I’ve Already Met My Summer Reading Goal Thanks to the Phone-Sized Boox Palma E-Reader
I used to regularly read more than 125 books a year, each one 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 happened, and for a while I stopped commuting altogether.
Each year, it seemed like there was more and more online content, and less time to read a novel or a compelling nonfiction book. Suddenly, I found it hard to meet my much more modest reading goals: first 75, then 50, then 30 books a year. In 2023 and 2024, I set a goal of reading just 20 books (including graphic novels and the stuff I read aloud to my kids). I still had to squeeze in a few short books in December to keep up even that relatively slow pace.
But in 2025, things are different. It’s mid-July, and I’ve already achieved my goal of reading five books during the summer months. Honestly, I owe it all to my Boox Palma 2 , an e-reader in the form of a phone that I can easily take with me anywhere, even to the beach, where I can easily read on its e-ink display instead of squinting at my iPhone screen in the sun.
The device is so good that it has fans (if you can afford the price)
As I noted in my review of the original Boox Palma — the Palma 2’s virtually identical predecessor — it’s one of the most beloved electronic devices I’ve ever owned, a near-perfect combination of form (the eye-pleasing e-ink screen made popular by Amazon’s Kindle, in a compact size that matches the iPhone 16 Plus) and function: thanks to the 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 via Bluetooth headphones, or do a little work in office 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 2 occupies a unique place in the market: While it can do a lot more than your standard Kindle, it still feels clunky and slow compared to a smartphone, but in the best way. It doesn’t have 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, fans flock to discuss the device on Reddit and TikTok , two places you should avoid if you want to read).
However, this niche appeal comes with a high price tag. The Palma 2 cost $280 when it launched, and tariffs have since pushed that price up to $300. For a while, you could get the original Palma at a discount (just $200 off when ordered directly from Boox ), but it appears that the device is no longer available, at least for U.S. buyers. At the time of writing, the Palma 2 is listed on Amazon for $269.99 , but that discount is likely to disappear soon.
Is it worth paying $100 more than the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition ? Personally, I’d pay $100 to be free of Amazon’s ecosystem, but not everyone shares that opinion. If they released a cheaper Palma without some of the extra features that make it a flawed e-reader rather than a great one (like the camera and 128GB of storage that’s too much for most people), would I choose that? Yes. Would I choose the $300 Palma over the $200 Paperwhite? Also yes.
Ideal form factor
Putting aside all the tricks of social media and app developers to make their products addictive, I have a hard time controlling my phone usage for the sole reason that it’s always with me. It’s how I stay in touch with my spouse and kids, and it’s basically my wallet , so it has to be in my pocket at all times, and hey, I can pull it out anytime I have a spare minute to check notifications. Yes, I could carry a standard-sized book or e-reader, but that requires carrying a bag (or large pockets), and it’s hard to beat the convenience of something that fits into any pair of jeans. Well, the Palma 2 fits into any pair of jeans. It’s essentially the same form factor as most smartphones, and even fits in the same pocket as my iPhone 14. That means that when I’m standing in line at the post office, waiting for a train, trying to balance on a train with only one hand free, or reading on the beach, 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 video apps like YouTube and Netflix, and time-killing games like Subway Surfers. However, if you do, you’ll quickly discover that none of them are all that enjoyable to use. Although the Boox e-ink readers’ displays use variable refresh rate technology, which makes them infinitely faster than early-generation Kindles (where you could pause for a moment between pressing a key on the virtual keyboard and the text actually appearing 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 probably won’t want to because it’s not great 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 summer reading goal. In the meantime, if you’re looking for binge-read books to take your mind off the gloom, I recommend Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series . After picking up the first one in February, I devoured the seven books released that way (ranging from 400 to 800 pages) in about six weeks. And yes, I read every word of them on my Palma 2.