Should’ve Been More of An E-Reader
Boox recently added a new e-reader to its ranks. It’s called the Palma and boasts an “eye-friendly” ePaper display that’s recently been making rounds online. Priced at $280, it’s significantly more expensive than Amazon’s $100 base Kindle model, so I went into it with way more expectations than I did with a Kindle. But I’m afraid it didn’t do justice to its price.
Boox Palma
It’s trying to do too much at the same time.
Pros
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Sturdy body -
Huge, expandable storage -
Battery life is long-lasting
Cons
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No dark mode -
No 3.5mm port -
Aspect ratio makes it hard to read on it -
Interface is laggy
Boox Palma Design
Easily stowable.
The most important thing you need to know about Palma’s design is that it feels like holding an iPhone in your hands. It is 6 x 3 inches and has almost the same form factor as my ancient iPhone 12 Pro Max. This 2:1 aspect ratio differs considerably from the 8:6 ratio on a Kindle.
I love how portable the Palma is. Weighing only 170g, it feels nice and light in your tote bag. I carried it with me to a couple of places and back and forth from work for around a week, and it didn’t weigh my office tote down. It has a slim 8mm profile, a modest plastic body, and a sturdy exterior. Even though my Palma shipped with a protective cover, I didn’t use it with that. I tried it for a few minutes but quickly ditched it as it added to the weight, made using it less ergonomic, and didn’t feel necessary. Though tiny, the Palma feels pretty robust and doesn’t need that extra protection. The back of the device has a faux paper-like look, which I dig.
While I liked that the Palma didn’t feel flimsy enough to require a case, I did feel a little concerned about the absence of a water-resistant rating and how that could lead to a disaster if a spillage occurs. The company claims its e-reader is “water-repellent,” but it is not water-resistant. Compare this to the high IPX8 water resistance rating on the Kindle, and you’ll realize what a big flaw this is.
The right side of the Palma hosts a power button and a volume rocker, and the left edge offers the SD card slot and a customizable function button. The buttons are nice and clicky, and I like how they add a little pop of bling to the otherwise bland body. The function button has been designed intelligently and given up to three actions for a 1) short-press 2) double-click, and a 3) long-press. These actions include taking a screenshot, putting the Palma into Sleep Mode, going to the next page, the previous page, and so on.
The underside of the e-reader sports a Type-C charging port and a pair of speaker grilles. To my pleasant surprise, the speakers are excellent. Though tinny and sharp like most mobile phone speakers, their volume is impressive enough to fill a mid-sized room. I liked putting the Palma on a shelf in my kitchen and listening to podcasts as I cooked. The sound of my cooking, along with my thunderous kitchen exhaust, were both overpowered by the Palma’s speakers.
I’m also happy about the impressive speakers because the Palma doesn’t offer a 3.5mm port for a wired audio connection. So, your only two options are Bluetooth and speakers, and I mostly found myself opting for the latter. If I were someone who drove, I would also see myself listening to audiobooks on its speakers in the car. If I ever consume content where I care about audio, I’d switch to a good pair of buds.
Boox Palma Functionality
Outdated OS but huge storage.
Android 11 powers the Palma, which, considering we’re on Android 15 now, makes it extremely outdated in terms of the OS. Thankfully, the OS doesn’t significantly impact the reader’s day-to-day functionality. Still, if you wish to use the Boox more as a tablet, you might find the outdated OS limiting you concerning app compatibility.
The processor on board is Qualcomm’s Octa-Core 2GHz with integrated graphics, 6GB memory, a whopping 128GB storage, and an SD card slot. Amazon’s Kindle is 64GB, so the 128GB is immediately impressive. Considering it’s expandable with the memory card slot, it is even better, except we haven’t been told a maximum of how many GBs the slot can offer.
The light powering the E-Ink Carta 1200 display on the Palma is called Moon Light 2 and is responsible for the eye-friendly soft glow that illuminates the device. The 6.13” screen offers 300ppi and a resolution of 824×1648 dots. I know that the 6-inch size sounds a little too tall for an e-reader and a little too phone-like.
