Onyx Boox announced the Palma 2 e-reader, which went on pre-order two weeks ago and is shipping out on November 26th. This dedicated book reader has the form factor of a smartphone, so it easily fits in your pocket. It comes in two different colours: black and white. It retails for USD 279.99, which is a bit on the expensive side. This device’s big selling points are the small screen, Google Android 13 OS, and Google Play.
The Onyx Boox Palma 2 features a 6.13″ HD Carta 1200 glass screen with a flat cover lens. The resolution is 824×1648, ensuring all your books have razor-sharp fonts. It has a flush screen, a sleek bezel design, and excellent warm lighting. A light sensor automatically adjusts the brightness depending on your environment. There is also a G-Sensor for automatic screen rotation, which is fantastic for reading in portrait or landscape mode.
Underneath the hood is an Octa-core processor, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. If there is insufficient space to store your books, apps, and audiobooks, an SD card can store an additional 1TB. You can listen to or stream your favourite audiobooks, music or podcasts with the dual speakers or pair your wireless headphones or speakers via Bluetooth 5.1. Dual microphones ensure you can speak to your friends using voice communication apps. If you like to take pictures, there is a 16MP Rear Camera with LED Flash. This device also has WIFI and a USB-C port for transferring data or charging. A respectable 3,950mAh Li-ion Polymer battery powers it. The dimensions are 159 x 80 x 8.0 mm (6.3″ x 3.1″ x 0.31″) and weighs 170 g (6 oz).
The Onyx Boox Palma 2 runs Google Android 13 OS. It comes preinstalled with Google Play, where you can install millions of free and paid apps. If you like using the Kindle app for Android, Onyx has optimized it on a software level to eliminate the animated page turns and increase performance. They have also used several writing apps, such as Evernote.
If you tend to load in your collection of books on new hardware, the Palma 2 supports PDF, CAJ, DJVU, CBR, CBZ, EPUB, EPUB3, AZW3, MOBI, TXT, DOC, DOCX, FB2, CHM, RTF, HTML, ZIP, PRC, PPT, PPTX. You can only sideload music/audiobook files with WAV and MP3. However, most people won’t sideload anything and instead will install their favourite e-reading app, which they have already purchased digital content, such as Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Tolino, etc.
The Palma 2 has powerful hardware to be your daily driver for reading e-books on an e-paper screen. The Palma first generation was a best seller, and the second-gen turbocharges the entire experience.