This Phone-Sized E-Book Helped Me Reach My 2025 Reading Goal
I used to regularly read more than 125 books a year, each meticulously logged on my Goodreads profile. I read on my commute to work and to unwind in the evening. I always had a paperback in my bag or an audiobook in my ears. Then I got a smartphone. Then I got Twitter. Then the 2016 presidential election happened. Then the pandemic hit, and for a while I stopped commuting altogether.
With each passing year, it seemed like there were more things to twiddle online and fewer hours in the day to unwind with a novel or read stimulating nonfiction. 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 a goal of finishing just 20 books (including graphic novels and things I read aloud to my kids). I still had to cram at the end of the year to keep up with even that comparatively sluggish pace.
But in 2025, things are different. It’s May, and I’ve already accomplished my goal of reading 20 books (I’ll be adding to that number soon), and I owe it all to my Boox Palma 2 , an e-reader in the shape of a phone that I can easily take with me wherever I go.
The device is so good that it has a cult following
As I noted in my review of the Boox Palma — its now-discontinued, nearly identical predecessor, the Palma 2 — it’s one of the most beloved electronic devices I’ve ever owned. It’s a near-perfect combination of form (the eye-pleasing e-ink screen popularized by Amazon’s Kindle, the compact size) 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 using Bluetooth headphones, or do a little work in productivity apps like Gmail and Google Docs.
At a time when more people are opting to upgrade to a “dumb phone” to escape the gravitational pull of their screen addiction, the Palma occupies a rather unique place in the market: While it can do a lot more than your standard Kindle, it still feels clunky and slow compared to your smartphone, but in the best possible way. It has no cellular service, so unless you have Wi-Fi, you won’t be able to surf the web or update your social feeds. The black-and-white display means using it is calming rather than stimulating, while still scratching that “gotta pull out my device” itch. Its unusual qualities have garnered it something of a cult following (ironically, devotees flock to discuss the device on Reddit and TikTok , two places you should avoid if you want to read).
Ideal form factor
Putting aside all the things that social media and app developers do to make their products addictive, I struggle with regulating my phone usage for the sole reason that my phone is always with me. It’s how I stay in touch with my spouse and kids, and it’s basically replaced my wallet , so it needs to be in my pocket all the time and, hey, I might as well pull it out at any spare moment to check my notifications. Yes, I could carry a book or a standard-sized e-reader to read instead, but that requires carrying some kind of bag (or large pockets), and it’s hard to beat the convenience of something that can fit into any pair of jeans. Well, the Palma 2 can fit into any pair of jeans. It’s essentially the same form factor as most smartphones, and can even fit in the same pocket as my iPhone 14. That means when I’m standing in line at the post office, waiting for a train, or trying to balance on a train with only one hand free, I can effortlessly pull out my e-reader instead of my phone and read a few pages instead of frantically trying to refresh my Bluesky feed at subway stops.
Slow and a little awkward (in a good way)
If the Palma 2 can access the Google Play store, what’s to stop you from loading it with all the apps that make your smartphone so addictive? Nothing! Go ahead and install Bluesky. Add Facebook and Instagram, if you haven’t already left the Meta ecosystem. You can even load up video apps like YouTube and Netflix, and time-wasting games like Subway Surfers. If you do, though, you’ll quickly discover that none of them are all that enjoyable to use. While the e-ink displays on Boox e-readers use variable refresh rate technology, making them infinitely faster than early-generation Kindles (where you could pause for a moment between pressing a key on the virtual keyboard and actually seeing the text on the screen), even in their fastest modes they’re only a fraction as responsive as the LED screen of a phone or tablet.
So while you can certainly use your Palma 2 to scroll through social media or watch a few TikToks, you won’t really want to because it’s bad at it, but I love it: the device is optimized for reading text or comics (especially black-and-white manga), and it presents that material so well and so comfortably that I want to carry it around with me everywhere so I can read on it all the time. So far, so good: Like I said, I’ve already reached my 20-book goal for the year. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for binge-reads to break out of your doomscrolling funk, I recommend Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series. After picking up the first one in February, I’ve devoured seven of the books released that way (ranging from 400 to 800 pages) in about six weeks. And yes, I’ve read every word on my Palma 2.