cliophate-wtf-quluwp.txt (22336B)
1 [1]cliophate.wtf [2]Reading [3]About [4]Now 2 3 [5]Review: The Boox Palma is the best purchase I've made in a long time 4 5 [palma-head] 6 7 [6]The Boox Palma might be the best purchase of the year so far. Maybe even of 8 last year. (And I bought a motorcycle last year!) 9 10 When I first saw this [7]device from Craig Mod, I didn't think I'd end up 11 loving it so much. It is, after all, just a phone-sized Kindle with access to 12 an Android store that costs $299. What I didn't expect is that this is 13 precisely what makes it such a fantastic device. A few weeks in, it has become 14 the device I use the most day by day—yes, even more than my phone. 15 16 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 17 18 The Boox Palma is an Android-based E-Reader with a 6.13" e-ink screen. It has 19 128 GB of integrated memory and a microSD slot (for comparison, my Kindle has 20 8GB), a 16-megapixel camera I have and never will use, a two-speaker array, a 21 microphone, volume buttons you can configure as page-turn buttons, USB-C 22 connectivity, fantastic battery life (I use it heavily and charge it once a 23 week), and a water-repellent design. However, I couldn't find its IP rating. 24 25 The screen is significantly smaller than my Kindle Paperwhite but has much 26 smaller bezels. It is also narrower but taller than the Kindle. It is clearly a 27 phone-shaped and phone-sized device. This is both its curse and its blessing. 28 Depending on your font settings, it fits much less text on one screen than a 29 larger E-Reader. But on the other hand, you can easily fit it into the back 30 pockets of jeans, and it won't feel comically large. 31 32 [palma-kind] 33 Comparing the devices side-by-side showcases the differences in size. 34 35 The screen on the Palma has warmer backlighting than that of a Kindle 36 Paperwhite. When the lights are off, it isn't as "white" as the Kindle. (The 37 Kindle is called Paperwhite for a reason.) It has a slight greyish undertone 38 that reminds me more of books made out of recycled paper than high-quality art 39 books. I prefer the Kindle's more astonishing screen and backlighting in 40 general, but it isn't a dealbreaker and only really obvious if you put both 41 devices side-by-side. 42 43 [palma-kind] 44 The Kindle Paperwhite's backlighting looks "cleaner". 45 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 46 47 The Palma runs Android 11 and has access to all your typical Android apps 48 available through the Play Store or that you sideload. While it isn't the 49 newest version of Android (we're currently on Android 14), I have yet to run 50 into any compatibility issues. Most apps you want to start on this device don't 51 need any newer versions of the OS. 52 53 Here is what apps I use, and they've all been great: 54 55 • [8]KOReader is my book reader of choice. It's heavily customizable and 56 powerful but doesn't get in your way. I find it much easier to use than 57 Moon+, for example. It's also miles better than any of the major apps like 58 Kindle or Kobo. More below. 59 • [9]Readwise Reader is my reading-later app of choice. I've customized the 60 experience, deactivating animation and changing how the app works to better 61 suit e-ink screens. (Ping me if you want to know more.) 62 • [10]Anki is how I currently learn Japanese. If you know Anki, you know how 63 great this app is, and I can tell you it works perfectly on an e-ink 64 screen. 65 • [11]Shueisha Manga Plus is where I find nearly all of the manga I am 66 currently interested in. I must admit that the screen might be a tad small, 67 and a coloured LCD might be a better experience, thanks to better 68 contrasts, even though most manga are in black and white. 69 70 Boox also heavily customized the OS. You won't find any of the typical Google 71 apps like Gmail or YouTube on this thing. Of course, you can download them from 72 the Play Store, but there's not one situation where I can imagine this to be 73 even remotely a good experience. The only one I downloaded is the Google's 74 alarm app and the Files app, as I didn't like Boox's version. 75 76 [palma-enha] 77 78 Boox also added dedicated settings to configure any app to your liking. This is 79 especially useful for apps that were not made for e-ink screens. Here, you can 80 customize refresh modes, change colour enhancements, hard-overwrite font 81 settings, and more. The Boox also has a dedicated button to refresh the screen 82 and get rid of ghosting typical of e-ink displays. 