Onyx Boox Palma 2 overview: a slight improve on a terrific e-reader

The Boox Palma 2 stays a Boox Palma. That’s the greatest and worst factor about it. A bit of over a yr after Onyx shipped its first $279.99 smartphone-sized e-reader — a tool I like and use nearly on daily basis — the corporate has launched its successor. And it’s, in each significant means, the identical precise factor.

On one degree, that is effective. Good, even! The Palma’s entire enchantment is predicated on its simplicity. By transport 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 straightforward to take a look at and takes days to empty the battery, Onyx discovered a successful combo. For anybody looking for a approach to simply learn books, paperwork, and stuff from the online, there’s actually nothing fairly prefer it. For me, it turned not only a reader but in addition a approach to play music and podcasts and even take fast notes, with out having to wade into the chaotic morass of my cellphone.

My largest fear with the unique Palma was merely how lengthy it could final. It ran on an outdated chip and Android 11, each of which have been woefully outdated even when it launched. The Palma 2 has a more recent chip and Android 13, which implies you possibly can in all probability anticipate it to work and get safety updates for no less than a few years. I wouldn’t depend on something previous that, although — Onyx is a lot better at spitting out new gadgets than updating its current ones.

About that new processor: Onyx calls it a “quicker octa-core CPU,” and I completely positively can’t inform the distinction. It out-benchmarks the earlier mannequin, notably in graphics duties, however in use, I didn’t discover the advance anyplace. Apps nonetheless open just a little slower than I’d like; web page turns work effective however often faucets don’t register; God enable you to when you ever attempt to play a sport or watch a video. I’m not particularly bothered by the dearth of efficiency improve, since “quick” is just not the purpose of this factor. However simply to place it in perspective: the unique Palma benchmarks like a strong midrange cellphone from 2017, and the Palma 2 checks like a strong midrange cellphone from 2019. The newest Pixel telephones from Google roughly triple the Palma 2’s scores. Boox upgraded the Palma, however solely from a very, actually outdated cellphone to only a actually outdated cellphone. 

Every little thing else in regards to the Palma is identical, for higher and for worse. The 6.3-inch E Ink Carta show nonetheless seems to be good, and the plastic physique nonetheless feels fairly flimsy. It nonetheless has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, each of that are lots 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 less complicated safety, which is good, however it’s just a little sluggish 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 outdated 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 may do with this factor. It may have added a SIM slot and turned the Palma into a correct minimalist smartphone. It may have fastened the large hole between the glass and the display screen, upgraded the supplies, and made an object worthy of that $280 price ticket. It may have refined the Palma’s tackle Android, cleansing up settings and eradicating pointless built-in apps to make it even less complicated. Or skip all that, ditch the digital camera, downgrade the storage, and discover a approach to promote this factor for half the worth.

As a substitute, the Palma is the Palma. In case you have the final one, you positively don’t want this one. If you happen to don’t have both, get this one so it’ll final just a little longer. Perhaps this machine will find yourself just like the Kindle: yr to yr, there’s normally not a lot motive to improve, however while you break yours or depart it in a seat-back pocket someplace, there’s a solidly higher machine ready to exchange it. And very like 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 measurement, E Ink display screen, Android apps — isn’t notably subtle or proprietary, and there are many methods different corporations may do it higher. There are another choices on the market (here’s a good Reddit thread discussing a few of them), however no one, together with Onyx, has completed any such product justice but. I’d like to see somebody get it proper.

Till then, the Palma 2 will just do effective. It lets me learn my books and articles, shops my podcasts and my music, and makes it rattling close to unattainable to get distracted by TikTok. Nonetheless a successful combo in my e-book.

Images by David Pierce / The Verge