diff --git a/content/journal/dispatch-15-may-2024/index.md b/content/journal/dispatch-15-may-2024/index.md index 109f1df..5e0ec75 100644 --- a/content/journal/dispatch-15-may-2024/index.md +++ b/content/journal/dispatch-15-may-2024/index.md @@ -17,6 +17,10 @@ references: url: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/opinion/parenting-mistakes-joy.html date: 2024-04-17T20:41:40Z file: www-nytimes-com-kh2ijc.txt +- title: "Review: The Boox Palma is the best purchase I've made in a long time - cliophate.wtf" + url: https://cliophate.wtf/posts/boox-palma-review + date: 2024-04-18T14:01:57Z + file: cliophate-wtf-quluwp.txt --- Some thoughts here... diff --git a/static/archive/cliophate-wtf-quluwp.txt b/static/archive/cliophate-wtf-quluwp.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e1dda7 --- /dev/null +++ b/static/archive/cliophate-wtf-quluwp.txt @@ -0,0 +1,528 @@ +[1]cliophate.wtf [2]Reading [3]About [4]Now + +[5]Review: The Boox Palma is the best purchase I've made in a long time + +[palma-head] + +[6]The Boox Palma might be the best purchase of the year so far. Maybe even of +last year. (And I bought a motorcycle last year!) + +When I first saw this [7]device from Craig Mod, I didn't think I'd end up +loving it so much. It is, after all, just a phone-sized Kindle with access to +an Android store that costs $299. What I didn't expect is that this is +precisely what makes it such a fantastic device. A few weeks in, it has become +the device I use the most day by day—yes, even more than my phone. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +The Boox Palma is an Android-based E-Reader with a 6.13" e-ink screen. It has +128 GB of integrated memory and a microSD slot (for comparison, my Kindle has +8GB), a 16-megapixel camera I have and never will use, a two-speaker array, a +microphone, volume buttons you can configure as page-turn buttons, USB-C +connectivity, fantastic battery life (I use it heavily and charge it once a +week), and a water-repellent design. However, I couldn't find its IP rating. + +The screen is significantly smaller than my Kindle Paperwhite but has much +smaller bezels. It is also narrower but taller than the Kindle. It is clearly a +phone-shaped and phone-sized device. This is both its curse and its blessing. +Depending on your font settings, it fits much less text on one screen than a +larger E-Reader. But on the other hand, you can easily fit it into the back +pockets of jeans, and it won't feel comically large. + +[palma-kind] +Comparing the devices side-by-side showcases the differences in size. + +The screen on the Palma has warmer backlighting than that of a Kindle +Paperwhite. When the lights are off, it isn't as "white" as the Kindle. (The +Kindle is called Paperwhite for a reason.) It has a slight greyish undertone +that reminds me more of books made out of recycled paper than high-quality art +books. I prefer the Kindle's more astonishing screen and backlighting in +general, but it isn't a dealbreaker and only really obvious if you put both +devices side-by-side. + +[palma-kind] +The Kindle Paperwhite's backlighting looks "cleaner". +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +The Palma runs Android 11 and has access to all your typical Android apps +available through the Play Store or that you sideload. While it isn't the +newest version of Android (we're currently on Android 14), I have yet to run +into any compatibility issues. Most apps you want to start on this device don't +need any newer versions of the OS. + +Here is what apps I use, and they've all been great: + + • [8]KOReader is my book reader of choice. It's heavily customizable and + powerful but doesn't get in your way. I find it much easier to use than + Moon+, for example. It's also miles better than any of the major apps like + Kindle or Kobo. More below. + • [9]Readwise Reader is my reading-later app of choice. I've customized the + experience, deactivating animation and changing how the app works to better + suit e-ink screens. (Ping me if you want to know more.) + • [10]Anki is how I currently learn Japanese. If you know Anki, you know how + great this app is, and I can tell you it works perfectly on an e-ink + screen. + • [11]Shueisha Manga Plus is where I find nearly all of the manga I am + currently interested in. I must admit that the screen might be a tad small, + and a coloured LCD might be a better experience, thanks to better + contrasts, even though most manga are in black and white. + +Boox also heavily customized the OS. You won't find any of the typical Google +apps like Gmail or YouTube on this thing. Of course, you can download them from +the Play Store, but there's not one situation where I can imagine this to be +even remotely a good experience. The only one I downloaded is the Google's +alarm app and the Files app, as I didn't like Boox's version. + +[palma-enha] + +Boox also added dedicated settings to configure any app to your liking. This is +especially useful for apps that were not made for e-ink screens. Here, you can +customize refresh modes, change colour enhancements, hard-overwrite font +settings, and more. The Boox also has a dedicated button to refresh the screen +and get rid of ghosting typical of e-ink displays. