I recently came across a listing for the Moaan InkPalm 5 on Amazon. It’s being sold by a Chinese retailer with no feedback history so I normally wouldn’t mention it, but it’s being shipped by Amazon so it looks like a pretty safe bet.
The InkPalm 5 was released a couple years ago in China, and it’s been available to order from websites like AliExpress for some time now, but this is the first time I’ve seen it available to order from a US website like Amazon.
The InkPalm 5 has some unique characteristics, like the fact that it’s small and pocketable like a phone, and it also runs Android so that opens up the possibility to install apps, but it’s an old version of Android (8.1).
The InkPalm 5 has a 5.2-inch E Ink screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720. That works out to 284 ppi, and it’s a narrower aspect ratio than a typical E Ink screen, more like a phone than an ereader.
The device only weighs 115 grams, and it measures 143.5 x 76.6 x 6.9 mm. By comparison, the current 6-inch Kindle weighs 158 grams and the dimensions are 157.8 x 108.6 x 8.0 mm, so there’s a considerable size difference.
The InkPalm 5 also has a frontlight with adjustable color temperature. It has WiFi and Bluetooth for connectivity, with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of storage space. The battery is listed at 1400mAh.
There are two color choices available, a light green color and what looks like black but is listed as “grey” (maybe dark grey). The price is listed at $159 with free shipping, but there’s a coupon for $20 off.
I’ve been a big fan of smaller ereaders for a long time since the PRS-350 and Kobo Mini, but nobody wants to make anything smaller than 6-inches these days. There are more options out there but they usually have to be ordered directly from China.
I wonder what this means: “Please note that inkPlam 5 doesn’t support Google service.” …
Certainly intriguing, but not worth a risk to me.
Not supporting Google services is pretty much standard for most E Ink Android devices out of the box, especially ones that started out in China.
This isn’t necessarily that big of a deal given the limited number of apps one is likely to want to run on an e-ink device. I have an InkBook Focus (a Polish-made reader) that runs Android and don’t feel like I’m missing anything from the lack of Play Services. I installed the Amazon app store on it to get things like Moon+ Reader and the Goodreads app, and I installed KOReader via APKPure.
Yeah, even Amazon’s Fire tablets lack Google services so it’s not that uncommon, and it’s easy to sideload apps from other sources.
And it appears to have sound so does it play audiobooks?
I don’t own one so I don’t know the ins and outs but it runs Android so you can likely install an audiobook app.
I’m interested in this primarily to run the iPieta app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ipieta.ipieta001) on an eInk screen. Would this work without access to Google Play? I’m not sure how this works.
It’s impossible to know how an app is going to work without testing it. Some work well on E Ink screens and some don’t. Since it’s a free app you’d just have to find the apk or download it from a different appstore.