The Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro is the phone-sized color ereader I never knew I wanted, but it won’t suit everyone

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro: Two-minute review

The Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro is the kind of interesting ereader innovation I want to see more of, even if the biggest appeal is still just how unusual it is. My ereader expert colleague reviewed the original Palma and the newer Palma 2, but I have been able to use both of these devices as my main ereader, to ensure a good basis for comparison.

The Palma 2 Pro takes the same pocket-friendly, phone-like form of the Palma 2 and adds a color E Ink display, more memory, Android 15, SIM support and stylus compatibility. The Palma is already somewhat of a niche ereader (and a niche we are big fans of), so these new features are quite ambitious.

The 6.13-inch, 2:1 screen is still the main reason to consider the Palma. It looks and feels more like a smartphone than a typical ereader, and comes complete with a speaker, dual microphones, side buttons, a rear camera and now a hybrid SIM tray. But rather than an LCD or OLED display, it uses an e-paper display that means it’s a much nicer experience for long reading sessions.

In other words — if you already consume books, articles or newsletters on your phone and want something easier on the eyes, the Palma 2 Pro has a lot of appeal.

Another new advantage is stylus support — like some of the larger models, the Palma 2 Pro works with a compatible stylus and enables note-taking directly on the device. Another great little extra is a combined SIM/SD card slot, which means you can upgrade the storage or add in a data SIM and access books (and the internet) when on the go.

Physically, the Pro is very similar to the Palma 2, though there are a few useful changes that show how the design has progressed more than just changing to a color display. The power button (that also houses the fingerprint reader) is still on the right edge but the volume/page-turn buttons now sit on the left with the smart button — a layout that feels a lot more intuitive.

The SIM/SD card tray is on the bottom and the body is a little thicker. At 172g bare on my scales (Boox lists it as approximately 175g), it’s still easy to carry around, and even with the soft case from my review package fitted, it remained pocket-friendly enough for daily use, plus there’s an excellent magnetic flip cover.

The biggest change, of course, is the screen. The Palma 2 Pro uses a Kaleido 3 color E Ink panel, whereas the Palma 2 has a Carta 1200 monochrome display. The upgrade to color immediately makes the interface, book covers, comics, web pages and some apps feel more engaging and useful than they do on the black-and-white Palma 2. To be clear, it’s not bright, glowing color like you get from a phone or tablet, or glossy like a magazine — it’s closer to soft pastels on paper.

While the black and white part of the display has the same resolution and DPI as the Palma 2, the Kaleido 3 color layer gives the screen a slightly grainier look, with grayer whites, compared to the sharp Carta display on the Palma 2.

While reading on the Palma 2 Pro is still great, it does mean the Pro is not an automatic upgrade for everyone. For pure monochrome text, the Palma 2 still has a clearer, more paper-like display, with better perceived contrast and cleaner whites.

That means the Palma 2 is still a solid choice, while the Palma 2 Pro is at its best for those who will actually make use of the color screen.

The Pro has had a slight bump in spec, which in turn makes the user experience a little slicker. An upgrade to Android 15 (the Palma 2 runs Android 13) gives the Palma 2 Pro a more current interface, while 8GB of RAM (up from 6GB), Android 15 and updated software tuning help it feel slightly smoother when opening apps, scrolling through menus and using gesture navigation.

It’s still an E Ink device, so you won’t mistake it for the responsiveness of a smartphone, but third-party apps such as Kindle, Kobo and Google Play Books work well, and Google Play Store support gives it far more flexibility than most ereaders.

I also found the fingerprint scanner accurate and very handy on the Pro. It’s quick to set up and, in daily use, it rarely failed to unlock the device. In comparison, the Palma 2 doesn’t unlock quite as reliably.

The stylus support worked well, and the Boox stylus is easy to start using — no pairing is needed. Handwritten notes can be made in compatible apps, like Boox’s Notes app, or on your ebooks with NeoReader. The small screen means it takes a little getting used to and it’s not as capable as a larger note-taking device, but it is a nice little extra for those who like to jot down handwritten thoughts.

Making it slightly less appealing though, is that buying the Boox stylus adds around an extra 10% to the price, and there’s no neat way to carry it with the flip cover.

The Palma 2 Pro continues some of the little niggles that felt out of place considering the price of the Palma 2. The body still feels plasticky rather than premium, the camera is more useful for quick scans than for taking photos, the speaker is basic and performance is on the low end compared to a phone. The Palma 2 Pro is also considerably more expensive than the regular Palma 2 and other mainstream 6-inch ereaders.

