, and security updates are an essential part of a 'working product', it's easy to return it to the seller (not Onyx).
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  > I've since sold the tablet and picked up a remarkable that I am very happy with and have modified in many ways. Could you elaborate a bit more about the modifications you've done to the remarkable? After looking at all these devices, I always come back to the remarkable, but then things like their cloud subscription thing and the weird ways to get files to/from it steer me away.
  - 2y ago
tazu 2y ago
Seems like this website is hosted on a 1ghz e-reader.
jwrallie 2y ago
My ideal portable machine would be an ARM laptop, Thinkpad x220 build and an e-ink screen running Linux. With the right power management, it could last days on battery.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
loughnane 2y ago
Long shot, but does anyone know the ODM/OEMs that produce these? I’ve had an idea for a niche device and I bet there’s a few firms that specialize in the hardware.
spaceisballer 2y ago
When the site finally worked it was nice to learn of the super note. Never heard of it before and I’m curious when the next iteration of their 10” version comes out. Seems like a good note taking first and e reader second. Which is what I’m looking for, already enjoy my smaller kobo for reading only.
- JadeNB 2y ago
  The site speaks to that: https://ewritable.com/when-will-the-ratta-supernote-a5-x2-be-released https://ewritable.com/when-will-the-ratta-supernote-a5-x2-be... . In brief, Ratta is open on Reddit, but I don't think anyone has much faith that they'll meet their latest estimate, so we're all just guessing.

89 points by SushiHippie 2y ago

metaphor 2y ago

> Error establishing a database connection

jethronethro 2y ago
Wondering if this is the result of the HN equivalent of being slashdotted ...
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  Probably, before submitting this link everything worked fine, but now I can't even load the page. Didn't knew that so many people on HN look into the "new" tab, that it could crash a website. Here is an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240802013632/https://ewritable.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240802013632/https://ewritable...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- waterproof 2y ago
  We call it the hug of death.
- tomrod 2y ago
  HN H(ug)o(f)D(eath)
- _heimdall 2y ago
  I'm always surprised when I see this happen. I could see a quick surge in traffic locking up the server, likely at the database, but I'd also expect that to sort itself out quickly with a reasonable infrastructure setup. I'm seeing a 503 here now, maybe they ran into a hard cap on hosting bandwidth?
  - bee_rider 2y ago
    I think it is just a news site about e-ink devices. Maybe just falling over is a reasonably failure mode and they’ve set up enough infrastructure? The site will be there in a day or soC for people that are really interested, most likely.
- spudlyo 2y ago
  I think it has to do with the default value of max_connections in MySQL being somewhat low, I think it's like 150 or something.
- knodi123 2y ago
  > of being slashdotted haha, you're old... :-)
  - jethronethro 2y ago
    Yes, yes I am. Now get off my lawn! :-)

tedunangst 2y ago

The boox air 3 c is currently at the top of my list of useless gadgets I want to play with for a week before placing on the retirement shelf.

IKnowMazin 2y ago
Dang, I'm curious what you don't like about it. I've been loving mine
- zeagle 2y ago
  Just my experience but I felt they are slow fragile and not particularly great on battery life. I think a dedicated device like remarkable or kindle without Android stuff running in the background might make more sense. I sadly recently broke my ultra c with the pressure just from putting on a new screen protector using a cardboard applicator. I was mainly using boox notes with the stylus to read pdfs and pressreader on flights and that was a decent experience. My other criticism is prior to this just having the magnetic pen attach itself damaged the finish on the side. I'm glad you like yours, but the appeal wore off quickly for me and I would suggest any potential buyer familiarize themselves with reports of experiences of trying to get service or warranty on these through the company.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    > Just my experience but I felt they are slow fragile and not particularly great on battery life. I think a dedicated device like remarkable or kindle without Android stuff running in the background might make more sense. I have a reMarkable 2. My primary problem with it is the battery life. If you leave it on, it will, after a certain period of time, overlay a banner on the screen saying it's turned off because of inactivity. But the banner appears to be lying. Leaving it in that state rapidly drains the battery. If you want the battery to last, you need to manually tell the device to shut down, at which point, instead of displaying whatever was last on screen plus a banner explaining how it's shut off due to inactivity, it displays a different screen saying "reMarkable is powered off". At that point, the battery stops draining. I can't understand why shutting off due to automatically-detected inactivity isn't supposed to take the device out of "actively drain the battery" mode. It seems like a huge, unforced usability failure.

