If You Want an Onyx eReader or eNote, Get One with BSR

So I finally bought a Boox Palma 2 after a year of being too cheap to buy the Palma 1, and so far I’m really impressed with the Palma 2 and it’s quite possibly my favorite Boox device ever.

I’m surprised by how much smoother it runs than the other two Boox devices that I bought and reviewed this year (the Boox Go Color 7 and Boox Go 10.3), especially when it comes to running third-party apps, and I think it mostly comes down to the fact that the Palma supports BSR and the others do not.

BSR stands for Boox Super Refresh Technology. It’s something that Onyx rolled out in 2022 to help improve the refresh quality and performance of E Ink screens. It has a drastic effect on screen refreshing and it helps reduce ghosting as well. Battery life takes a bit of a hit with BSR, but it’s worth the performance boost in some cases.

While reviewing the Kindle Colorsoft and comparing it to the Boox Go Color 7, I started to become really annoyed with all the ghosting on the Boox. It is much worse than the Kindle in that regard.

But now that I have the Palma 2 with BSR, I noticed right away that ghosting is less of an issue with it. There’s still some ghosting, but nothing like the Go Color 7. Scrolling is a lot smoother and less jittery as well, and the faster refresh modes are actually usable; on the non-BSR devices there’s just too much ghosting.

If you only intend to use Onyx’s built-in apps, and don’t plan on using the web browser much, then you can probably get along just fine without BSR because the built-in apps are pretty well-optimized, but if you’re using third-party apps and frequently browse the web getting a Boox device with BSR support is going to make a big difference.

Most of Onyx’s newer devices support BSR except for the Go series. The Note Air4 C, the new Note Max, and of course the Palma all support BSR, along with the Tab series from last year. I’ve started to sour on Onyx’s device lately because of the ghosting issues, but now that I have the Palma 2 my feelings have changed. BSR really does make a big difference.