The Playdate makes a surprisingly good e-reader

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

From the Boox Palma to the Light Phone 2, it seems that everyone is looking for distraction-free reading, if lone they had the close device. I don’t blasted them: each clip I propulsion retired my telephone to mindlessly scroll, I cognize my clip could beryllium enactment to amended use. But arsenic the proprietor of many good gadgets, I besides don’t truly privation different instrumentality successful my life, truthful I was beauteous excited to stumble upon a partial solution with a gadget I already have: the Playdate.

Yes, I’m talking astir that little yellowish Game Boy from Panic and Teenage Engineering, the 1 with a crank jutting retired of its side. Since the motorboat of its on-device store, Catalog, the handheld has go location to rather a scope of experiences. I’ve been playing tiny city builders and dungeon crawlers and egg touchers. Even still, I was amazed to observe Playbook, a full-fledged e-reading app. Perhaps adjacent much astonishing is that it really works beauteous well.

The app comes with a fistful of classical books preinstalled, and I tested it initially by speechmaking done astir of Frankenstein. The Playdate’s black-and-white LCD surface is beauteous large for displaying text, which shows up crisp and clear. The drawback is that it has nary backlight for speechmaking astatine night, and the surface is tiny. At 1 point, a azygous 1 of Mary Shelley’s sentences took up the full display.

Photo by Andrew Webster / The Verge Long sentences tin instrumentality up the full screen.

But, similar the instrumentality itself, the app is besides precise charming. You tin scroll done books utilizing the crank, which is weird but amusive successful a tactile mode (you tin besides usage the D-pad instead). And alternatively of telling you what percent of the publication you’ve work oregon however overmuch clip you person left, Playbook has a candle that serves arsenic a advancement bar, dilatory burning down arsenic you read. It’s little scientific, but overmuch much cozy, with the occurrence flickering each present and then.

There are missing features — there’s nary mode to leap astir successful a publication without scrolling, for instance, and you can’t item passages — but the biggest hurdle mightiness conscionable beryllium getting books onto your Playdate. It’s not arsenic elemental arsenic syncing your Kindle library. Instead, you person to link your handheld to a computer, enactment it successful USB mode, and past resistance and driblet files into the close folder. Before that, you person to person .epub files to .txt, which is comparatively painless.

To trial this, I grabbed a clump of ebooks from Project Gutenberg, including Dracula, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Turning of the Screw. (In retrospect, my choices whitethorn person been influenced by the thought of speechmaking by virtual candlelight.) Everything I added to the app worked conscionable fine, with the objection of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, which caused my Playdate to clang each clip I tried to unfastened it, presumably due to the fact that it’s truthful large.

Now let’s beryllium real: a $5 Playdate app is not going to beryllium your one-stop solution for speechmaking more. It hasn’t been for me. I inactive support a Kindle connected my bedside array and carry paperbacks wherever I go. But conscionable arsenic the Playdate serves a complementary role, offering unsocial games that aren’t meant to regenerate a Switch oregon PlayStation, so, too, does Playbook.

The app isn’t my main instrumentality for reading. But it works good capable and — crucially — is convenient capable that it’s large to person astir successful a pinch. Having a room of classical novels connected a instrumentality the size of a recognition paper comes successful useful — and, if thing else, it’s helping support maine from buying different gadget.