The reason to buy the BOOX Palma 2 Pro is not color, 5G, or the little pen sold beside it. It is the desire to read in the gaps where a phone normally wins by default. A queue becomes three pages of a novel. A train ride becomes a saved article. A late-night check of the news stays on a muted paper-like screen instead of turning into forty minutes under a bright one.
That makes its audience specific. This is for the reader with books scattered across Kindle, Kobo, Libby, Google Play Books, PDFs, and newsletters. It is for the commuter who wants those libraries in a jeans pocket, the traveler who would rather add a data plan than hunt for Wi-Fi, and the Android tinkerer willing to adjust refresh modes. It is also for anyone trying to make a phone less central without pretending modern life works offline.
The Palma 2 Pro is poor value if all you need is an EPUB reader. BOOX's monochrome Palma 2 costs about $130 less, produces cleaner whites, and handles ordinary novels beautifully. The Pro earns its suffix only when you regularly use color, mobile data, GPS, or pen input. Those are not small additions, but they need jobs.
What BOOX actually built
The Palma 2 Pro is a narrow 6.13-inch Android tablet wearing the silhouette of an older smartphone. It measures 159 by 80 by 8.8mm and weighs about 175g. The front holds a Kaleido 3 E Ink panel. Black-and-white content renders at 824 by 1648 pixels, or 300ppi; color is 412 by 824, or 150ppi. That split explains both the crisp type and the softer illustrations.
Inside are an octa-core Qualcomm platform, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and BOOX Super Refresh, the company's system for making E Ink move with less waiting. The hybrid tray can accept mobile-data SIM configurations or a microSD card up to 2TB. There is A-GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C, two speakers, microphones, auto-rotation, a fingerprint reader, and a 16MP rear camera intended mainly for scanning documents and reading QR codes.
Android 15 is the freedom engine. Google Play means one device can host several bookshops, library apps, Readwise, a podcast player, messaging apps, cloud drives, maps, and a browser. Each app can be tuned in EinkWise for refresh speed, contrast, and color behavior. The learning curve is the price of escaping a closed bookstore.
The Palma proposition, drawn without laboratory coats
The color bargain
Kaleido 3 does not reproduce an iPad. Its 4,096 colors resemble a newspaper supplement left near a sunny window: restrained, textured, and often charming. Covers become easier to identify, maps gain hierarchy, charts become legible, and app controls stop blending into one gray puzzle. Comics work when panels and lettering tolerate the narrow screen. Photographs lose punch and fine tonal detail.
The filter that creates color also darkens the background and leaves a faint grid over the page. TechRadar found the monochrome Palma 2 cleaner and more contrasty for pure text. Stuff praised the Pro's “muted, soft colours,” while also noting that color resolution is half the black-and-white figure. Both observations can be true. Turn on the adjustable warm-cool front light and the Pro becomes comfortable in more conditions, but light and fast refresh consume battery.
“Compact, versatile and something genuinely different.”TechRadar's practical verdict after using both Palma generations
Ghosting remains part of E Ink life. Fast scrolling may leave a dusty memory of the previous screen until a refresh clears it. BOOX gives you controls because no setting can maximize motion, sharpness, color, and battery at once. A little setup pays off: use a crisp mode for books, a faster mode for feeds, and the full refresh shortcut when remnants start to bother you.
Connected, with one deliberate hole
A nano-SIM can keep books synchronized, load a map, stream a podcast, or deliver WhatsApp messages away from Wi-Fi. It cannot make a normal cellular call or send an SMS. Internet calling may work inside apps, but the Palma 2 Pro should never be your only route to emergency services. Apps that insist on SMS verification can also become awkward.
That omission frustrates buyers who see the earpiece, microphones, camera, Android, GPS, and 5G logo and reasonably expect a phone. Stuff called the device “a unique pocket companion,” then scored it 3/5 because it cannot replace one. For another kind of buyer, that missing dialer preserves the distinction. The Palma can be connected enough for a library without inheriting every obligation of the primary handset.
A memo pad, not a legal pad
The optional InkSense Plus stylus uses USI 2.0, recognizes 4,096 pressure levels and tilt, rejects a resting palm, and charges through USB-C. Its button becomes an eraser in supported apps. On a six-inch narrow display, the useful jobs are margin notes, highlights, grocery lists, signatures, tiny diagrams, and the thought that would otherwise vanish between platforms.
Long meeting notes expose the geometry. There is little room to rest a hand, and reviewers found more latency than on BOOX's larger EMR writing tablets. The pen is usually separate, around $46, and the official case does not provide a secure enclosed silo. Buy it for frequent annotation, not because every Pro accessory feels compulsory.
The buying decision in one table
| Device | Why choose it | Screen | Software and connection | Starting price noted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palma 2 Pro | Color, pen, GPS, and mobile data in a pocket | 6.13″ Kaleido 3, 300ppi mono / 150ppi color | Android 15, Google Play, 5G data | $379.99 list |
| Palma 2 | Sharper monochrome reading for less | 6.13″ Carta 1200, 300ppi | Android 13, Wi-Fi | $249.99 list |
| Kobo Clara Colour | Simple color reading in Kobo's store | 6″ Kaleido 3 | Closed reader platform, Wi-Fi | Check current retail |
| Bigme HiBreak Pro Color | A closer E Ink phone alternative with calling ambitions | Phone-shaped color E Ink | Android and cellular features vary by region | Check seller and bands |
Kindle Colorsoft and Kobo Libra Colour are worth considering if a larger conventional reader is acceptable. Their calmer interfaces ask less configuration. Bigme's HiBreak family is the direct rabbit hole for people who really want E Ink cellular calling, but carrier bands, software support, and regional availability need careful checking. A normal midrange phone remains faster, brighter, and more capable for the same money. It also recreates the problem many Palma buyers are trying to solve.
Buy it if…
- You read across several Android services.
- Coat-pocket size changes how often you read.
- Color maps, covers, charts, or annotations matter.
- Mobile data has a clear job in your routine.
Skip it if…
- You mostly read black-and-white novels.
- You need calls, SMS, or an emergency phone.
- You want vivid photos, video, or fluid scrolling.
- You plan to handwrite pages at a time.
The honest verdict
The Palma 2 Pro makes sense as a calmer pocket computer, not an advanced Kindle and not a failed phone. BOOX took the habits formed around a smartphone shape and redirected them toward reading. Then it left Android open enough that you can undo the calm by installing every noisy app you already own. Discipline is still part of the setup.
At $379.99 before the pen, it asks buyers to pay for an intersection: color E Ink, one-handed size, open apps, navigation, notes, and internet beyond Wi-Fi. Nobody needs all of that to finish a book. A smaller group will use it every day because no ordinary reader gathers those traits in one pocket.
Start with a seven-day audit. Note where you read, which services hold your books, how often Wi-Fi disappears, and whether color changes comprehension or merely decorates it. If the answer is novels at home, buy the Palma 2 or a simpler reader. If the answer is books, saved articles, maps, podcasts, and quick notes across trains, queues, and airports, the Pro's strange collection of boundaries begins to look coherent.
The clever thing is not that it replaces a phone. It gives the phone fewer reasons to be in your hand.