83 84 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 85 86 KOReader is the killer app 87 88 If you've ever tried [12]jailbreaking your Kindle, you might be familiar with 89 KOReader. It's the app hacked Kindles run to read books. Thankfully, on 90 Android, you don't need to jailbreak anything; you can simply download the app 91 from your browser and install it that way. 92 93 KOReader is a beast. It does everything and then some. Just to make it obvious, 94 you can write your own custom CSS so that books look exactly how you want them. 95 96 [palma-font] 97 These are the best settings I could find for the typography. 98 99 I did not do that, though I customized books to my liking. First, I installed 100 my reading font of choice: [13]Literata. (I'd like to try [14]Untitled Serif, 101 but that's a tad expensive, not knowing how it fares on e-ink displays.) 102 103 Then, I changed the font size, line heights, kernings, and margins to my 104 liking, installed [15]dictionaries, and customized the overall UI around books. 105 (Side note: the Boox Palma has an app called BooxDrop that allows you to 106 connect your Palma to your computer via a web link. Here, you can drag and drop 107 files wherever you want. This app is excellent, and I wish every other device 108 I've ever interacted with would have a version of this.) 109 110 [palma-dict] 111 You can install whatever dictionary you want. 112 113 I've also set up a [16]direct link to Calibre, where I manage all of my books. 114 So, whenever I get a new book and add it to Calibre, I can open KOReader on the 115 Palma, connect it to my library and "download" books directly from Calibre to 116 the device. I did the same with Readwise for my highlights since there is a 117 setting just for that. So whenever I highlight something in a book and trigger 118 the sync, KOReader sends it to Readwise via an API key. 119 120 What I have now is an incredibly powerful reading experience that is set up 121 exactly how I want. It is much more work than setting up a Kindle at first, but 122 by investing 30 minutes of my time, I created the perfect reading environment 123 that is miles better than anything the Kindle ever offers. I'm sorry, Jeff, but 124 I'm not coming back. 125 126 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 127 128 Some unexpected experiences 129 130 The Palma, running on Android, allowed me to do a few things I didn't think of 131 when I first ordered it. For one, it banned the iPhone from my bedroom. 132 133 I am lucky to have enough self-control never to use my phone in the bedroom. I 134 don't scroll TikTok or any timelines or chat with people when I'm in bed. I've 135 only ever used it as an alarm clock. 136 137 So, banning the iPhone from my bedroom doesn't change anything for me, except 138 that it's not the first thing I grab when I wake up. While I don't use the 139 phone when I'm trying to sleep, I open my notifications to see if anyone has 140 tried to reach me. And from there, it's too easy to fall into the trap of 141 checking website statistics, work emails, or what's going on on Discord. 142 143 So I downloaded the Google Clock app (the default one; if you have other 144 suggestions, please get in touch), added my alarms, and now use the Palma as an 145 e-ink-powered bedside alarm. 146 147 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 148 [palma-anki] 149 Well, I do like sports. 150 151 Another use case I mentioned above is my Japanese studies. I'm working my way 152 through an Anki vocabulary deck, and so far, I have been doing so on the 153 iPhone. But since I use the Palma more than my smartphone nowadays, I moved my 154 studies to the Palma. 155 156 And it's a good experience: all my decks have integrated audio clips (to nail 157 the pronunciation), and the Palma plays them perfectly. There is not much to 158 say besides it just works. 159 160 Make it a phone, please 161 162 I'm still dependent on my phone for most parts. But I've only been using the 163 Palma for a few weeks, and it has replaced my phone for a few critical tasks. 