Still, I like the Palma 2 Pro for the same reason I like the Palma 2: it’s compact, versatile and something genuinely different. The color screen won’t suit everyone, but if you want a pocketable Android ereader that can handle books, apps, light web use, color-rich documents and the occasional note-taking session, it’s a great upgrade to one of the most interesting ereaders around.

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro review: Price & availability

• Announced October 2025
• List price: $379.99 / €399.99 / £379.99 / AU$679
• Available now directly from the Boox Shop and select retailers

The Palma 2 Pro is a much more expensive device than the regular Palma 2, with current pricing sitting at $380 / £380 / AU$679. That makes it pricey even by premium ereader standards, and it’s a notable step up from the Palma 2’s current $250 / £249 / AU$499 pricing.

On the plus side, that higher price does give you a tasty set of new and updated features. The Palma 2 Pro adds a Kaleido 3 color E Ink display, 8GB of RAM, Android 15, a hybrid SIM slot with mobile data support and compatibility with the Boox InkSense Plus stylus.

While these are all great additions, they won’t all matter equally to every reader, so the best value proposition is only going to apply to a smaller subset of potential buyers. If you mostly want a pocketable device for reading typical ebooks, the regular Palma 2 is still the better choice.

The Pro starts to make more sense if you’ll actually use the color display for book covers, comics, web pages, documents or apps, or if mobile data support is important to you.

The Boox website has a range of compatible accessories available. For the Palma 2 Pro, stylus support helps it feel more useful beyond reading, though it’s worth noting that the Boox stylus is sold separately and is priced around $46 / £47 / AU$72 — adding around 10% to the total purchase cost.

The standard box includes the Palma 2 Pro, USB-C cable, card tray eject tool, quick start guide and warranty card. My review package also included the Magnetic 2-in-1 protective flip case, which is another $22 / £22 / AU$38 or so from Boox.

Compared with mainstream 6-inch ereaders, the Palma 2 Pro is expensive, and it is on par with a mid-range smartphone. In fact, you could buy almost three Amazon Kindle or Kobo Clara BW ereaders for the price of the Palma 2 Pro, but they also don’t offer the same Android flexibility, color E Ink display, large storage capacity or phone-like form factor.

That said, I could better stomach the price if the Palma 2 Pro came with the stylus and case as standard, but as it stands, it only really offers decent value if you truly need the unique form factor and will actually use the full set of features.

• Value score: 3 / 5

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro review: Specs

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro review: Design & display

• Available in Charcoal Black and Ivory White
• Color E Ink makes the Palma format more versatile
• Phone-like and pocket-friendly

The Palma 2 Pro mostly sticks to the Palma 2’s design, but the small changes do make it feel a little more polished in daily use. It’s still unmistakably a Palma, with the same tall, phone-like shape, rear camera, speaker, dual microphones, USB-C port and compact footprint, but it’s slightly thicker at 8.8mm (up from 8mm) and a little heavier at 172g on my scales, up from the Palma 2’s measured 166g.

The button layout has changed too. The power button with fingerprint scanner now sits on the right edge, while the volume/page-turn buttons have moved to the left with the smart button. The hybrid SIM tray is on the bottom beside the USB-C port, while the microphones have shifted closer to the speaker.

None of these changes dramatically alter how the Palma 2 Pro feels, but I think the layout is a bit more intuitive than the Palma 2 as volume buttons on the left mean they sit under a forefinger, rather than under a thumb on the right.

If you don’t use the volume buttons for page turning (or you are left-handed), then the smartphone-like layout on the Palma 2 might be preferable.

Build quality is very similar to the Palma 2 — it’s a little plasticky, and the rear panel has a rough, grippy texture. The Pro is white rather than cream, and the surface of the plastic is a matte gloss, rather than being purely matte, but isn’t slippery.

Unlike the silver buttons on the Palma 2, the Pro uses the same shade of white on the buttons and the body, giving a sleeker, understated look. While most ereaders use a lot of plastic, the build certainly doesn’t feel as premium as its price suggests.

While I didn’t run into any issues of the surface staining like my colleague experienced in her Palma 2 review, it’s still plastic, so even with the flip case, I wouldn’t leave it loose in a bag with keys or other sharp objects. Like a phone, it is best kept in a protected pocket of a backpack, and while the glass screen feels reasonably tough, damage is still worth guarding against.

