This colour e-reader is almost a phone, but bookworms should look elsewhere
Last year I tested the Boox Palma 2, a capable smartphone-shaped device with an E Ink screen. The idea is it has the distraction-free appeal of an e-reader like a Kindle or Kobo, but in the form factor of a phone. It runs Android, so you can download any app, but the screen tech is less alluring than the crisp, pin-sharp OLED one on a phone, so you won’t want to doomscroll.
I used it to read books on the Kindle, Kobo and Libby apps, play games on the NYT Games app, listen to podcasts and music streaming on Bluetooth headphones and, very occasionally, check my Gmail.
I loved the concept, but the Palma 2 is a niche product. At £279.99 with a monochrome screen, it felt too expensive to recommend to people shopping for an e-reader, and as a Wi-Fi only device it could not act as a phone replacement or so-called ‘dumbphone’ – though with Android, it really wasn’t that dumb.
Enter the new Boox Palma 2 Pro which, on paper, solves my two gripes. It adds in a SIM card slot with support for 5G data connection and a colour E Ink screen to take the fight to the Kindle Colorsoft and Kobo Clara Colour.
I’ve been testing the Palma 2 Pro for a month and despite the huge promise, I am once again disappointed. In fact, it has made me appreciate the older, cheaper black and white Palma 2 more, as the previous device is much better value.
In comparison, the new Palma 2 Pro has a worse display and costs £100 more at £379.99. The freedom of using a 5G SIM inside does open up the possibility of using it as a phone, but with no phone or SMS app you can only message or make voice calls using web-based services such as WhatsApp or Signal.
The popularity of dumber or ‘digital detox’ devices means there’s a lot of online attention on the Palma given its E Ink screen. But the Palma 2 Pro takes it too far, and presents you with the functionality of a smartphone, but then disappoints with its screen.
The display uses Kaleido 3 E Ink technology, which is necessarily grainier in order to be able to display colour tones. But similar tech on the colour Kindle and Kobo e-readers simply looks better. Boox has not been able to optimise this display, and it feels unfinished, not to mention is far too dim in most settings. Next to the monochrome Palma 2, it looks decidedly worse, especially if you want to mainly use it as an e-reader of text-based books.
The colour screen is better if you want to use apps. But those apps look worse in low resolution on E Ink than they do on a smartphone. It is indeed great for reading colour comic books or graphic novels, but the phone-sized screen means most titles render quite cramped.
The Palma 2 Pro can’t really be considered a minimal or detox device if it runs full Android. The only way it’d get you off Instagram or TikTok is because they are nigh on impossible to use on this display.
Colours are washed out and you have to fiddle with umpteen per-app settings to try and hone the limited E Ink tech into something approaching usable. I understand that the Palma runs Android in order to be a flexible device, but it simply won’t wash as a phone replacement if you want to use tons of apps. It’s much better as a replacement or backup phone as it’ll make sure you don’t want to doomscroll at all.
Boox’s plain version of Android 15 is not customisable in the slightest but it does the job. Unlike older Palmas, this one also works with Boox’s InkSense Stylus, which I enjoyed using to take notes in the built-in Notes app. Like the Palma it charges via USB-C.
Think of the Palma 2 Pro more as a dumb pipe for content rather than an especially polished piece of hardware. If you want an e-reader that slips into your pocket, it’ll do the job, but the monochrome Palma 2 is £100 cheaper.
The Palma 2 Pro has its charms, but it’s too expensive. I really wanted to love it, but in the end the experience of using it was too frustrating to fully settle into its use. I prefer the regular Palma 2, whose monochrome display makes the whole idea of the phone-shaped E Ink device simpler. The addition of a sub-par colour screen and 5G on the Palma 2 Pro is unnecessary for a device that is best suited to quiet, offline reading.
