Boox Palma 2 Review (2026): 5 Months With the Phone-Sized

Why you should trust this review

I bought the Palma 2 at full retail in November 2025. Onyx Boox did not provide a sample. Over five months and roughly 220 hours I read 33 books on it, twelve from Kindle, six from Kobo, eight library borrows through Libby, and seven sideloaded EPUBs. That all of those happened on one pocket sized device is the entire pitch, and living it for five months is what lets me tell you whether the novelty holds up.

I read 80 to 90 books a year and have owned every major Kindle generation since 2015, so I have a clear baseline for what a good e-reader feels like. I kept a Kindle Paperwhite and a Kobo Clara on hand as comparison hardware throughout this test. The Palma 2 traveled with me on three flights, lived in my back pocket on every dog walk for five months, and survived being sat on twice with no damage.

How we evaluated

I ran two battery scenarios: heavy mixed use of sixty minutes reading per day across four apps with Wi-Fi on and occasional Pocket sync, and lighter single app use of forty five minutes reading with Wi-Fi off. I recorded days to zero across multiple cycles each. For page turn speed I used a stopwatch on camera frame method, averaging fifty turns in the Kindle app and the native reader, and compared against a Paperwhite.

I tested display quality side by side against a Paperwhite, a Kobo Clara, and a basic Kindle under bright sun, indoor lamp, and near dark. I installed and used eighteen apps across reading, audio, productivity, and notes to see what actually works on e-ink. And I carried it in jeans pockets and a tote for five months to judge real pocket portability and wear.

Form factor is the entire reason it exists

The Palma 2 measures about 82 by 159 by 8 millimeters and weighs 170 grams, essentially a slightly thicker iPhone. It fits in jeans front and back pockets, any jacket pocket, and the small inside pocket of a tote where my phone usually lives. You do not carry a separate device. That sounds minor and it is not. After five months the Palma 2 changed when I read by being available in the moments a Kindle never would be: a coffee line, a ten minute subway ride, a dog walk, between gym sets.

I went from carrying a Kindle plus a phone and using neither, to carrying just the Palma 2 and reading more than I had in years. The honest limit is sustained sessions. The 6.13 inch screen is small for long two handed reading, so for a three hour flight my Paperwhite is still the better tool. For five to ten short sessions a day, the Palma 2 is the correct shape.

Display and page turn speed beat the Kindle

The 6.13 inch E Ink Carta 1200 panel renders at 300 PPI, the same density as a Paperwhite. In a blind side by side with two colleagues, two of three rated the Palma 2 text as marginally crisper. The bigger surprise is speed. Page turns measured 0.14 seconds in the Kindle app versus 0.18 on a 12th generation Paperwhite, about a 22 percent improvement, thanks to the faster Qualcomm eight core chip and 6 GB of RAM. In the native reader you can push turns as fast as 0.10 seconds in speed mode with some ghosting.

The front light covers the full cool to warm range. The auto mode is mediocre but manual control is excellent, and I keep it around 70 percent warm at night and 30 percent during the day. For pure reading quality and responsiveness, the Palma 2 genuinely outpaces what Amazon ships, which is not something I expected to write.

Open Android 13, full flexibility and full friction

The Palma 2 runs Android 13 with the Play Store preinstalled, so Kindle, Kobo, Libby, Pocket, Spotify, and notes apps all coexist. Reading apps work flawlessly. The Boox specific trick is per app refresh mode control: I set Kindle and Kobo to the clearest mode, Pocket to a faster mode that tolerates a little ghosting, and anything video like to the fastest mode, which I then never use because e-ink is wrong for video. Audio plays through USB-C since there is no headphone jack.

The cost of all that openness is software updates. US firmware lags China by two to three months and across five months I got three updates that broke nothing but added little of what the roadmap promised. Treat the software as good enough today rather than steadily improving. To be clear about what this device is not: it has no cellular radio, so it cannot make calls or use mobile data. It is a Wi-Fi reading companion shaped like a phone, not a phone.

Battery life is the trade for Android

Boox does not publish a weeks of battery rating, and rightly so, because Android usage varies wildly. In my heavy mixed use test the Palma 2 lasted about twelve days before powering off. Lighter single app use with Wi-Fi off stretched that to seventeen days. That is far shorter than a Kindle, where a Paperwhite hits roughly eleven weeks, and the gap is intrinsic to running full Android on e-ink rather than a flaw.

In real life, charging weekly works fine, and the 18W USB-C charging fills the 3,950 mAh battery from empty to full in under two hours. I keep it on the same charger as my phone. But if maximum battery between charges is what you want, this is the wrong device, and a single purpose Kindle is the right one.

Who should buy the Boox Palma 2?

Buy it if pocket sized e-ink reading is the feature you want, if you read across multiple ecosystems and refuse to pick one, if you want a reading companion that replaces reaching for your phone on walks or in bed, or if you read on the subway and want to leave your actual phone in your bag. In this form factor it is essentially the only mainstream option.

Skip it if you only read Amazon books and want simplicity, where a cheaper Paperwhite with eleven weeks of battery is the smarter buy. Skip it too if you read in long desk or bed sessions, where the small screen tires you, if you need the longest possible battery, or if you read in the bath, since the Palma 2 has no water resistance rating.

The verdict

The Boox Palma 2 makes very little sense on paper and turned out to be the most novel e-reader I have used in a decade. It will not be for everyone: open Android costs you battery and saddles you with slow firmware, and the small screen is wrong for marathon sessions. But for short, frequent, pocket reading across multiple bookstores, nothing else does what it does. After five months it is the device I now carry every day and the reason I read 33 books across walks and subway rides. If the form factor is what you are buying, it is uniquely right. If it is not, buy a Kindle.