I’m thinking of buying one of the two models, not to read but because I have a disability that basically makes it impossible for me to use normal phones due to visual overload. I have a couple questions:

  1. How dim does the backlight go? Can it get so dim that you barely realise it is on — kind of like minimum phone brightness?
  2. What is the experience like when typing? Could you use the phone to send messages?
  3. What does the hardware feel like? It seems the CPU is pretty weak, do you feel that at all when using? What do you think the longevity would be like?
  4. Do you think a usecase like leaving the display on as a button pad with a bunch of shortcuts would be a workable usecase?
  5. Can the customisable sidebutton be programmed to do literally anything? Like could I link it to a Tasker shortcut or something?
  6. I’ve noticed that people say the settings are rather limited compared to normal android? Has that limited you in any way, are things like DNS and VPN still usable?
  • hershEnglish
    2·
    10 days ago

    I don’t have a Palma, but I have a Book Go 6, which looks like it has similar display tech. So I think I can answer some of your questions.

    The backlight can go all the way off, to the point where it is invisible in a dark room. You can also adjust the backlight color temperature.

    Typing is bad, but I’ve never spent time optimizing it. I would guess that the responsiveness on the Palma might be higher. I also never tried it in high-speed mode, which is much more responsive but has worse ghosting and generally worse image quality. For my use case (99% just reading) I don’t mind the slow response time.

    It’s possible to access the normal Android settings, though I just picked up my Boox Go and I can’t actually figure out how. I know I’ve done it before somehow. The Boox settings app has a VPN section, but I don’t see DNS options. Pretty sure you can do this though.

    One thing I want to point out is that the Palma is not technically a phone. It’s a wi-fi device, so it will not make calls or send SMS. You would be limited to internet-based messaging apps like Signal or Telegram. I can’t speak to how smoothly those run.

    There are also a couple proper phones (with SIM cards) with similar display tech coming out this year. See:

    https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/6/24335983/tcl-60-xe-nxtpaper-e-ink-specs-ces

    https://liliputing.com/the-minimal-phone-is-now-shipping-e-ink-phone-with-a-qwerty-keyboard/