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +KOReader is the killer app + +If you've ever tried [12]jailbreaking your Kindle, you might be familiar with +KOReader. It's the app hacked Kindles run to read books. Thankfully, on +Android, you don't need to jailbreak anything; you can simply download the app +from your browser and install it that way. + +KOReader is a beast. It does everything and then some. Just to make it obvious, +you can write your own custom CSS so that books look exactly how you want them. + +[palma-font] +These are the best settings I could find for the typography. + +I did not do that, though I customized books to my liking. First, I installed +my reading font of choice: [13]Literata. (I'd like to try [14]Untitled Serif, +but that's a tad expensive, not knowing how it fares on e-ink displays.) + +Then, I changed the font size, line heights, kernings, and margins to my +liking, installed [15]dictionaries, and customized the overall UI around books. +(Side note: the Boox Palma has an app called BooxDrop that allows you to +connect your Palma to your computer via a web link. Here, you can drag and drop +files wherever you want. This app is excellent, and I wish every other device +I've ever interacted with would have a version of this.) + +[palma-dict] +You can install whatever dictionary you want. + +I've also set up a [16]direct link to Calibre, where I manage all of my books. +So, whenever I get a new book and add it to Calibre, I can open KOReader on the +Palma, connect it to my library and "download" books directly from Calibre to +the device. I did the same with Readwise for my highlights since there is a +setting just for that. So whenever I highlight something in a book and trigger +the sync, KOReader sends it to Readwise via an API key. + +What I have now is an incredibly powerful reading experience that is set up +exactly how I want. It is much more work than setting up a Kindle at first, but +by investing 30 minutes of my time, I created the perfect reading environment +that is miles better than anything the Kindle ever offers. I'm sorry, Jeff, but +I'm not coming back. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +Some unexpected experiences + +The Palma, running on Android, allowed me to do a few things I didn't think of +when I first ordered it. For one, it banned the iPhone from my bedroom. + +I am lucky to have enough self-control never to use my phone in the bedroom. I +don't scroll TikTok or any timelines or chat with people when I'm in bed. I've +only ever used it as an alarm clock. + +So, banning the iPhone from my bedroom doesn't change anything for me, except +that it's not the first thing I grab when I wake up. While I don't use the +phone when I'm trying to sleep, I open my notifications to see if anyone has +tried to reach me. And from there, it's too easy to fall into the trap of +checking website statistics, work emails, or what's going on on Discord. + +So I downloaded the Google Clock app (the default one; if you have other +suggestions, please get in touch), added my alarms, and now use the Palma as an +e-ink-powered bedside alarm. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ +[palma-anki] +Well, I do like sports. + +Another use case I mentioned above is my Japanese studies. I'm working my way +through an Anki vocabulary deck, and so far, I have been doing so on the +iPhone. But since I use the Palma more than my smartphone nowadays, I moved my +studies to the Palma. + +And it's a good experience: all my decks have integrated audio clips (to nail +the pronunciation), and the Palma plays them perfectly. There is not much to +say besides it just works. + +Make it a phone, please + +I'm still dependent on my phone for most parts. But I've only been using the +Palma for a few weeks, and it has replaced my phone for a few critical tasks. + +[palma-slot] +What looks like a SIM-card slot is a microSD slot. + +This made me realize that if the Palma had cellphone connectivity and maybe a +newer version of Android, it might turn into my day phone. + +If I boil down what I do on my iPhone on a daily basis — except checking +timelines and multimedia content — there's not much the Palma can't do: stay in +touch with my loved ones through chat apps, look up stuff on a browser or an AI +tool (mostly Perplexity), listen to music and podcasts, and track my gym and my +food. All of this works on the Palma right now, as long as I'm connected to +wi-fi. + +Sure, I do much more on my iPhone, like run a business, consume content, do +banking stuff, take notes, take pictures, take videos, play games, and much +more. But I don't do that daily. + +So, while the Palma could never fully replace the phone, it could complement it +in ways that might give me my sanity back. I fully understand Gen Z for +(apparently, the data is a bit meh) [17]embracing dumb phones. While I wouldn't +go as far — and a connected Palma is anything but dumb — I could see myself +fully adopting this two-device lifestyle. + +Alas, for now, there is no such device. But I still wholeheartedly recommend +[18]the Boox Palma. At $299, it might be twice as expensive as your typical +Kindle, but it does more than twice as much, and I love mine! + +Though one (unfortunate?) consequence of owning the Palma: I'm wondering [19]if +a Note Air 3C could replace my iPad. + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +NB: If you buy any of the Boox devices, I might receive a small commission +thanks to an affiliate link. + +[20]Technology + +What's next? + +Subscribe to the [21]RSS feed or via [22]email. Follow me on [23]weird social +media 1 or [24]weird social media 2. Something you want to tell or show me? +[25]Get in touch. And if you are into video games, check out [26]my other +project. + +2024 April + +[27] + +Review: The Boox Palma is the best