I Already Destroyed My Summer Reading Goal Thanks to the Phone-Sized Boox Palma E-Reader

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I used to regularly read more than 125 books a year, each meticulously logged on my Goodreads profile. I read during my commute and to wind down at night. I always had a paperback in my bag or an audiobook in my ears. Then I got a smartphone. Then I got on Twitter. Then the 2016 presidential election happened. Then there was a pandemic, and for a while I stopped commuting altogether.

With every year, it seemed like there were more things to spiral about online, and fewer hours in the day to relax with a novel or read some stimulating non-fiction. Suddenly I found it hard to meet my much more modest reading goals, which dropped to 75, then 50, then 30 books a year. In 2023 and 2024, I set my sights on finishing just 20 books (including graphic novels and stuff I read aloud to my kids). I still had to cram in a few short books in December to manage even that comparatively sluggish pace.

But things are different in 2025. It's mid-July, and I've already hit my goal of reading five books over the course of the summer months. Truthfully, I owe it all to my Boox Palma 2, a phone-shaped e-reader I can easily carry with me wherever I go—including the beach, where I can easily read its e-ink display instead of squinting at my iPhone screen in the sun.

A device so good it has a cult following (if you can stomach the price)

As I noted in my review of the original Boox Palma—the nearly identical predecessor to the Palma 2—it's one of the most lovable electronic devices I have ever owned, a near-perfect marriage of form (the easy-on-the-eyes e-ink screen popularized by Amazon's Kindle in a compact size that matches an iPhone 16 Plus) and function: With an open Android operating system and access to the Google Play store, you can use it to run reading apps from a variety of retailers, listen to audiobooks with Bluetooth headphones, or get a little work done on productivity apps like Gmail and Google Docs.

At a time when increasing numbers of people are opting to make the switch to a "dumb phone" to escape the pull of their screen addictions, the Palma 2 occupies a unique spot in the market: While it can do a great deal more than your standard Kindle, it still feels clunky and slow in comparison to your smartphone, but in the best way. It doesn't have a cellular connection, so if you aren't on wifi, you'll be unable to use the internet or update your social feeds. The black-and-white display means using it is soothing instead of stimulating, while still scratching that "gotta pull out my device" itch. Its quirky qualities have garnered it a cult following of sorts (ironically, adherents gather to discuss the device on Reddit and TikTok, two places to avoid if you want to get any reading done).

With this niche appeal comes a high price tag, however. When introduced, the Palma 2 cost $280, and tariffs have since raised that to $300. For a time you could pick up the first Palma at a discount (as low as $200 if you ordered directly from the Boox storefront), but that device appears to be permanently out of stock, at least for U.S. customers. As of this writing, the Palma 2 is on sale at Amazon for $269.99, but that discount is likely to disappear soon.

Is this worth it, paying up to $100 more than you would for a Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition? Personally, I'd pay $100 not to be locked into the Amazon ecosystem, but not everyone is going to feel the same way. If they made a cheaper Palma without some of the superfluous features that make it feel more like a hobbled smartphone than a souped-up e-reader (e.g. the camera, the excessive-for-most-users 128GB of storage), would I choose that instead? Yes. Would I still choose a $300 Palma over a $200 Paperwhite? Also yes.

The perfect form factor

Leaving aside all the things social media and app developers do to make their products addictive, I struggle with regulating my phone use for the sole reason that my phone is always with me. It's how I keep in touch with my spouse and kids and it has effectively replaced my wallet, therefore it must be in my pocket at all times and hey, I might as well pull it out at every idle moment to check my notifications. Yes, I could carry a book or a standard-sized e-reader to look at instead, but that requires carrying a bag of some kind (or large pockets), and it's hard to beat the convenience of something you can shove into any pair of jeans.

Well, the Palma 2 can be shoved into any pair of jeans. It has basically the identical form factor to most smartphones, and can even occupy the same pocket as my iPhone 14. This means that when I'm standing in line at the post office, or waiting for the train, or trying to maintain my balance on the train and with only one hand free, or reading at the beach, I can effortlessly pull out my e-reader instead of my phone and absorb a few pages rather than frantically trying to refresh my Bluesky feed at subway stops.

Slow and kinda clunky (in a good way)

If the Palma 2 can access the Google Play store, what's to keep you from loading it up with all of the apps that already make your smartphone so addictive? Nothing! Go for it—stick Bluesky on there. Add Facebook and Instagram if you've yet to flee Meta's ecosystem. You can even load up video-based apps like YouTube and Netflix and time-wasting games like Subway Surfers.

If you do, though, you'll quickly find that none of them are that enjoyable to use. Though Boox readers' e-ink displays employ variable refresh rate tech that makes them infinitely faster than early generation Kindles (where you could pause for a heartbeat between pressing a key on the virtual keyboard and actually seeing the text appear on the screen), even in the fastest modes they are only a fraction as responsive as a phone or tablet's LED screen.

So while you certainly can use your Palma 2 to scroll social media or watch a few TikToks, you won't particularly want to, because it's kind of bad at them, but in a way I love: The device is optimized for reading text or comics (particularly black and white manga), and it presents that material so well, and so conveniently, that I want to carry it around with me everywhere so I can read on it all the time.

So far, it's going well: As I said, I've already hit my summer reading goal. In the meantime, if you're looking for books you can binge to get you out of a doomscrolling funk, I recommend the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. After picking up the first one in February, I blew through the seven thus-released books (ranging in length from 400 to 800 pages) in about six weeks. And yes, I read every word of them on my Palma 2.