Honor's compact e-reader wants to take on rivals from Xteink and Boox

With compact E Ink e-readers being the cool gadget accessory for smartphones these days, Honor has decided to jump on the train with its own device. The e-reader, which launched alongside the Magic 9 series, is officially known as the Honor Life E Ink e-reader S3, and it arrives as a challenger to Xteink's and Boox's compact e-readers.

The Honor Life E Ink e-reader S3 has a 3.68-inch E Ink touch display with a 259 PPI. There's no mention of a front light, but when compared to the Boox Picco, which has a 3.97-inch 235 PPI display, Honor's device is smaller, but has a sharper display.

Honor's compact e-reader has pretty thick bezels surrounding the display, but there's glass on the front for a flush design, instead of the sunken display of the 11th Gen Kindle (available on Amazon for $149.99). 

The compact e-reader runs a proprietary OS (RTOS) and supports a handful of formats including epub, txt, PDF, mobi, doc, and docx. While its built-in storage is just 16MB, owners will be able to add more storage via a micro SD card slot, and according to Honor, it supports up to 1TB cards.

The Honor Life E Ink e-reader S3 also has Wi-Fi 6, a USB-C port for charging and file transfer, a microphone, and a 650mAh battery capacity. There's no mention of the battery life, but considering its size and that it ships with a lightweight operating system, users should be able to get multi-day use on a single charge.

According to the spec sheet, the Honor Life E Ink e-reader S3 weighs just 61 grams and is 5.6 mm thick. On the other hand, the Boox Picco weighs 58 grams, is 5.5 mm thick, but packs a significantly larger 920mAh battery capacity.

The Honor Life E Ink e-reader S3 has a price tag of CNY 359 ($54/€47) and is available to buy now in China. It comes with a USB cable, a screen protector, and a magnetic ring for attaching it to compatible smartphones with magnets. There's no news of an international release, and even if it remains exclusive to China, interested buyers can choose from available models such as the Xteink X4 Classic (curr. $75.99 on Amazon).