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After I first reviewed the Boox Palma e-reader, I known as it the perfect answer to your doomscrolling behavior—a tool as transportable and pocketable as a telephone, with an adaptable Android working system that lets you run any apps you need, however with an e-ink display screen that’s each simpler on the eyes and never almost as stimulating to stare at as your smartphone’s LED show. Weirdly, by trying like a smartphone however feeling just a bit bit worse to make use of (complimentary), this little gadget helped me smash my 2025 studying purpose in fewer than six months.
However doomscrolling isn’t a mobile-only drawback (at the least, not for me)—it’s simply as straightforward to get sucked into the most recent political outrage once I’m scrolling Bluesky on my laptop computer by way of my internet browser, by no means thoughts that I am imagined to be writing. So I made a decision to take a cue from the Boox followers on Reddit and discover reworking my Palma into an on-the-go productiveness gadget: a espresso shop-friendly phrase processor that wouldn’t go away me pretending to work whereas I used to be actually scrolling social media or wandering down one other Wiki-hole.
To place it to the take a look at, I made a decision I might write up my findings on the Palma itself—sure, I wrote this whole article on an e-reader.
Find out how to flip your Boox Palma (or different Android e-reader) right into a mini-word processor
As a result of the Palma runs on an open model of Android, utilizing it as a substitute in your laptop computer is so simple as connecting a Bluetooth keyboard. (Whereas the Palma is my favourite e-reader, you should utilize the same setup on any open Android e-ink gadget—not simply these from Boox, just like the Word Air 4C and Word Max, but additionally from rivals like Bigme and Hisense.) Within the curiosity of holding my setup as svelte and transportable as doable, I opted for the iClever BK08, a slim foldable that, when saved, is roughly the scale and thickness of the Palma itself. It even has a trackpad and comes with just a little material carrying case that has sufficient room to suit my favourite little e-reader. (Annoyingly, it doesn’t match the little foldable stand that comes with the keyboard.)
Credit score: Joel Cunningham
Getting it arrange was merely a matter of enabling Bluetooth on my Palma, placing the keyboard in pairing mode, and opening up Google Docs. (Nicely, and likewise spending 5 minutes on the lookout for the setting to disable the onscreen keyboard when a bodily keyboard is hooked up.)
To do that on the Palma, you will want to enter the system-level Settings app, scroll to Extra Settings, then faucet Language and Enter. Faucet Present and choose ONYX Keyboard as your default. Subsequent, join the keyboard by way of Bluetooth, open your Google Doc, and faucet on the display screen to convey up the onscreen keyboard. Faucet the settings icon (it appears to be like like a hexagon with a gap within the heart) after which Change Keyboard. Flip the slider subsequent to Present digital keyboard to off. (These instructions will clearly differ should you’re utilizing a special Android-based e-reader, just like the Bigme B751C, which I’ve but to check out.)
With this achieved, you are all set to start treating your e-reader like a teeny tiny laptop computer.
What it is like to write down on the Boox Palma
If you happen to’ve ever tried to seek for one thing in your Kindle utilizing the clunky onscreen keyboard, you could be anticipating the expertise of typing onto an e-ink display screen could be the same train in frustration. I had my very own doubts, given I wasn’t thrilled with the efficiency of Boox’s personal keyboard dock for the Word Max pill I examined final yr. However the iClever keyboard impressed me–the construct high quality feels good, it is small however not unreasonably so for shorter writing periods, and it even has a small touch-sensitive trackpad that allowed me to click on round inside Google Docs (although to be sincere, simply utilizing the contact display screen is quicker and simpler).
What do you assume up to now?
Efficiency-wise, I seen no vital delay between urgent the keys and the characters showing on the display screen. To be truthful, this doubtless has much less to do with the keyboard (which is a sturdy little gadget, and enjoyable to fold and unfold, however doubtless any Bluetooth keyboard will carry out equally) and extra to do with Boox’s speedy refresh modes, which do their darnedest to make the Palma’s e-ink display screen as responsive because the LED in your smartphone. Do they get there? Kinda. Ish. If you happen to put the Palma in “pace” mode, you’ll be able to watch YouTube on the Palma and virtually make out what’s taking place onscreen. However typing is means much less graphically intense, and as a phrase processor, this little e-reader is as speedy as you want it to be.
The setup is nice for writing with out distractions: No intrusive notifications, no new tabs to click on away to only for a second. Relying on the way you configure your settings, the smaller show may imply you will solely see a number of strains of textual content at any given time, which could be a boon should you’re the sort of one that will get caught up in obsessive on-the-fly modifying: You can shortly get the phrases out, and go away the revisions for later, while you’re again in entrance of a “actual” pc.
The most important hiccup I skilled had nothing to do with the keyboard in any respect. For some cause, the Palma didn’t need to play good with the free wifi at Starbucks. I might connect with it, however the popup menu the place you conform to the phrases of use saved crashing earlier than I might enter my e-mail deal with and click on “agree.” One might argue it is a function and never a bug—you’ll be able to’t waste time on-line should you can’t get on-line—however I additionally wasn’t capable of again up my writing to the cloud with out connecting to my iPhone’s hotspot.
The underside line
As enjoyable and useful as I discovered this setup, I’m not suggesting you toss out your laptop computer in favor of an e-reader—full disclosure, I didn’t edit and insert the pictures into this assessment utilizing the Palma, and I didn’t even hassle making an attempt to attach it to the Lifehacker CMS. However should you simply need to be left alone with a blinking cursor, it’s sort of ideally suited. I wrote the previous 1,000 phrases roughly in a single go, with out navigating away from Google Docs to test my e-mail or reply to texts or a notification from Instagram, which is, er, not my common workflow (nobody inform my boss; I’m excellent at staying on activity, I swear).
