Published September 18, 2026 03:03PM
Books are a contentious item among ultralight backpackers. Sure, a little entertainment can help pass long hours in the tent during storms or help you settle into camp at night. But reading material is nonessential, and for that reason, many ultralight hikers leave books and e-readers behind. A new pocket-sized e-reader from Xteink is small and light enough that even the most dedicated ultralight bookworms can justify packing it for some no-phone reading time. I tested the Xteink X3 to determine whether it earned a place in my pack.
Is this mini e-reader a gimmick or a game changer?
This might be a hot take, but I love reading when I’m going backpacking. I look forward all day to cozying up in my sleeping bag and reading a couple of chapters before bed. But I also like to keep my kit pretty ultralight, and so for that reason, I haven’t carried a paper book on the trail with me in years.
When I’m really looking to keep things lightweight, my Kindle is often the first thing I leave behind, but I almost always regret it as soon as I get to camp. This pocket-sized e-reader might have solved my dilemma.
This is the X3 from Chinese brand Xteink. It’s the smallest, lightest e-reader I’ve ever seen, but does it hold up on the trail? The X3 features a 3.7-inch display that’s similar in surface area to a playing card. It’s only 5.1 millimeters thick and weighs 58 grams, similar to a Snickers bar. That’s also less than half of the weight of the lightest Kindle currently on the market.
Xteink claims that the battery will last 10 to 14 days if you’re reading for an hour or two every day. After a couple weeks of testing, I haven’t been able to run this down yet. Perhaps most intriguing of all, it costs only $69.
The X3 was not necessarily designed with ultra-light backpackers in mind. The idea behind the tiny e-reader is that you can slide it into your pocket or stick it on the back of your smartphone via magnet, so it’s always handy for a few pages of reading instead of scrolling during moments of downtime. But it also just happens to be really small and really light, two things that backpackers often look for.
If you’re an ultralight purist, you may be wondering: why not just read on your smartphone? You’re carrying it anyway; that would be the most weight-efficient. Well, if you’re like me, you like to save your iPhone battery for mapping, taking pictures, or in case of emergency. And at the same time, I just like to be off my phone as much as possible when I’m in the backcountry. So carrying an e-reader, and especially a really small one, solves that problem for me.
I found it pretty fast and simple to transfer EPUB files that I already had downloaded on different devices. One limitation of the X3, however, is when it comes to digital library books. Most of the books I read on my Kindle come from the Libby library app, which integrates really seamlessly with the Kindle app. So I can get books from my library and get them onto my Kindle, no problem. On the other hand, I’ve not found a simple way to get library books onto my X3.
Because the X3 is so small and light, actually navigating on the device itself is a little bit less straightforward than on a full-size e-reader. There’s no touchscreen, so to flip pages or navigate on the device, you’ll have to use four buttons on the device itself, and that has a little bit of a learning curve.
And one other thing about the X3 is that in addition to no touchscreen, it doesn’t have a front light. As you can see, the display is an e-ink page, which is similar to a Kindle, but without the front light, you’ll have to read by headlamp in your tent at night.
In terms of durability, when it actually comes to bringing this thing on the trail, I haven’t found that I need to baby my X3, but I do need to take good care of it. It’s not waterproof; it’s not water-resistant like some full-size e-readers out there. But at the same time, this thing is so small, I can stick it in a Ziploc bag inside my backpack, and I’m not that worried about it getting wet while I’m going hiking.
So is the X3 a gimmick or a gamechanger? I’d say it kind of depends on your priorities. If you don’t care about going ultralight, then a full-size e-reader or just a regular book might be for you. Something like a Kindle is going to have more features and a larger display than the X3, but unlike this thing, you can’t stick it in your pocket and pull it out to read a couple of pages during a water break.
If you really want to streamline your kit and you’re not that worried about battery life, then you might just prefer to read on your phone. But if you’re like me and you want to be on your phone as little as possible, and at the same time, you want to save that battery for maps and emergencies, then something like this X3 is a really great addition to your kit. So for me, it’s a gamechanger.