purchase I've made in a long time + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +16th + +[28] + +The first book on the Boox Palma + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +14th + +[29] + +I made a knife + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +3rd + +March + +[30] + +Fixing Mastodon + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +17th + +February + +[31] + +Some thoughts on online monetization + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +13th + +[32] + +Some changes on cliophate.wtf + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +12th + +[33] + +More Magic: The Gathering adventures + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +9th + +[34] + +On Arc Search + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +7th + +[35] + +Show me your RSS feeds, and I will tell you who you are + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +5th + +[36] + +My first Magic: The Gathering event + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +4th + +January + +[37] + +My latest fascination + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +31st + +[38] + +I bought fancy perfume + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +10th + +[39] + +Read: Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +10th + +[40] + +Read: Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +2nd + +2023 December + +[41] + +The 10 best things I bought this year + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +18th + +[42] + +I started playing Magic: The Gathering + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +13th + +[43] + +A perfect day + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +12th + +[44] + +Twelve (mostly) truths on money + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +11th + +[45] + +How to meditate + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +8th + +[46] + +Make good art + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +7th + +[47] + +How to be a better writer (part 2) + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +6th + +[48] + +I automated my money + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +5th + +[49] + +When life gets tough + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +4th + +[50] + +How to read more + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +1st + +November + +[51] + +How to be a better writer + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +30th + +[52] + +The Shaman with the bank account + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +29th + +[53] + +14 writing prompts for your daily journaling + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +27th + +[54] + +32 things I learned this past year + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +27th + +[55] + +A few blog recommendations + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +26th + +[56] + +My Exercise Program + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +24th + +[57] + +Default Apps + +━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ + +23rd + + +References: + +[1] https://cliophate.wtf/ +[2] https://cliophate.wtf/reading +[3] https://cliophate.wtf/about +[4] https://cliophate.wtf/now +[5] https://cliophate.wtf/ +[6] https://shop.boox.com/products/palma?ref=overkillwtf +[7] https://www.threads.net/@craigmod/post/C36xcJCSK8U +[8] https://github.com/koreader/koreader +[9] https://readwise.io/read +[10] https://apps.ankiweb.net/ +[11] https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/updates +[12] https://github.com/notmarek/LanguageBreak +[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literata +[14] https://klim.co.nz/retail-fonts/untitled-serif/ +[15] https://github.com/ahacop/websters-dict-1913-stardict +[16] https://koreader.rocks/user_guide/#transferring +[17] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-dumbphone-boom-is-real +[18] https://shop.boox.com/products/palma?ref=overkillwtf +[19] https://shop.boox.com/collections/all/products/noteair3 +[20] https://cliophate.wtf/topic:Technology +[21] https://cliophate.wtf/feed +[22] https://buttondown.email/cliophate +[23] https://overkill.social/@cliophate +[24] https://www.threads.net/@cliophate +[25] mailto:desk@kvn.li +[26] https://overkill.wtf/ +[27] https://cliophate.wtf/boox-palma-review +[28] https://cliophate.wtf/palma-book +[29] https://cliophate.wtf/knife-workshop +[30] https://cliophate.wtf/fixing-mastodon +[31] https://cliophate.wtf/online-monetization +[32] https://cliophate.wtf/some-changes +[33] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-decks +[34] https://cliophate.wtf/arc-search +[35] https://cliophate.wtf/rss-horoscope +[36] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-draft +[37] https://cliophate.wtf/keebs +[38] https://cliophate.wtf/noir-de-noir +[39] https://cliophate.wtf/read-naav +[40] https://cliophate.wtf/read-tbot +[41] https://cliophate.wtf/best-things-2023 +[42] https://cliophate.wtf/mtg-start +[43] https://cliophate.wtf/perfect-day +[44] https://cliophate.wtf/money-truths +[45] https://cliophate.wtf/on-meditation +[46] https://cliophate.wtf/good-art +[47] https://cliophate.wtf/on-writing-part-2 +[48] https://cliophate.wtf/automated-money +[49] https://cliophate.wtf/life-tough +[50] https://cliophate.wtf/read-more +[51] https://cliophate.wtf/on-writing +[52] https://cliophate.wtf/shaman +[53] https://cliophate.wtf/journaling-prompts +[54] https://cliophate.wtf/lessons-learned +[55] https://cliophate.wtf/blog-recommendations +[56] https://cliophate.wtf/exercise +[57] https://cliophate.wtf/default-apps