Among the three new devices that Onyx announced for their fall release schedule is a new Boox Palma 2, a phone-shaped ereader that looks like a phone but lacks a SIM card slot and GPS so it can’t actually be used as a phone.
The Boox Palma 2 is nearly identical to the first gen Palma that was released last year, but they changed a couple of details so they can call it a new model to capitalize on people’s conditioned desire to get “upgraded” devices with a newer Android version, which seems logical, but rarely makes any practical difference whatsoever.
Nonetheless, the Palma is one of Onyx’s most popular models and I look forward to getting a Palma 2 myself (I refused to buy the first one because of the high price, but I’m giving in this time).
As far as upgrades go, it uses a newer undisclosed octa-core CPU that’s supposedly faster, and they added a fingerprint sensor to the power button for added security, and that seems to be it for hardware changes.
Onyx also updated the software to Android 13, up from Android 11 on the first gen Palma.
Everything else appears to be exactly the same as the first gen model. It has a 6.13″ E Ink Carta 1200 screen with 300 ppi, and a frontlight with adjustable color temperature. There’s 6GB of RAM, with 128GB of onboard storage, and it also has a microSD card slot.
Other hardware features include a rotation sensor, a light sensor, WiFi, Bluetooth, dual speakers, dual microphones, it has a USB-C port (with OTG support), and it has a 16MP rear camera with LED flash. The battery is listed as 3,950mAh. The dimensions of the device are 159 x 80 x 8.0 mm, and it weighs approximately 170 grams.
The Palma 2 has Google Play built-in and it supports Onyx’s BSR technology for faster and smoother refreshing.
There’s a black version and a white version, and the price remains the same at $279. The Boox Palma 2 is available to pre-order from Onyx’s website. It’s also listed on Onyx’s Amazon Store, but it’s not available just yet. Onyx says it will start shipping around November 12th.
If you like the Palma and want to save some cash and don’t care about the upgrades on the Palma 2, the original Boox Palma is now available at a discounted price of $245.99.
If you like the idea of the Boox Palma but want phone capabilities, Bigme recently released two E Ink phones that are similar to the Palma. There’s a color model and a BW model.
Have the Palma 1 and haven’t been especially thrilled with it – apps are prone to crashing, and Boox hasn’t issued any updates since March – it’s still on 3.5.1.
Seeing a new model when the first gen is basically ‘meh’ will ensure I don’t buy another Boox product again.
Boox doesn’t release software updates as frequently as they used to, but they’re pretty good about updating older models. I have a Note2 that was updated to the 3.5 software earlier this year and it was released in 2019, and Onyx has released like 20 different Note models since then (I don’t know how they keep up with updating them all).
They’d announced there were issues bringing 3.5.3 to some models a few months ago, but it’s been radio silence since.
It’s a neat concept and a good device hardware wise, but books crashing every 40-60 pages (and the apps paging back 4-5 each relaunch) just got old fast.