jerojero 2y ago

I'm hoping there's a good (and not super expensive) smartphone (without cellular) color e ink device in the future. I know a lot of people want the boox palma to have cellular but... I would prefer for it to be cheaper and retain just wifi. I have one, and I've never felt like I need mobile internet on it and I've also never felt like I would want to replace my phone for it either.

freddie_mercury 2y ago
I doubt dropping cellular is going to save any significant money. 4g chipsets are so cheap you can buy an entire 4g phone for $17. A Unisoc T107 is dirt cheap when bought in bulk.
- jerojero 2y ago
  If only price was correlated to the cost of the implemented features. If they put cellular I assure you they can easily charge an extra 100 dollars for it.
TechDebtDevin 2y ago
HiSense makes eink phones you can import from China but need to do your research as far as carrier compatibility.
infotainment 2y ago
I'm one of those people who wish the Palma had cellular, and it's exactly for that reason: I want it specifically for use as a phone.
alisonatwork 2y ago
I bought a Boox Palma after a couple of eink threads here recently and it primarily exists for me as a replacement phone to reduce eye strain in bed. I can do all the reading I used to do on my phone on the Palma, I can do Anki flashcards, I can comment on HN, I can even watch and get the gist of an embedded short video. It's great! But what was even greater was when I went out for a bike ride last weekend and kicked back on the beach for a bit to do my flashcards in the sun. Except... couldn't sync with AnkiWeb because there was no 4G. Fortunately I had my phone with me too and set up wi-fi sharing to do the sync, but how much better would it have been if I could have left my phone at home? Way better! The eink screen was much easier to read in the sun than my phone ever could be, and the Palma is (slightly) smaller and lighter than a phone too. I would love if it could be my primary bit of kit for traveling around during the day, with just enough connection to sync Anki, download up-to-date weather reports and maybe send the odd email. It probably wouldn't replace my phone for multi-day or overseas trips where GPS and having a legacy phone number/dialer is still useful, but with 4G internet it'd be the perfect day trip device.

funksta 2y ago

Ewritable is definitely my go-to resource for comparing eInk tablets (I'm a big fan of the space). Hopefully it survives the hug of death soon so more folks can discover his hard work. I also came across https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/ https://comparisontabl.es/e-readers/ lately, which has a lot of niche and older devices, but doesn't have the same depth of coverage for the bigger incumbants.

nicoloren 2y ago
I tried to make a similar website [1] but find very difficult to present this type of information on mobile. So I made a full text search, but still doesn't do the trick very good. I'd like to see a good responsive library to show this kind of comparison tables on mobile (that's where all my website visitors seems to use). [1] https://world-of-ereader.com/find-e-reader.html https://world-of-ereader.com/find-e-reader.html
saad1121 2y ago
[dead]

TheHumanist 2y ago

Not the most mobile-friendly site

jesse-stewart 2y ago
Came here to find this comment

Modified3019 2y ago

If anyone running a site like this finds this thread, I’d like to suggest that always declaring the PPI is important. At least to me. I straight up am not ever going to buy anything with less than 300 PPI, because that’s the point where I stop noticing the pixels. So being able to filter out everything that fails that saves a lot of time.

linsomniac 2y ago

I've had a Kindle Scribe for just over a year, and my micro review is: "It's like paper, only much more expensive." The writing experience is good. I use it for largely bullet journaling of things I need to do. It works well, but honestly a paper notebook would work nearly as well. I had hoped to get nebulous other benefits, I'm not exactly sure what, but maybe exporting or templates or viewing from multiple locations. But the software is fairly slow and fairly minimalistic. Honestly: It's an e-reader with minimal pen functionality. What it has over a notebook is: It lays flat, and it's easy to erase. I do use it every business day. Downsides: Page flipping is maddeningly slow, and the pencil is $50 if I lose it, and $1 nearly every time I drop it (replacing the nib). I've had a number of close calls where I thought I lost it and didn't look forward to the cost of replacement. I'm amazingly close to selling it on ebay and replacing it with either a notebook and pen, a Boox Note Air 3 (non-color). I hear ReMarkable is coming out with a new one soon too.