You also get a 16MP rear camera with an LED flash. The flash also works as a pretty bright and useful flashlight when you swipe down on the Palma and tap its icon in the control center. However, the camera won’t fulfill your photography needs. It only exists for scanning documents.
Boox Palma Experience
Bad at browsing
To access my book, I had to download the Kindle app from the Google Play Store and sign up for (and pay for) Kindle Unlimited. It cost me around $12 a month but was simple to set up. Reading my current read, Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen, for a week made me feel like this device is confused between wanting to be an e-reader and a mobile phone. Personally, the 2:1 aspect ratio didn’t work for me. It fit too little on each page and, consequently, involved a lot of scrolling and page-turning, which could have easily been avoided with a more book-like form factor. I tried zooming out on my book a little to fit more text on a single page, but that was uncomfortable, too, and I resorted to a font big enough for my eyes.
The touch sensitivity isn’t what you get on a smartphone or tablet, but it’s not bad. I did have to re-tap a couple of times when I tapped too lightly out of habit, but for the most part, it was fine. To turn a page, I lightly tapped or swiped the right part of the screen.
One feature I looked for as soon as I got my hands on any device was dark mode, so it was strange to see that I couldn’t find a dark mode setting. During the entire testing period, I felt that something crucial was missing, as if I still hadn’t fully settled into this new device. I contacted Palma to ask whether I missed it, and they confirmed that the mode doesn’t exist on it yet.
Apart from Palma’s e-reader capabilities, I believe it needs more processing power to perform other tasks efficiently. You can use a browser and the Play Store as you wish, which means you can download games, YouTube, Netflix, or any other apps you don’t mind interacting with on a black-and-white e-ink display. But there was enough stutter and lag in day-to-day browsing that I can’t imagine using it for even light games. I experienced pixel distortion while scrolling down at times, typing was sometimes messy with the display constantly glitching and it would look as if it’s not fast enough to keep up with my work flow.
One of the biggest issues with Palma is pixel persistence. I experienced severe image retention where I’d see a very obvious image of the last page stay on my next one. This is a very common problem that is pertinent to OLED displays. Whether it was typing on the Palma or switching between websites, it was clear that the device wasn’t fast enough to keep up. Navigation improved when I switched to the ‘Ultrafast’ refresh mode out of the four (HD, Balanced, Fast, Ultrafast) provided, but still not enough to offer a smooth, stutter-free browsing experience.
While the camera did a decent job capturing images, the OCR was poor, and I would instead use my phone for scanning and reading documents. If I’d ever use the Palma for this job, I’d have to make quite a few corrections to the OCR results.
In terms of gestures, I found the Palma very easy to get used to. It copies many gestures from iOS, such as swiping right from the left of the display to go back or enabling a Nav Ball in Settings, which works exactly like Assistive Touch. Of course, it also keeps many Android features, such as the bottom navigation bar with icons such as Home, Back, and Recents.
The Palma’s battery life was excellent. It took a little less than two hours to charge fully and then completely refused to die. Every day, I’d check the percentage after concluding my usage for that day, and it would go down by a very small margin. Its 3950mAh battery will easily last you a week and a half if you use it daily for reading and browsing.
Boox Palma Verdict
Trying to wear too many hats.
The Palma tried to overperform in a number of areas and, as a result, failed in some. If it stuck to its job of being just an e-reader, it could have been a more impressive device and, ideally, cost less. Form factor-wise, it looks like it’s trying very hard to be a phone. Functionality-wise, it wants to be a tablet. I would have accepted the try-hard attitude, too, if it was cheaper. But for a steep price of $280, I don’t want to pay for features I never asked for or don’t perform that well. On top of that, some glaring flaws, such as the absence of water resistance, a dark mode, and a 3.5mm port, are unacceptable when you’re setting me back around 300 bucks.
Source: gizmodo.com
