You've probably heard of the Boox Palma by now, the "E-ink Phone" making waves in productivity circles
The palma arrived packaged quite nicely, and came with normal USB to USB C cable. I also ordered the flip case.
So far, my experiences with this case have been mixed. I really enjoy it when using the clock screensaver - I'll talk more about that later - and when simply setting the palma down in my home, when I'm not going to use it for a few hours - the protection it affords is nice, considering how you then don't really need a screen protector. The case feels well-made to the touch - while I can't speak for its long term durability, I find the magnetic clasp slightly unique in its execution and fun to use, a minor touch, but a nice one at that.
I've heard people say the body feels cheap and plasticky, but none of this came across in person. While fairly light, the device is built nicely with a textured finish on the back. The power, volume and refresh buttoms all feel fine and as for the fingerprint sensor on the power button itself, i cant speak for it, I haven't used it once, entirely due to the fact that I just keep it lying around without a password
The speakers are terrible, to be expected from a device like this, but the absence of a headphone jack leads to the need of a dongle for power efficient music listening.(Bluetooth sucks the battery).
Speaking of battery, I get about 5 days use out of it before it drops to 20. This was not heavy usage (>2.5hrs per day) and your mileage will vary, depending on what exactly you're using it for.
When conducting some background research on reading books on e-ink, I found a lot of praise for KOreader. As it's just an android app, I downloaded the APK and gave it a try on my phone. Before I got the Palma I collected a lot of EPUBs on my laptop to transfer when it arrived so i had a good many to choose from, eventually settling on The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett.
If e-ink is something that interests you, i would thouroughly reccomend you download the apk (found here) and give it a go. Though designed for e-ink displays, the app only benefits from this on regular LEDs with a clean and sharp interface.
This clean interface was one of the reasons I completely disregarded the default e-reader app and went straight to launching KOreader. Yhe UI works well, and browsing your library is enjoyable, with a variety
Being new to the EPUB format I found changing the font a nice novelty l, eventually mostly using the default sans serif. Making highlights is easy, something I was always hesitant to do in physical books. Some features I've seen listed but can't personally attest to are syncing highlights and the dictionaries, things I'll probably try one of these days.
Anki was somehing always in my periphery whilst going down the learning productivity rabbithole -primarily from Livakivi, one of my favourite youtubers - yet I'd never tried to implement it until I saw this video by Reysu.
Until then I never considered using anki for general info retainment, this led to me using it for French at school after some exploring of its features. The ability to sync flashcards between my phone, palma and laptop makes daily study viable no matter what device is in my vicinity. It also provides a nice repository of easily accessible knowledge when I inevitably need to cram the night before a test.
I convert my handwritten notes to flashcards on my phone, or from powerpoints on my laptop, thens usually review them on the palma. The scheduling of which cards to revise based on your own assesment of your ability results in an effective knowledge learning app.
The default launcher is noisy and unappealing to my ideals of this device (digital minimalism). It fails to move away from the wall of pigeonholed apps that clamour for your attention, and any app's default icon looks terrible on the black and white e-ink.
As I do when I'm trying to outwardly project digital minimalismI turned to one of my favourite features of Android and simply downloaded the Olauncher APK.
Olauncher is a great text based launcher for those looking for a minimilistic home screen experience, coupled with some gestures and more. There is a premium version, but all the core features are available on the free one.
As I stated in the opening, the Boox Palma has seen a surge in popularity.
It's probably just algorithms feeding off my searches, but more and tech blogs and youtubers seem to be pushing not only this device but the whole technology at their audiences.
This has been an E-ink gateway drug for me, or-so-to-speak, and I look forward to seeing the technology grow. There are other devices like this, such as the moann inkpalm and Hisense touch, as well a e-ink emulating lcds suchs TCL's nxtpaper phones and tablets and I'm confident they'll provide some nice competition for Onyx - hopefully they make the third iteration of this device with cellular.