xteink

I am tempted to pick up an xteink device. xteink looked at a mature market (e-readers) and had a unique set of insights about that market:

• Miniatures: Miniature size, not miniature features. This is particularly pronounced in watches, which for a long time have been ridiculously large compared to most wrists. Now it's about right-sized and even undersized dials with no feature compromise. The trend is also visible in mini/micro handbags.
• Kindles are just shy of portable: Kindles are small devices (vs tablets) but not everyone likes carrying a Kindle around. Because you already have a phone, a laptop, and in many cases a tablet. What's the justification for a 3rd / 4th device?
• Projection as "a reader": Consumers (well, Kindle consumers, at least) love to project themselves as readers. And tell the world about it. Sticking an xteink on the back of a phone—ah yes, an unused piece of real estate that everyone can see—hits right.
• Projection as "not addicted to my phone": In addition to projecting themselves as readers, Kindle consumers also want to be perceived as not having a screen-time addiction. So voilà, you can carry your slightly-larger-than-wallet-sized xteink and read everywhere.

Xteink will likely enjoy a brief hype cycle driven by social media vanity, but the long-term unit economics are going to be brutal. Hardware margins are famously paper-thin, and unlike Amazon—which uses cheap Kindles as a customer-acquisition hook to sell books—Xteink has no content ecosystem to monetize because they are insisting that users bring their own books. And most importantly, is device size the long-term barrier to reading?