164 165 [palma-slot] 166 What looks like a SIM-card slot is a microSD slot. 167 168 This made me realize that if the Palma had cellphone connectivity and maybe a 169 newer version of Android, it might turn into my day phone. 170 171 If I boil down what I do on my iPhone on a daily basis — except checking 172 timelines and multimedia content — there's not much the Palma can't do: stay in 173 touch with my loved ones through chat apps, look up stuff on a browser or an AI 174 tool (mostly Perplexity), listen to music and podcasts, and track my gym and my 175 food. All of this works on the Palma right now, as long as I'm connected to 176 wi-fi. 177 178 Sure, I do much more on my iPhone, like run a business, consume content, do 179 banking stuff, take notes, take pictures, take videos, play games, and much 180 more. But I don't do that daily. 181 182 So, while the Palma could never fully replace the phone, it could complement it 183 in ways that might give me my sanity back. I fully understand Gen Z for 184 (apparently, the data is a bit meh) [17]embracing dumb phones. While I wouldn't 185 go as far — and a connected Palma is anything but dumb — I could see myself 186 fully adopting this two-device lifestyle. 187 188 Alas, for now, there is no such device. But I still wholeheartedly recommend 189 [18]the Boox Palma. At $299, it might be twice as expensive as your typical 190 Kindle, but it does more than twice as much, and I love mine! 191 192 Though one (unfortunate?) consequence of owning the Palma: I'm wondering [19]if 193 a Note Air 3C could replace my iPad. 194 195 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 196 197 NB: If you buy any of the Boox devices, I might receive a small commission 198 thanks to an affiliate link. 199 200 [20]Technology 201 202 What's next? 203 204 Subscribe to the [21]RSS feed or via [22]email. Follow me on [23]weird social 205 media 1 or [24]weird social media 2. Something you want to tell or show me? 206 [25]Get in touch. And if you are into video games, check out [26]my other 207 project. 208 209 2024 April 210 211 [27] 212 213 Review: The Boox Palma is the best purchase I've made in a long time 214 215 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 216 217 16th 218 219 [28] 220 221 The first book on the Boox Palma 222 223 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 224 225 14th 226 227 [29] 228 229 I made a knife 230 231 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 232 233 3rd 234 235 March 236 237 [30] 238 239 Fixing Mastodon 240 241 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 242 243 17th 244 245 February 246 247 [31] 248 249 Some thoughts on online monetization 250 251 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 252 253 13th 254 255 [32] 256 257 Some changes on cliophate.wtf 258 259 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 260 261 12th 262 263 [33] 264 265 More Magic: The Gathering adventures 266 267 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 268 269 9th 270 271 [34] 272 273 On Arc Search 274 275 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 276 277 7th 278 279 [35] 280 281 Show me your RSS feeds, and I will tell you who you are 282 283 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 284 285 5th 286 287 [36] 288 289 My first Magic: The Gathering event 290 291 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 292 293 4th 294 295 January 296 297 [37] 298 299 My latest fascination 300 301 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 302 303 31st 304 305 [38] 306 307 I bought fancy perfume 308 309 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 310 311 10th 312 313 [39] 314 315 Read: Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami 316 317 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 318 319 10th 320 321 [40] 322 323 Read: Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod 324 325 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 326 327 2nd 328 329 2023 December 330 331 [41] 332 333 The 10 best things I bought this year 334 335 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 336 337 18th 338 339 [42] 340 341 I started playing Magic: The Gathering 342 343 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 344 345 13th 346 347 [43] 348 349 A perfect day 350 351 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 352 353 12th 354 355 [44] 356 357 Twelve (mostly) truths on money 358 359 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 