Boox Palma Android e-Reader Review

I love books, but sadly I don’t have room for a giant physical library in my small Chicago apartment. Still, I’m tired of screens, so I’ve been a dedicated e-reader user for well over a decade and a half at this point. While physical books are the ultimate form of the written word (get out and support your local bookstores btw), a good e-reader can be extremely useful.

However, while the e-ink tech in the screens are amazing, nearly every e-reader I’ve used has turned out to a crummy, enshittified, proprietary nightmare.

Here’s just a few problems with the Kindles, Nooks, and Kobos I’ve owned:
-Locked into a single ecosystem and store with DRM
-Processors are brutally slow for navigating UI
-Screen refresh rate is so slow it makes it impossible to scroll
-UI sucks (and changes randomly with updates)
-Difficult to use with library apps and impossible to use with online literary content like magazines and journals
-Hardware is shoddy, literally falling apart in my hands.
-Surprisingly hard to travel with because of size (not pocketable)
-I drop on my face when lying in bed

So, out of desperation, when I saw the oddball e-ink Android phone from a company called BOOX (that I have never heard of before) gaining traction among tech enthusiasts, I decided to give it a try. Because here’s the thing about Android – it’s (mostly) open. You can pretty much do whatever you want with this e-reader.

And reader, I love this poorly optimized, goofy gadget.

The Boox Palma is a lightweight, plastic smart device (basically a phone with no sim card) that happens to have a fantastic e-ink screen. The software is kind of a mess, but because this is Android, you’re free to do whatever you want with this thing. I mean, you can watch movies and play video games if you’re a real sicko.

Since I’ve gotten mine, I haven’t looked back. I’ll never use a closed ecosystem e-reader again.

Just a quick note: I’m technically reviewing the Boox Palma. If you want to pick up one of these bad boys yourself, get the Boox Palma2, which is nearly the exact same hardware just with a more modern Android OS version on it and a fingerprint reader. I picked mine up at Amazon.

Build Quality

The Boox Palma is the same size and shape as the iPhones and Androids of the world, but much lighter than most premium phones because of its plastic build. The back material has a great texture and the only cheap feeling part is the buttons. There are white and black versions of the Palma, but I strongly recommend the white since it’ll resist fingerprints.

The screen itself is plastic… I think? Some of the marketing materials claim it is textured glass, especially on the Palma 2, but it feels very similar to the screens of Kindles and Nooks. This means it technically can’t take the same level of punishment as Gorilla Glass phone touchscreens, but I found it to be surprisingly durable. I’ve kept it in my backpack without a case or cover and it hasn’t come away with any significant dings or scratches.

Speaking of that screen, for years, e-readers have emulated the approximate size of a book with a wide, larger build. So who would’ve known the actual perfect size for an e-reader is… a phone? The narrow shape makes it much easier to hold and, even better, it actually fits in a pocket, no problem. Best of all, I’m able to hold it over my face in bed without dropping it on myself (usually). Readers who require large fonts may struggle with the form factor, but I’ve had no problem at all with readability of text on this size of screen.

The screen detail is good, on par with a Nook or older Kindle, but slightly behind the PPI of Amazon’s current best Kindles. The screen also has two different frontlight modes, one with a cooler cast and one with a warm cast, and you can manually mix them to get the exact color temp you want. I love reading in bed with the screen fully yellow at the dimmest setting. Also, since this is an e-ink screen, you can easily read it in bright daylight much easier than any LCD or OLED screen.

I really have zero complaints with the hardware. Really, the only place where the Palma can sometimes make you want to pull out your hair is software. So let’s talk about that.

Software

The Boox Palma runs Android, which is the fundamental strength of this device. You can do whatever you want with it! Woo hoo! Even if another e-reader has better hardware, Kindles and other e-readers that are locked into a single store can only look on in jealousy. Install the Play store or even sideload apps. Library apps, newspapers, RSS feeds, Kindle books, Nook books, Kobo books, your own non-drm books, they all work here, no problem.

The OS skin does an okay job of theming Android to work with the quirks of an e-reader. There’s a lot of weirdness here and you’re going to have to spend some time customizing your device to get it to where your want it. I’ve noticed that the Palma is much more stable and cooperative when wifi is off, so when you’re reading just put it in airplane mode. The extra battery life is an added bonus.

The version of Android 11 is already ancient, and there’s no way BOOX is ever going to update it (without making you buy a new one, see: Palma2). That means the device is somewhat insecure (don’t store sensitive data or do your banking on this device) and it’s only a matter of time before it gets so out of date that apps start dropping support for it. This isn’t going to be an issue right now, but I use e-readers for many years, and I’d like to keep using this five years from now. Fingers crossed we get a community-built Android OS for the Palma.

Per App Screen Refresh Rates

BOOX’s Android skin does have one very cool trick: the ability to assign a per-app refresh rate. It’s not labeled very clearly, but once you figure it out, you can assign something like a web browser a higher refresh rate so you can scroll around easier, while ebook apps can have a lower rate, giving you a bit more quality in the detail of the screen itself.

There’s also an assignable button on the side of the device that I recommend setting as a full screen refresh. That way if a bit too many e-ink artifacts start to build you can easily wipe it away with a quick refresh.

Battery and Processor

If you’re looking at this screen and processor from the perspective of a phone, it might feel relatively slow. But I mean, c’mon, you should be using this thing to read, not play Call of Duty (even though you totally can). But compared to a normal e-reader? Oh, this is so, so gloriously smooth and fast. Especially in the high refresh modes, it’s painless to type and scroll through apps and websites. Most of the time. When the Palma doesn’t get hung up on itself. But still, it’s all about comparison, and the processor here is indeed better than a Kindle.

One thing I was curious to see was if the battery was anywhere good as a Kindle, Kobo, or Nook. Smartphones have to be charged every day, and I really didn’t want a device that also needed a daily charge. Thankfully, the battery is pretty dang good! Especially if you leave it in airplane mode, it’ll sit in standby for days, if not weeks. I’m extremely relieved that it can sit in standby mode without draining the battery, as it would be a pain to have to fully turn it completely off.

Ebook Stores

I use Libby for library books, and it works great here. I’ve also used the apps for Kobo, Nook, Bookshop.org, and Kindle all with no problem.

While the apps themselves work great, I’ve found that they don’t tend to upload their sync data probably on the Palma. When you open a book, it’ll jump to the most read page on another device, but when I open my iPhone it’ll almost never get data from the Palma reliably – even if I have both devices side by side on wifi. It’s a minor pain if you like reading the same book across multiple devices simultaneously.

Custom Lock Screen

Okay, this is not a big thing, but it is something that has charmed me endlessly. It’s a bit clunky, but you can change the ‘off’ screen to an image of your choice that the Palma will display at all times. I made one of my photos my lock screen, and it delights me every time I look at it. It’s the complete opposite of the lock screen ad dystopia that Amazon forces you to live with if you don’t pay a ransom for your own device. The Palma can be frustrating, but when you get it to do something like this it just feels magical.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, Android as an OS essentially unlocks your e-reader to do whatever you want to do with it. And I never thought I wanted a phone sized e-reader, but… I do. If a company that provided timely OS updates released something like this, it’d be perfect. Hopefully the interest that this device is drumming up inspires others to jump into this arena.

Because the Palma is a little janky. You need to enjoy at least a little tinkering to make it work exactly the way you want. But the rewards are vast. And in this world where corporations want to control everything you do on your devices with little walled gardens, the freedom of a (relatively) open OS is a breath of fresh air.

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