My review package included the magnetic flip case, which is a big upgrade over the flip case that came with the Palma 2. It has a cloudy-clear flexible shell that clips around the device, plus a detachable flip cover that connects magnetically. The shell is the part with the magnets, not the Palma 2 Pro itself, and it also carries through MagSafe-style support so it can be attached to a compatible stand.

This makes it very easy to keep protected when on the go, but also allows it to be instantly pulled out from the flip case for more relaxed at-home use.

The case doesn’t give heavy-duty protection, but it’s an excellent compromise between a bulkier folio and a slim shell. The flip cover attaches easily but stays secure, the fake-leather material feels well made and there are no sharp or rough edges. It also adds good grip without making the Palma 2 Pro feel too big, and in fact I wish I could get this style flip case for my phone.

Sadly the new flip case is only available for the Palma 2 Pro, which feels like a misstep from Boox, as there is a Palma/Palma 2 flip case with magnetic attachment available, just in the older style. This means either of the outer, magnetically attached parts of the case could work fine with either device, but you can’t buy the actual shell with the magnets separately, which is needed due to the changed button locations.

Pocketability is still one of the biggest reasons to buy the Palma 2 Pro as it feels much closer to carrying a phone than a conventional ereader. Even in the flip case, it’s still easy to slip into a jacket or pants, and it is the right size to work with phone-specific bag pockets, or even accessories like waterproof pouches.

The display is where the Pro version will pique a lot of new interest over the Palma 2. It uses a 6.13-inch Kaleido 3 color E Ink screen, with the same 300ppi black-and-white resolution as the Palma 2, but color content is displayed at 150ppi. That’s normal for this kind of color E Ink panel, and it means the Palma 2 Pro can show book covers, comics, web pages, app icons and more in color but still give a crisp black and white e-paper experience for text.

There is a trade-off, and overall clarity suffers somewhat. The color layer sits over the monochrome layer and adds a fine grid-like texture, so plain text doesn’t look quite as crisp or contrasty as it does on the Palma 2, and blank areas have a slightly grainy, screen-door-type look.

It’s still very readable, and I had no issue using it for long sessions, but the monochrome Palma 2 has cleaner whites and better contrast if all you care about is text.

Color on the Palma 2 Pro also shouldn’t be confused with color on a phone or tablet, or even a magazine print. It’s muted and pastel-like rather than glossy and bright, but that works well for an ereader.

The small touches of color throughout the OS make the device feel nicer to use, and switching back to a black-and-white ereader feels rather limiting, despite offering a better display for reading text.

Touch response is similar to the Palma 2. Page turns are quick enough, menus respond well enough and the touchscreen is accurate, but there’s still noticeable lag compared to a phone if you drag items around.

Screen refreshes can also look slightly fuzzier on the Pro because the color screen shows a little more ghosting, though if you tweak the settings to your own preferences, it produces a fairly clean image overall.

As with the Palma 2, the 2:1 aspect ratio won’t suit everyone, but it’s still the standout part of the design. It makes the Palma 2 Pro a very good fit for people who already read on their phones and want something easier on the eyes, while still keeping the same portable feel.

Boox describes the Palma 2 Pro as water-repellent, with protection against daily exposure such as spills, splashes and light rain, but it’s not waterproof and doesn’t have an IP rating. That’s fine for normal use, but I wouldn’t treat it like a waterproof ereader and take it in the bath.

• Design & display score: 4 / 5

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro review: User experience

• Android 15 with Google Play Store support
• More customizable than a Kindle or Kobo
• File transfers are easy

The Palma 2 Pro still isn’t a phone, even if it looks more like one than most ereaders. Setup is much like using a small Android device: you connect to Wi-Fi, sign in, activate the Play Store and start installing apps. It’s familiar enough if you’ve used Android before, but there are still plenty of Boox-specific settings to get used to.

That extra control is part of the appeal. You can adjust refresh behavior, navigation, power-saving settings, app optimization and reading layouts in far more detail than you can on a Kindle or Kobo. It can feel like a lot at first, but in daily use, the Palma 2 Pro gives you useful control over how much speed, clarity and battery life you want to prioritize.