360 361 11th 362 363 [45] 364 365 How to meditate 366 367 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 368 369 8th 370 371 [46] 372 373 Make good art 374 375 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 376 377 7th 378 379 [47] 380 381 How to be a better writer (part 2) 382 383 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 384 385 6th 386 387 [48] 388 389 I automated my money 390 391 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 392 393 5th 394 395 [49] 396 397 When life gets tough 398 399 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 400 401 4th 402 403 [50] 404 405 How to read more 406 407 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 408 409 1st 410 411 November 412 413 [51] 414 415 How to be a better writer 416 417 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 418 419 30th 420 421 [52] 422 423 The Shaman with the bank account 424 425 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 426 427 29th 428 429 [53] 430 431 14 writing prompts for your daily journaling 432 433 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 434 435 27th 436 437 [54] 438 439 32 things I learned this past year 440 441 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 442 443 27th 444 445 [55] 446 447 A few blog recommendations 448 449 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 450 451 26th 452 453 [56] 454 455 My Exercise Program 456 457 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 458 459 24th 460 461 [57] 462 463 Default Apps 464 465 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 466 467 23rd 468 469 470 References: 471 472 [1] https://cliophate.wtf/ 473 [2] https://cliophate.wtf/reading 474 [3] https://cliophate.wtf/about 475 [4] https://cliophate.wtf/now 476 [5] https://cliophate.wtf/ 477 [6] https://shop.boox.com/products/palma?ref=overkillwtf 478 [7] https://www.threads.net/@craigmod/post/C36xcJCSK8U 479 [8] https://github.com/koreader/koreader 480 [9] https://readwise.io/read 481 [10] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ 482 [11] https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/updates 483 [12] https://github.com/notmarek/LanguageBreak 484 [13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literata 485 [14] https://klim.co.nz/retail-fonts/untitled-serif/ 486 [15] https://github.com/ahacop/websters-dict-1913-stardict 487 [16] https://koreader.rocks/user_guide/#transferring 488 [17] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-dumbphone-boom-is-real 489 [18] https://shop.boox.com/products/palma?ref=overkillwtf 490 [19] https://shop.boox.com/collections/all/products/noteair3 491 [20] https://cliophate.wtf/topic:Technology 492 [21] https://cliophate.wtf/feed 493 [22] https://buttondown.email/cliophate 494 [23] https://overkill.social/@cliophate 495 [24] https://www.threads.net/@cliophate 496 [25] mailto:[email protected] 497 [26] https://overkill.wtf/ 498 [27] https://cliophate.wtf/boox-palma-review 499 [28] https://cliophate.wtf/palma-book 500 [29] https://cliophate.wtf/knife-workshop 501 [30] https://cliophate.wtf/fixing-mastodon 502 [31] https://cliophate.wtf/online-monetization 503 [32] https://cliophate.wtf/some-changes 504 [33] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-decks 505 [34] https://cliophate.wtf/arc-search 506 [35] https://cliophate.wtf/rss-horoscope 507 [36] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-draft 508 [37] https://cliophate.wtf/keebs 509 [38] https://cliophate.wtf/noir-de-noir 510 [39] https://cliophate.wtf/read-naav 511 [40] https://cliophate.wtf/read-tbot 512 [41] https://cliophate.wtf/best-things-2023 513 [42] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-start 514 [43] https://cliophate.wtf/perfect-day 515 [44] https://cliophate.wtf/money-truths 516 [45] https://cliophate.wtf/on-meditation 517 [46] https://cliophate.wtf/good-art 518 [47] https://cliophate.wtf/on-writing-part-2 519 [48] https://cliophate.wtf/automated-money 520 [49] https://cliophate.wtf/life-tough 521 [50] https://cliophate.wtf/read-more 522 [51] https://cliophate.wtf/on-writing 523 [52] https://cliophate.wtf/shaman 524 [53] https://cliophate.wtf/journaling-prompts 525 [54] https://cliophate.wtf/lessons-learned 526 [55] https://cliophate.wtf/blog-recommendations 527 [56] https://cliophate.wtf/exercise 528 [57] https://cliophate.wtf/default-apps