The Boox Palma 2 stays a Boox Palma. That’s the finest and worst factor about it. Just a little over a 12 months after Onyx shipped its first $279.99 smartphone-sized e-reader — a tool I really like and use nearly daily — the corporate has launched its successor. And it’s, in each significant manner, the identical precise factor.
On one stage, that is positive. Good, even! The Palma’s entire attraction is predicated on its simplicity. By delivery a tool roughly the scale of a smartphone, with entry to all of the apps within the Play Retailer and an E Ink display screen that’s simple to have a look at and takes days to empty the battery, Onyx discovered a successful combo. For anybody in search of a option to simply learn books, paperwork, and stuff from the net, there’s actually nothing fairly prefer it. For me, it grew to become not only a reader but in addition a option to play music and podcasts and even take fast notes, with out having to wade into the chaotic morass of my telephone.
My greatest fear with the unique Palma was merely how lengthy it could final. It ran on an previous chip and Android 11, each of which had been woefully outdated even when it launched. The Palma 2 has a more recent chip and Android 13, which suggests you possibly can most likely anticipate it to work and get safety updates for a minimum of a few years. I wouldn’t depend on something previous that, although — Onyx is significantly better at spitting out new gadgets than updating its present ones.
About that new processor: Onyx calls it a “quicker octa-core CPU,” and I completely positively can not inform the distinction. It out-benchmarks the earlier mannequin, significantly in graphics duties, however in use, I didn’t discover the advance wherever. Apps nonetheless open just a little slower than I’d like; web page turns work positive however sometimes faucets don’t register; God enable you to in the event you ever attempt to play a sport or watch a video. I’m not particularly bothered by the shortage of efficiency improve, since “quick” shouldn’t be the purpose of this factor. However simply to place it in perspective: the unique Palma benchmarks like a strong midrange telephone from 2017, and the Palma 2 exams like a strong midrange telephone from 2019. The newest Pixel telephones from Google roughly triple the Palma 2’s scores. Boox upgraded the Palma, however solely from a extremely, actually previous telephone to only a actually previous telephone.
All the pieces else concerning the Palma is identical, for higher and for worse. The 6.3-inch E Ink Carta show nonetheless appears good, and the plastic physique nonetheless feels fairly flimsy. It nonetheless has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, each of that are loads for this gadget’s functions. The 16-megapixel digital camera works okay for scanning paperwork and QR codes and nonetheless takes crappy photos in any other case. The facility button is just a little greater than earlier than and now has a fingerprint reader for easier safety, which is good, nevertheless it’s just a little gradual and just a little finicky, and do you even want a passcode on a Palma? (I don’t have one. Perhaps I ought to.) My Palma 2’s battery lasts 4 to 5 days on a cost, identical to the previous one.
I’m torn between the Palma 2 being precisely what I wished and a little bit of a missed alternative. There’s a lot extra Onyx might do with this factor. It might have added a SIM slot and turned the Palma into a correct minimalist smartphone. It might have mounted the large hole between the glass and the display screen, upgraded the supplies, and made an object worthy of that $280 price ticket. It might have refined the Palma’s tackle Android, cleansing up settings and eradicating pointless built-in apps to make it even easier. Or skip all that, ditch the digital camera, downgrade the storage, and discover a option to promote this factor for half the worth.
As a substitute, the Palma is the Palma. If in case you have the final one, you positively don’t want this one. In case you don’t have both, get this one so it’ll final just a little longer. Perhaps this gadget will find yourself just like the Kindle: 12 months to 12 months, there’s normally not a lot motive to improve, however while you break yours or go away it in a seat-back pocket someplace, there’s a solidly higher gadget ready to switch it. And very similar to the Kindle, it appears the Palma’s customers will all the time have greater ambitions for the product than its makers.
My actual hope is that the Palma will get some competitors. This mixture — smartphone dimension, E Ink display screen, Android apps — isn’t significantly refined or proprietary, and there are many methods different firms might do it higher. There are another choices on the market (right here’s Reddit thread discussing a few of them), however no one, together with Onyx, has completed such a product justice but. I’d like to see somebody get it proper.
Till then, the Palma 2 will just do positive. It lets me learn my books and articles, shops my podcasts and my music, and makes it rattling close to not possible to get distracted by TikTok. Nonetheless a successful combo in my e book.
Pictures by David Pierce / The Verge