Getting your documents and ebooks onto the device is quite easy. BooxDrop is a good starting point — it lets you transfer files from a phone or computer over Wi-Fi. If you are in the Google ecosystem, you can use the Drive app (or other Android app of your choice) and wired transfers over a USB cable on Windows just require plugging it in.

The Android to Mac experience isn’t as simple, and Apple requires its users to install third-party apps such as MacDroid to connect to an Android device.

USB-C OTG support also worked seamlessly, and like the Palma 2, the Pro will happily read files straight from a USB stick. For most users, though, BooxDrop or cloud storage is probably still the simplest option.

While the two devices are very similar, in my testing the touchscreen is a little better on the Pro compared to the Palma 2, but it still doesn’t feel anywhere near as responsive as a phone. Light taps are occasionally not picked up and swipes don’t always give enough instant feedback to help show you are doing it right.

Once I adjusted and used slightly slower, more purposeful touch interactions, it worked just fine, but there is a little recalibration compared to the haptic feel of a smartphone.

I didn’t have a lot of patience for NaviBall, Boox’s floating shortcut tool that opens when tapped. The idea is useful, but in practice it often sat over text or stopped pop-up buttons like confirm and cancel from working correctly and had to be moved before those buttons could be used. You can move it around easily enough, but I eventually stopped using it, as it added more friction overall than convenience.

The Boox InkSense Plus stylus is very capable, with 4,096 pressure levels, tilt support, a shortcut side button and replaceable 0.6mm tips. It’s also an active stylus, so it needs charging via USB-C, unlike the passive pens used by some note-taking tablets.

I found it great for quick annotations, short notes and rough sketches, but the small screen size makes sustained handwriting impractical. The Notes app can also convert handwriting to text, but I didn’t find this useful due to the limited amount of writing I did.

If writing is important to you, check out my colleagues’ reviews of the 7-inch color display Boox Go Color 7 Gen II, the monochrome 7-inch Boox Go 7 or the 10.3-inch Boox Note Air5 C.

While Boox hasn’t noted any hardware changes, the fingerprint scanner feels slightly improved on the Pro. It is easy to set up, and in daily use, I found it rarely failed to register and unlock on the first go. That makes it feel far more usable than it did on the Palma 2, where the sensor needed more careful finger placement.

Audio is still best judged by ereader standards compared to the surprisingly good results from some smartphones. The built-in speaker is fine for audiobooks and podcasts, but Bluetooth headphones or a small speaker are still the better option if you care about sound quality.

I had no issue with pairing Bluetooth devices, but using your favorite music streaming app needs a little setup to get it to work correctly. For example, with YouTube Music, I had to unfreeze the app and adjust power settings so Wi-Fi and Bluetooth weren’t turned off when the device slept.

The downside is that this has a noticeable impact on battery life, and if you use it as a music streamer, expect to charge it every few days. If you are serious about using it to play music, then the best bet is downloaded files and local playback through the built-in music app.

Video playback works, but only in the loosest sense, and it does not give a very watchable result. That said, music videos can be oddly pleasant if you lean into the low-resolution, low-frame-rate, pastel-color look.

The same is true for many mobile games — anything where high resolution or non-glacial framerates matter won’t be much fun, but some titles are perfectly playable.

The extra flexibility of being able to install and use regular apps is great overall, but despite the color screen, the Palma 2 Pro is much better thought of as a reading-first device that happens to handle audio playback and other light Android tasks better than most ereaders.

• User experience score: 4 / 5

Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro review: Performance

• Faster than the Palma 2, but still limited by E Ink
• Handles Android apps well for an E Ink device
• Battery life is very good

Thanks to extra RAM, Android 15 and software tuning, the Palma 2 Pro is slightly faster than the Palma 2 in daily use, though it’s not the kind of spec upgrade that changes what the device is good at.

It’s still an E Ink ereader first, so the improvements are more about smoother user experience than enabling phone-like usage.

Boox doesn’t specify the exact processor, but CPU X identifies the chipset as QTI SM6350, with two cores running at 2.07GHz and six at 1.71GHz, plus Adreno 619 graphics.

That’s the same class of hardware as the Palma 2, but the Pro pairs it with 8GB of RAM rather than 6GB. Android 15 and Boox’s software tuning also help the Pro feel smoother in daily use.

In Geekbench 6 benchmark testing, the Palma 2 Pro scored 632 for single-core, 1,586 for multi-core and 835 for GPU, compared to the Palma 2’s 519, 1,211 and 723 respectively.