lowkey 2y ago
A few years ago I supported a Kickstarter project for a paper notebook that may be a great fit for your needs. The Rocket Book is a wire bound paper notebook that has icons on each page and a mobile app. When you take a picture of a page with your phone it automatically syncs to your favorite cloud apps. As a bonus, it is designed to work with a special heat sensitive erasable pen so the notebook is reusable. Simple pop it in the microwave under a mug of water for 1 minute and the book comes out blank and ready for reuse. I am not affiliated and ultimately decided to type my notes or use an iPad but wanted to suggest it for those who prefer paper. https://getrocketbook.com/ https://getrocketbook.com/
- geoelectric 2y ago
  Looks like current ones are water-washable instead of microwavable, which I assume has the disadvantage that you need to do it page by page. But you can use off the shelf Pilot Frixion pens with all of them, including the OG Wave version (which they do still sell as one of their cheaper ones, but looks like it can only take a few erase cycles). This looks surprisingly good. The app that does the scanning and transfer to other services has a 4.7 on the iOS App Store, so I assume it works reasonably well, and I don’t see any subscription fees whatsoever. $20-60 for a notebook is pretty dear, but certainly cheaper than $200-300 for an e-ink tablet as long as you can get enough reuse out of them.

m463 2y ago

I really liked my remarkable 2 for the feel of writing. Honestly what stopped me from using it is the lack of backlight (since most of my use is reading ebooks)

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
I like mine, but my uses for it may not be that common ( I let my kid doodle in it; I write a journal; I have some books in it, but I don't remember last time I read a book there ). I have some minor beefs with it for the price, but by far it was the best experience in terms of 'feeling' of writing as if it was paper.

fsiefken 2y ago

boox air 3 (non-c) is my favorite reader ever, i can run android apps like lichess, hive, logseq, hacki, termux, chatgpt. write on it with a stylus, take notes and read books in a large format. it has a nice interface, unfortunately no buttons, is thin, has good battery life and bluetooth and wifi support so i can use it with a foldable keyboard and it doubles as a grayscale xfce machine.

minimalist 2y ago

Every now and again, I see stories about Onyx and their tablets pop up and I have to dust off this old comment of mine [0]. I've since sold the tablet and picked up a remarkable that I am very happy with and have modified in many ways. Long story short: - Onyx still doesn't release kernel sources - Onyx still uses outdated and vulnerable builds of Android, with questionable settings such as disabling SELinux - Their devices are very chatty back to servers in the PRC. - Their digitizer API is still hostile to developers. - They shut down their support forums when the chorus of disgruntled customers began to get too loud And even worse, they are using "anti-China movement" as an excuse to not comply with the GPL. This company is shit and no one should give them any money. And yet, all of these "review sites" (full of every kind of affiliate link imaginable) can't help themselves from riding the gravy train of free product from this company. Edit: And then there are large threads like this [2] where people recognize all the problems and try to "secure" their devices. （ ´_ゝ`） [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543 [1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin... [2]: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=64718a04c72a8ced8063cf8c09167f72&t=349930 https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=64718a04c...

r-spaghetti 2y ago
I have the same experience with a Onyx Boox. No more updates after 1 year. As (european) consumers rights require a working product for at least 2 years, and security updates are an essential part of a 'working product', it's easy to return it to the seller (not Onyx).
SushiHippie 2y ago
> I've since sold the tablet and picked up a remarkable that I am very happy with and have modified in many ways. Could you elaborate a bit more about the modifications you've done to the remarkable? After looking at all these devices, I always come back to the remarkable, but then things like their cloud subscription thing and the weird ways to get files to/from it steer me away.
- 2y ago

tazu 2y ago

Seems like this website is hosted on a 1ghz e-reader.

jwrallie 2y ago

My ideal portable machine would be an ARM laptop, Thinkpad x220 build and an e-ink screen running Linux. With the right power management, it could last days on battery.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

loughnane 2y ago

Long shot, but does anyone know the ODM/OEMs that produce these? I’ve had an idea for a niche device and I bet there’s a few firms that specialize in the hardware.

spaceisballer 2y ago

When the site finally worked it was nice to learn of the super note. Never heard of it before and I’m curious when the next iteration of their 10” version comes out. Seems like a good note taking first and e reader second. Which is what I’m looking for, already enjoy my smaller kobo for reading only.

JadeNB 2y ago
The site speaks to that: https://ewritable.com/when-will-the-ratta-supernote-a5-x2-be-released https://ewritable.com/when-will-the-ratta-supernote-a5-x2-be... . In brief, Ratta is open on Reddit, but I don't think anyone has much faith that they'll meet their latest estimate, so we're all just guessing.