The Palma is an odd product. It’s a small e-reader with far greater gadget ambitions. On its website, Boox describes the product as a “distraction-free gadget that allows you to reclaim your focus within the actual center between tech and life.”
In quite a lot of methods, the corporate’s ambitions seem to reflect these of Mild Telephone’s by constructing a secondary gadget designed to take away you out of your smartphone’s built-in distractions. That’s a pleasant sufficient sentiment many people can little doubt get behind, having skilled one more deeply polarizing U.S. presidential election by means of the lens of social media.
What, exactly, constitutes a “distraction” versus an important operate is extraordinarily subjective, nevertheless. Turning again to Mild Telephone for a second, we see a product that was deliberately launched with a restricted characteristic set, solely to subsequently introduce new performance that was initially deemed “nonessential” by the startup.
For higher or worse, we depend on our little pocket communicators for practically each side of our lives. Decreasing dependence and distraction are valiant objectives, however depriving customers of genuinely useful options may be counterproductive.
The Palma doesn’t begin from that very same place of useful minimalism — no less than not absolutely. There are specific limitations baked immediately into the product by the character of its ePaper show. There’s sure performance that works higher on the know-how — studying, for instance — nevertheless it lacks an incredible quantity of versatility in comparison with your customary smartphone/pill display screen.
The gadget, nevertheless, runs Android (albeit just a few generations behind) and has entry to the Play Retailer. It has a digital camera, microphone, audio system, and Bluetooth connectivity. The Palma 2 options an upgraded octa-core processor and provides in privateness by means of a fingerprint reader.
The attention-grabbing selections of what to place in and what to go away out make it really feel like PDA with an id disaster: an odd client digital chimera that’s not solely certain what it desires to be when it grows up. Because it seems, that’s a part of the enjoyable.
Taking part in round with the Palma 2 despatched me down some sudden rabbit holes, together with Reddit threads whereby individuals focus on methods to backdoor performance onto the gadget. There may be, for instance, a microSD slot for expandable reminiscence, however not one for a SIM. Which means, despite the inclusion of microphones, audio system, and Bluetooth, it’s not particularly designed to make cellphone calls.
As such, individuals debate the viability of utilizing WhatsApp’s voice characteristic as a work-around. There’s no GPS, which places the kibosh on mapping performance, however how about piggybacking on a tool that does? It’s quite a lot of work for comparatively little reward, nevertheless it’s at all times hopeful to see the methods during which technological limitations spur intelligent consumer innovation.
Granted, I’ve solely been utilizing the Palma 2 for a short while, however I are inclined to fall within the camp of customers content material to consider the gadget as a pure e-reader. It enjoys lots of these options, together with ePaper that’s far simpler on the eyes (and sleep schedule) and extends battery life far past what the typical smartphone is able to.
The brand new processor provides zip to the Palma, whereas eradicating the annoying latency from the earlier era. That mentioned, the product remains to be hampered by ePaper’s refresh limitations. If Boox have been to make a model of the Palma that was a real e-reader, stripped of a lot of the possibly extraneous options, and delivered it at a cheaper price, I might see these items flying off the shelf.
Simply the promise of a reader that’s skinny sufficient to hold in a pocket will seemingly appeal to quite a lot of consideration. I’ve wasted extra time than I care to say attempting to resolve whether or not to take my Kindle with me on a protracted practice experience, understanding it will imply awkwardly carrying the gadget round for the remainder of the night and probably leaving it behind in a darkish nook.
Boox makes some nice e-readers, and the Palma suits the invoice. It’s good {hardware}, with a flush 300 ppi show and a strong entrance mild for studying in mattress. The $280 asking worth, then again, is difficult to justify except you propose to make the most of many of the different options.
