Open Book Touch is Crowdfunding: A Buttonless, Open Hardware Answer to Kindle
itsfoss.com
It's $149, runs on an ESP32-S3, and skips DRM entirely and lets you skip the Kindle ecosystem.

URL for the crowdfunding: https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/open-book-touch

Specs:

  • Display: 4.26" e-paper touchscreen, 480 × 800 px, warm + cool frontlight
  • Processor: ESP32-S3 dual-core, Wi-Fi + Bluetooth LE
  • Memory: 16 MB flash, 8 MB PSRAM
  • Formats: EPUB and plain text, no DRM
  • Storage: microSD card slot
  • Interface: USB-C with integrated LiPo charging
  • Dimension: 78 × 120 × 10 mm, about 85 g
  • Open source: MIT-licensed firmware, open hardware (to be released at shipping)

It also has a replaceable 800 mAh battery, I found it cool :)

  • COASTER1921@lemmy.ml
    11·
    2 hours ago

    4" screen and 16MB flash is a joke. Ebooks are small, but not that small. Considering how many used, end of life Kindles there are out there stuck on old easily jailbroken firmware, I don’t see why anyone would ever choose this as an alternative. The software for jailbroken Kindles is incredibly mature and at the point of “just works”. E-ink technology hasn’t progressed much in the past ten years, so you really don’t miss out on anything by buying a $30 used one.

    Edit: just realized it has micro SD support. So my storage concerns are invalid. It’s still incredibly clunky looking though, a 1cm thick device with only a 4" screen sure is something. My eyes probably couldn’t handle it even with the largest font.