That puts it 22% ahead in single-core testing, 31% ahead in multi-core and 15% ahead for GPU, giving the Pro a measurable advantage even if the real-world difference is a bit more modest than the numbers might suggest.

In real-world use, page turns feel slightly faster and smoother than on the Palma 2, but the difference is small. App launching and multitasking are a little better too. Apps open a touch quicker, menus feel more responsive and gesture navigation is noticeably easier to live with than it was on the Palma 2.

You still need to allow for the usual E Ink delay, but the Pro feels a little less hesitant when jumping between apps or digging into settings.

As with the Palma 2, gaming on the Pro is also workable, as long as you keep expectations realistic. Simple games like Alphabear 2 and Two Dots run fine, while more visually involved games such as Monument Valley 2 and Sky: Children of the Light are playable in a way that feels odd, but not unpleasant, on the E Ink screen.

The color display does help here, though the muted tones and lower refresh rate mean this is still more of a novelty than a device you’d pick for gaming.

Battery life is a little lower than the Palma 2, which isn’t surprising considering the better performance. The Pro uses the same 3,950mAh battery capacity as the Palma 2, and overall endurance is still very good.

The color screen itself does not use any extra power when it isn’t being refreshed, and even refreshes only use slightly more. The bigger impact comes from usage: when displaying a lot of color, the lower reflectivity means you tend to have the front light set slightly brighter than when reading plain text.

With conservative settings and around an hour of reading a day, I’d expect about five to six weeks from a charge, whereas the Palma 2 will do a week or two longer. If you’re using more apps, streaming audio, browsing the web and making use of wireless connections, two to three weeks is a more realistic expectation of battery life.

Charging speed will still depend on what you plug it into, but the Pro tops up quicker than the Palma 2 does in the same test. Using a wall adapter, the Palma 2 Pro went from 20% to full in around two hours, while charging from a laptop dock took it from 25% to 71% in an hour.

Overall, the Palma 2 Pro is a modest but useful step up in performance. Responsiveness is still limited by the lower-end hardware and E Ink display, but it feels smoother, handles Android better and has more than enough battery life to work well as a daily ereader.

• Performance score: 4 / 5

Should I buy the Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…

Also consider

There aren’t many direct rivals to the Palma 2 Pro, which makes recommending alternatives a little tricky. Its phone-like shape, color E Ink display, Android flexibility, mobile data support and stylus compatibility put it in a very small category. Devices like the Bigme HiBreak Plus/Pro have very similar features, but we have not been able to test one yet, and they are harder to buy plus not as well supported as a known name like Boox.

Ultimately, most buyers will be choosing between the Palma 2 Pro and a more conventional ereader, or deciding whether the regular Palma 2 is enough. I’ve included the closest practical options below, covering the standard Palma 2 and two mainstream 6-inch ereaders.

For even more options, check out our guide to the best ereaders.

How I tested the Onyx Boox Palma 2 Pro

• Used as my daily reading device for 8 weeks
• Sideloaded eBooks, music and other files via BooxDrop, cloud, email and USB
• Downloaded Android apps for benchmarking, reading, streaming, browsing and light gaming

I began by following the on-screen setup process, connecting the Palma 2 Pro to Wi-Fi, activating Google Play and adjusting the main Boox settings for refresh rate, power-saving and system navigation. Like other Boox devices, there are more customization options here than you’ll find on a Kindle or Kobo, so I spent some time tuning the setup before using it as my daily ereader.

I used BooxDrop to transfer ebooks and music files, then tested other transfer methods including Google Drive, email, OTG and wired file transfer.

I downloaded Android apps from the Play Store, including Geekbench 6, CPU X, Google Play Books, Kindle, Kobo, Chrome, YouTube Music and a small selection of games. The reading apps were used to check page turns, refresh behavior and display optimization, while the music and browser apps were used to test how well the Palma 2 Pro handles more general Android tasks.

For most of the eight-week testing period, I used the Palma 2 Pro daily as an ereader. I also used it for web browsing, local music playback, YouTube Music streaming, audiobooks, light gaming and occasional video playback to test where its E Ink limitations stood out.

To compare it directly with the Palma 2, I used both devices side by side for reading, app use, navigation, scanning, sample photos and benchmarking. That comparison was especially useful for checking whether the color display, extra RAM and Android 15 made a practical difference in daily use.

Read more about how we test.

[First reviewed May 2026]