New Boox Palma: The Perfect Pocket-Sized E-Reader?

Key Takeaways

• The Boox Palma is a phone-sized Android device with an e-ink screen.
• It's having a moment.
• A hopped-up e-reader is perfect for people who already love reading, and want to do more of it.

The Boox Palma is a phone-sized e-ink device that runs a years-out-of-date version of Android, and yet people really, really love it.

Your phone is an amazing device, but it sucks for long-form reading. It is, as book-creator and OG Boox Palma fan Craig Mod puts it in a blog post, a "dopamine casino." Yet despite this, we read all kinds of things on our phones. Why? Because it's convenient and always in a pocket or bag. But for people who love reading as much as they hate being distracted by TikTok, there's another option, and it's amazing.

"For me, using the Palma feels like stepping into a quiet library whenever I need a break from the chaos of regular phone use. It's been my go-to for bedtime reading and for those times when I just want to enjoy a good book without interruptions," Maria Szandrach, CEO of note-taking platform Mentalyc, told Lifewire via email.

Less is More

The Palma is nothing special, and that's what makes it so compelling. It looks like an Android phone with an e-ink screen, and because that's exactly what it is, you can install Android apps on it. And yet at the same time, that e-ink screen means that it is easier on the eye, viewable in direct sunlight, and the battery lasts for weeks, not hours. It's also very light and water-resistant.

But it's the combination of e-ink and apps that takes it beyond anything you get from a Kindle or a Kobo. You can, for example, run the Kindle app here, and although you can't buy books directly (thanks to Google's app store policies), the experience is otherwise just as good as using an actual Kindle.

"It’s just too delightful to have a smartphone-sized E Ink device purely for reading joy and reading joy only. The Palma is ethereally light (167 grams by my scale), and yet feels well-made. I shove it in pockets and bags and never worry about it," writes Craig Mod on his blog.

But unlike the Kindle, you can also load other reading apps. You could have an RSS reader for news, for example, or your read-later app of choice, like Readwise. You can load it up with all your favorite sources of news, stories, and articles, and it's there, ready for you at bedtime, in line at the supermarket, or on your commute. In short, you can pull it out any time you'd usually pull out your phone to entertain yourself.

With your phone, though, it's all too easy to flip to something else. You might be reading something, and then suddenly have a thought like, as the Verge's David Pierce puts it, "What was that thing I wanted to buy on Amazon?"

We're not trying to sell the Boox Palma as some kind of holistic meditation device to help you wean yourself off your evil smartphone. Rather, for people who already prefer to read, this is a great alternative to the phone, because it makes those distractions much less compelling in the moment.

More Than An E-Reader

Thanks to Boox's "super refresh" feature, which makes the screen more responsive than a regular e-ink screen, you can even watch video on this thing. You'll probably never do that, but this also means that the user interface is responsive enough to run non-reading apps without getting annoying.

For example, you could load it up with MP3s and/or run a podcast app that downloads episodes when you're on Wi-Fi and keeps them ready for you. You could then leave your phone in your bag until you really need it, or replace it with a smartwatch, which can manage messaging and calls, but is annoying enough that you'll only want to use it in emergencies.

It's amazing that there aren't more reading devices like this. Avid readers may appreciate having a few more features than their Kindle or Kobo, for example, so they don't have to switch to a phone or iPad where the distraction begins.

And in fact, you can get some of this done on the Kobo, which integrate's Mozilla's read-later service Pocket, and will sync automatically when connected to Wi-Fi. The integration is a little clunky, though, and you cannot, for instance, highlight text.

So the Palma it is. It might not be for you, but if it is, then you'll probably absolutely love it.