I read it on April 15 Xataka Mobile the News about the launch of Onyx company’s electronic ink display mobile phone, Boox Palma. It caught my attention for two reasons:

1. It reminded me of the YotaPhone, an experiment by a Russian manufacturer that was not very successful in the market. It was many years ago.
2. What if the idea was as good as a secondary cell phone that you could carry with you when you just wanted to disconnect and chill?

This second reason led me to ask my partner Enrique if he could get it for me as his press unit. Enrique did it (he does it all the time!) and here I am two months later, describing a bittersweet experience.

Idea. For a beach trip, a weekend getaway, a full day of relaxation away from home, or even a vacation somewhere familiar, I thought something like Boox Palma might make sense.

It’s a mobile phone whose 6.1″ screen doesn’t distract us greatly from being played in another league, and it’s also great for reading in the sun. It helps disconnect and encourages more reading.

Image: Xataka.

Reality. Once Boox arrived at my home and I held it in my hands, it didn’t take long to realize that the experience wasn’t going to be as fun as it seemed.

To begin with, I’m coming from Kindle Oasis and this is the experience I’m used to with e-ink. The Boox one is not at that level. I can understand that it’s not that good as the one at Oasis was excellent, but perhaps for almost 300 euros I was expecting more. There are phones with very good LCD panels and better features at these prices.

Boox Palma on the left. Kindle Oasis on the right. Almost the same height, different width. Boox is much more portable. Image: Xataka.

pretty slow. There isn’t much fluidity and there is a certain clunkiness. There is no agility, some actions limp or require several tries. It is sometimes difficult to move from one task to another or navigate the menu.

Due to the nature of the panel, some common smartphone gestures are not available here. Understandable. But that doesn’t help either.

The screen is not very good. This must be its strong point, but it does not meet expectations. For reading it is much better than a mobile phone, especially in sunny outdoors, there is no rival there.

Image: Xataka.

But the image quality leaves much to be desired. The text is clear, but the panel struggles to completely eliminate the characters present on the previous screen. This causes annoying shadows to appear among the text.

An example: traces of characters from the previous page remain between the text and the back box. Image: Xataka.

Another example. There was a graph still visible where the two items on the list were located. Image: Xataka.

Battery is also disappointing. I understand that permanent connection is something that erodes autonomy, but electronic ink should provide much better times. This is not the case. Using it as a “only cell phone” still requires charging almost every day. The dream of forgetting and using the charger on a weekend getaway will only be possible if we use it less.

And using it as a “only cell phone” is equivalent to using it much less than we use our regular cell phone. We can’t take photos or see social networks, navigation is frustrating and apps… Okay. You can install any from the Play Store, that’s true, but it’s also true that most of them are of little use. The best ones are the expected ones: Kindle and the like.

Image: Xataka.

The rest is not adapted (logical) and depends on which one lacks experience. I don’t mind that games are impossible to use (it’s clear whoever bought this phone didn’t do it for games), but its slowness and mediocre panel make any application a shelter for emergencies, nothing more.

Scanner. Its small rear camera (the only camera on the Boox) is designed only for scanning documents, not for taking photos. This is one of the weakest points.

According to the manufacturer, the modest Boox Palma camera is with 16 megapixels and special OCR software. Image: Xataka.

I tried to scan DIN A4 clearly and from a minimum distance so that the entire paper would fit in the viewfinder. Only the title of the document was readable, the text (size 16, not even 12) was indistinguishable.

Nothing is distinguished. Image: Xataka.

I had to move the camera very close to the page so the text could be seen and cut out half of the page.

Scanning from minimum distance for readability. Half cut page. Image: Xataka.

By the way, although the screen e-inkWhat it runs is Android, specifically Android 11 announced in 2020, so screenshots are in color, not black and white, when we export them.

Image: Xataka.

Photos also appear in color when sent to another device. What doesn’t shine is its quality.

Boox camera in front of the mirror. Since it does not have a front camera, there is no selfie opportunity. Image: Xataka.

idea of ​​shelter. I suggested using this mobile phone as a digital haven, which might be of interest to some of our readers due to the distractions and volume of notifications we are exposed to. The theory sounded pretty good. Not so much in practice.

I can’t recommend it except for those who have made it clear that they accept the tolls because they want this mobile concept no matter what. e-ink.

For everyone, a smartwatch with LTE and a standard e-book reader will give us a more satisfying experience, even if it doesn’t fit in our pocket. It may not be cheaper, but we will avoid the frustration.

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