If the recent Kindle announcements have interested you in getting a new ereader, but you think the Amazon brand options might be too big for you, then you might want to pay attention to the new smartphone-sized reading slate from Boox.
The Palma 2 is up for preorder right now at $279.99 (around £230 / AU$450), with a new and improved chipset and Android 13 support – a step up from its predecessor’s reliance on Android 11. It features a 6.3-inch 300ppi E Ink Carta 1200 screen, and is outfitted with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for downloading ebooks and Android apps.
We haven’t yet reviewed the Palma 2, but in our four-star Boox Palma review we praised its smartphone-lite features – including its ability to play music through speakers and its rear camera – while still remaining true to what an ereader is, all in a compact package.
To that end the Boox Palma 2 does seem to inherit what made the original special – an ereader complete with the mod cons of smartphones, like the new fingerprint scanner built into the power button, and flexible home-screen widgets.
Not a Kindle competitor
However, next to the new and cheaper $159.99 / £159.99 / AU$299 Kindle Paperwhite, or the equally pricey $279.99 / £269.99 Kindle Colorsoft (it’s coming to Australia in 2025), Boox’s new product does feel a tad last-gen.
The E Ink display is a generation behind what those other new ereaders rely on, and Android 13 is two generations behind the current-gen Android 15. This leaves the Palma 2 feeling a bit like an old ereader and old smartphone bolted together.
That portability could be appealing, but TCL 50 Pro Nxtpaper 5G could be a better fit at roughly the same cost for your ereader-smartphone-hybrid needs at a similarly small size, and if size doesn’t matter one of the new larger Kindles could be a better choice overall.
We will have to test the Palma 2 out for ourselves before we deliver a final verdict, but our advice right now is think carefully about what you want from an ereader before rushing to get a preorder in.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
