The Palma is a wierd product. It’s a small e-reader with far greater gadget ambitions. On its website, Boox describes the product as a “distraction-free device that lets you reclaim your focus in the exact middle between tech and life.”
In a whole lot of methods, the corporate’s ambitions seem to reflect these of Gentle Cellphone’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 question 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 a necessary perform is extraordinarily subjective, nevertheless. Turning again to Gentle Cellphone 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 facet of our lives. Decreasing dependence and distraction are valiant objectives, however depriving customers of genuinely useful options will be counterproductive.
The Palma doesn’t begin from that very same place of practical minimalism — no less than not absolutely. There are specific limitations baked instantly into the product by the character of its ePaper show. There’s sure performance that works higher on the expertise — studying, for instance — nevertheless it lacks an amazing quantity of versatility in comparison with your commonplace 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 fascinating decisions of what to place in and what to depart out make it really feel like PDA with an identification disaster: a wierd shopper digital chimera that’s not totally positive 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 surprising rabbit holes, together with Reddit threads whereby individuals focus on methods to backdoor performance onto the gadget. There’s, 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 telephone 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 a whole lot of work for comparatively little reward, nevertheless it’s at all times hopeful to see the methods through which technological limitations spur intelligent person 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 a lot of these options, together with ePaper that’s far simpler on the eyes (and sleep schedule) and extends battery life far past what the common smartphone is able to.
The brand new processor provides zip to the Palma, whereas eradicating the annoying latency from the earlier technology. That stated, the product continues to be hampered by ePaper’s refresh limitations. If Boox had been to make a model of the Palma that was a real e-reader, stripped of a lot of the doubtless extraneous options, and delivered it at a cheaper price, I may see these items flying off the shelf.
Simply the promise of a reader that’s skinny sufficient to hold in a pocket will doubtless entice a whole lot of consideration. I’ve wasted extra time than I care to say attempting to determine whether or not to take my Kindle with me on a protracted practice journey, figuring out it could 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 matches the invoice. It’s good {hardware}, with a flush 300 ppi show and a stable entrance mild for studying in mattress. The $280 asking value, alternatively, is tough to justify except you propose to make the most of a lot of the different options.
