I’m Not Quite Ready to Replace My Phone With a Boox Palma 2
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I often get asked what my favorite gadget is. While that answer may briefly change if I’m testing something particularly fun or useful, for the past two years, my answer has consistently been Onyx’sBoox Palma e-reader. The smartphone-size e-ink screen is perfect for reading on the go, and I love that I can use it one-handed. Because it runs Android, I can install apps likeReadwise ReaderandLibro.fmthat are essential to my reading experience. No device has gotten me to read more or spend less time on my phone than the Palma. But despite my love for it, I’ve found myself wanting more from Onyx’s pocket-friendly reader, like the ability to connect to a data network so I don’t need Wi-Fi to check my daily newsletters.
The latest version of the Palma, the Palma 2 Pro, is the first to offer cellular connectivity (data only, no voice), a color e-ink display, and stylus support. I tested it out to see if it would replace my Palma 2.
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The color screen is a big, but not great, change
Onyx has been making color e-readers for several years, and the Palma 2 Pro is the smallest one yet, with its 6.13-inch screen. It usesKaleido 3 technology, which effectively adds a color filter over the primary layer of ink on the screen. Unfortunately, that has two negative effects: Text looks fuzzier, and the screen is noticeably dimmer than previous models. Text that looked crisp and paperlike on the Palma 2 looked slightly blurry on the Palma 2 Pro. I often had to crank the brightness settings up to the max to be able to read, even inside.
On larger screens, color e-ink is useful for reading comic books, graphic novels, manga, and other visual media. But because the Palma’s screen is so small, it’s hard to read speech bubbles without doing a bunch of pinching and zooming. That said, I do like being able to use different colors while taking notes with Onyx’sInkSense stylus(sold separately), but that’s one of the few spots where having a color screen helped the Palma 2 Pro rather than hurt it. Outside of that, it’s hard to imagine what else the color screen would be useful for. It’s still e-ink, so you won’t want to watch TikToks on it.
Since it’s e-ink, the Palma 2 Pro’s screen suffers from ghosting, which becomes particularly troublesome when viewing graphics-forward content like a comic book. Unlike text, where you might see a bit of a washed-out letter from a previous page, artifacts from comic panels often take up a significant portion of the page and can interfere with the details of the image you actually want to see. You can minimize this by adjusting how often the screen refreshes — Onyx has a ton of settings for fiddling with the screen — or hitting the action button, which can trigger a manual refresh.
It can actually replace your phone
My favorite thing about the Palma 2 is that it allows me to do nearly everything I want to do with my phone — I even have my trusty workout tracker installed — without the potential for the same distractions my phone creates. But because it’s an e-reader and not a phone, it doesn’t have internet access everywhere. That’s mostly a good thing, but it means that if I want to download a podcast or stream some music on the go, I need to bring my phone along.
The Palma 2 Pro is the first in the Palma lineup to feature a data-only SIM slot, so you can pop in a SIM card and access the internet from nearly anywhere. There’s no native phone or messaging app, so if you want to send texts or make calls, you’ll need to use a third-party service like Google Voice or Signal, but it works.
More importantly, though, the 5G data connection means I can access news articles and stream music or audiobooks directly to my Palma without needing to download anything before leaving my house. When I’m waiting at my dentist’s office, I like being able to scroll my RSS feed from the Palma 2 Pro, rather than whipping my phone out and risking the temptation of opening TikTok or Slack instead. In these moments, the Palma 2 Pro feels like the phone replacement I’ve been waiting for.
It’s worth noting that youwillneed a SIM card with an active data plan for this to work. Unless you plan on streaming a bunch of music from your Palma, you could get by with a prepaid plan since downloading books uses a negligible amount of data.
The stylus is handy
I’m a big fan ofdigital note-taking. The Palma’s iPhone-size screen wouldn’t be my first choice for jotting notes down, but now that the Palma 2 Pro has the option, I see the appeal. The InkSense Stylus works well for handwritten notes and highlighting text, but I wouldn’t use it for serious illustrations.
Even though the stylus isn’t included, I do wish you could magnetically attach it to the Palma like the similarly pricedreMarkable Paper Pro Move, which is a better notebook overall but isn’t as good for reading e-books. Instead, it has to sit freely in your pocket or bag, or you have to find some other solution for keeping it handy.
The Palma 2 is better for most people
The Palma 2 Pro lands just shy of the phone-free fantasy I’ve conjured up for myself, wherein I have a device that does everything I need and want it to — calls and texts, music and podcasts, reading — and nothing more. Where it falls short is when you spend too much time looking at the screen. Despite the benefits of color displays for some purposes, the drop in screen quality on the Palma 2 Pro makes for a worse reading experience than with the first two Palmas, both of which still work perfectly well as e-readers. I still prefer the Palma 2 and think it would be the better option for most people.
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