Boox Palma Review: The Pocket E-Ink Reader Explained

What it is

What the Boox Palma actually is

The Boox Palma is the size and shape of a phone, but its screen is e-ink instead of a glowing LCD, and it has no SIM and no calls on the base model. That sounds like a contradiction until you hold one: it is a pocket reader that happens to run full Android, including the Google Play Store, so you can install Kindle, Libby, Kobo, a browser, or a notes app, then read on a calm grey page that does not buzz, ping, or tempt you into a feed. Onyx, the company behind it, built the Palma for one job most e-readers cannot do, which is to fit a whole reading library into one hand you can carry everywhere. If you have ever wanted the focus of an e-reader with the convenience of your phone, the Boox Palma is the device built for that exact gap.

The screen

The screen and reading on it

The screen is a 6.13-inch Carta 1200 e-ink panel at 300 pixels per inch, the same sharpness as a Kindle Paperwhite, with a front light that shifts from cold white to a warm amber for night reading. Text is crisp, the contrast is good for a mono panel, and because it is e-ink there is no glare in sunlight and no eye strain after an hour. At about 170 grams it is genuinely pocketable, lighter than most phones, and the glass cover lens on the Palma 2 makes it feel less plasticky than the first model. The trade-off is the one every e-ink device makes: page turns are quick, but scrolling a busy app or a web page shows the faint ghosting and slower refresh that e-ink always carries. For reading, which is the point, it is a pleasure; for anything that animates, you feel the limits.

Battery life follows from the same e-ink logic. The 3,950mAh cell lasts days of normal reading rather than hours, because the screen only draws power when the page changes. You charge it over USB-C, it has a microSD slot for more books, and the Palma 2 adds a fingerprint reader in the power button so your library is not wide open if you leave it on a train.

Your library

Running your whole library in one hand

The reason the Boox Palma wins people over is not the hardware, it is the software freedom. Because it runs Android with the Google Play Store, you are not locked into one shop the way you are on a Kindle or a Kobo. You can install the Kindle app for your Amazon books, Libby for free library loans, Kobo for everything bought there, and read all of them on the same device. That is something no first-party e-reader allows, and it turns the Palma from a gadget into the one reader that fits whatever ecosystem your books already live in. The same openness lets you add a read-it-later app, a comic reader, or an audiobook player, so a long commute can switch from text to audio on one device.

There is a quiet discipline to it, too. Loading only your reading apps and leaving the rest off makes the Palma a deliberately boring device, and that is the appeal: it does the one thing you picked it up to do. If you want a slightly larger reading-first device with a similar idea, our Boox Go 7 review covers the seven-inch sibling, and the Boox Go 6 is the closest direct-rival size to the Palma.

The models

Palma 2 versus Palma 2 Pro

The original Palma launched in 2024 and is now largely superseded by the Palma 2, so the real choice today is between the Palma 2 and the Palma 2 Pro. They share the same 6.13-inch body and the same pocket idea, but the Pro is a different class of device under the glass.

Read that table by what you would actually use. The Palma 2 is the pure reader: mono, Wi-Fi, no pen, the cheapest way into the pocket-reader idea. The Palma 2 Pro turns the same body into a do-everything pocket device with a color screen for comics and covers, a stylus for marking up a page, 5G so it works as a standalone data device, and more memory to keep it smooth. Whether that is worth $130 more depends entirely on whether you want a reader or a tiny color Android tablet. For the daily-use detail on the base model, our Boox Palma 2 review goes deeper, and our Palma 2 Pro review covers the color model in full.

The Palma 2 is the pure reader; the Palma 2 Pro turns the same body into a do-everything pocket device.On choosing a model

Which to buy

Which Boox Palma is for you

For most people the answer is the Palma 2. If you want a distraction-light reader for novels and library books that drops in a coat pocket, the mono Palma 2 at $269.99 does that job as well as the Pro and costs far less. Step up to the Palma 2 Pro only for a specific reason: you read comics or illustrated books and want color, you want to scribble on pages with a stylus, or you genuinely want cellular so the device works away from Wi-Fi. If none of those is a firm yes, the extra $130 buys features you will not use.

The catch

Where the Palma falls short

Honesty first: the Boox Palma is not for everyone. The base Palma 2 has no pen, so it is a reader, not a note-taker; if you want to handwrite or run page templates, a larger Boox tablet is the right tool, and our Boox templates guide and the wider e-ink tablet roundup are better starting points than the Palma. The 6.13-inch screen is small for PDFs and textbooks, where you will be pinching and panning more than reading. E-ink refresh means apps that animate feel sluggish, so this is not a substitute for a phone or a quick browser. And at $269.99 it costs more than a basic Kindle, so the value is in the open Android freedom, not in being the cheapest way to read.

None of that is a dealbreaker for the right buyer; it is just the shape of the trade. If you want one pocket device that reads every store’s books on a calm screen and keeps you out of a feed, very little else does the job. If you mostly read PDFs, take handwritten notes, or want a bargain, look elsewhere first.

Have you carried a Palma as your daily reader, and did the small screen win you over or wear you down? Tell us in the comments. The pocket-reader idea splits people, and hearing how it held up in real use helps the next reader decide better than any spec sheet.

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