I have really bad AHDH. Like, really bad. Like, I sat down to start writing this post and got distracted and here I am like 6 hours later finally starting it. Even now, I’m watching YouTube and getting distracted. Anyway, I’ve always really liked reading but I always have a hard time focusing. I was pretty okay reading paper books when I was younger. But now that I’m a bit older I’m trying to a little more eco-conscience but reading on my phone comes with many challenges1. So I decided to buy an ereader.

Kindle Paperwhite

Enter the Kindle Paperwhite. Now, I hate Amazon as much as the next guy but I’m also dumb as hell sometimes and stubborn and for some reason my brain told me that the Kindle would be the best. I do kind of wish I’d gone with Kobo but I’m not too upset about it. But there is literally only one reason that I’m okay with my purchase.

Jailbreaking

My current KOreader sleep screen on my Kindle Paperwhite

Yep. The Kindle by default is locked down and shitty. Daddy bozos wants all your money and your data. But luckily, people much smarter than me have hackermans’d the Kindle.

Okay, I’ll be honest. The real reason I bought a Kindle was to mess around with jailbreaking it. But it really did kind of kickstart my reading. Happy accident or something. I honestly don’t even remember how I discovered the Kindle hacking community but I’m glad I did. My original plan was to jailbreak my wife’s Kindle Paperwhite but unfortunately Kindles like to autoupdate when on wifi but the current firmware version hasn’t yet been jailbroken. And instead of waiting, like a normal person, for a new jailbreak to come out – I decide to buy my own Kindle. I wanted to buy a used one from eBay or something but I was worried that they would be fully updated.2

So I walked around Best Buy for far too long. Looking for any hit of a Kindle. “The website said they were in stock. Where the hell are they!?” I thought to myself. But then I found it. The tiny little Kindle stand. Then, since I was there, I debated spending the extra money on the color version. But I knew my wife would kill me. Blah blah blah… I get home and open the box. Boot the bad boy up. Skip the wifi setup so it doesn’t start an update in the background. Long story short, we were good to go. So I jailbroke it using Winterbreak and the Kindle Modding Wiki’s Guide. It was pretty straight forward. One of the first things I did was block Amazon’s bs.

“Welp, now that the Kindle store has been disabled, how the hell are you gonna add and read books!?” you might be asking.

KOReader

KOReader is the real reason to jailbreak your Kindle. It’s basically a replacement for the bulk of the Kindle’s UI. KOReader describes itself as

a document viewer for E Ink devices

and yeah that’s basically what it is. But it has support for pretty much and document file which is great for things like ePubs and the like. KOreader library page with Project:Title

Plugins

It gets even better when you start adding some plugins. Some of my favorites are App Store (for obvious reasons), Project:Title (to make the UI a bit prettier), and OPDS+ to download books from my Booklore3 Grimmory instance to my Kindle4. There are so many different plugins for KOReader that I use but I can’t list them all here. Because I’m lazy. There are also a bunch of different “patches” that change things in the UI. It’s really cool once you start digging into it a little bit. It can seem kind of daunting at first but there are a lot of tutorials online about how to set everything up. Oh, I almost forgot. KOReader has a built in plugin to sync books from Calibre if that’s your thing. Really handy bit of kit.

XTEINK X4

My XTEINK X4 sleepscreen with a QR code

I also impulse bought an XTEINK X4 one night while under the influence. I was seeing a lot of mixed feelings online and people calling each other shills for XTEINK or calling any post about the device an ad. Just usual reddit hivemind bullshit. But is the device any good? I’ve only had it for a few days, but I’ve been exclusively using it as my reader of choice since it arrived.

Well, not exactly since it arrived. I first had to install crosspoint reader. Crosspoint reader5 is custom firmware for the XTEINK X4 that replaces the default OS of the device. In my opinion, for the better. It has a more streamlined UI and adds OPDS and KOReader Sync, two features that I use all the time. I definitely fell for the hype of this little device but I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised by how good of a little eReader it is. I do wish it had a backlit screen, but that’s really my only gripe so far. Maybe in the future I’ll update this post if my feelings change but for now I really like the X4.

XTEINK X4 eReader

Actually Reading

“Okay dude, that’s all great but are you actually reading?” Again, I have really bad ADHD and I’m a tinkerer. I’ve definitely spent more time configuring my Kindle than I have spent reading. But I have been reading. I’ve finished a few shorter books and short stories. As well as reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. I know it’s nothing crazy but I’m proud of myself for actually finishing something.

Having a dedicated reading device has really helped. The e-ink screen is great for my eyes. It really feels like I’m straining less to read, even in the dark. I also started using the Atkinson Hyperlegible font. I’m really happy with this setup so far. My Kindle Paperwhite running KOReader and my TRIMUI Brick Hammer playing Pokemon - Polished Crystal

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to recently. It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything and felt like posting a little update. I’ve also been playing a lot of retro games on some various handhelds and I want to write a post about that too but who knows when I’ll get around to it. Lol. Welp, thanks for reading.

Cover Image by Matea Brajdić

  1. I’m working on this too. Social media sucks but I still like using Reddit. 😢 ↩︎

  2. Thinking about it now – I probably could have just asked the seller to send me a picture of the version for me. 🫠 ↩︎

  3. Booklore Grimmory also has the option to email books which works with a non-jailbroken Kindle as well. This is how I get books on my wife’s Kindle. ↩︎

  4. Since I started writing this the Booklore dev had a breakdown and deleted everything. The community took over and renamed the project to Grimmory. ↩︎

  5. and it’s forks ↩︎