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This ePaper e-reader is made to be the ideal device for distraction-free living, as it's meant to operate in the middle-ground between tech and life.
"Hello everyone and welcome to another Gamereactor Quick Look.
I've been wanting to get into reading for a long time now, years now, actually almost like a decade."
"I used to read more when I was in the beginning of my 20s, it was part of my university degree that I just read a lot of books, but ever since I got kids I feel like that between listening to music and podcasts, learning Icelandic, which I'm currently in the process of doing, playing games, which is part of my job and also something I enjoy, watching TV series and movies, there's just a lot to do."
"So reading is not something that I've been able to sort of just wrap my head around.
And part of the reason why people get back into things is if barriers to entry are demolished or it's made easier.
And that is one of the reasons why people get e-readers from Kindle, for instance."
"But what if these Kindles are too big, they're too cumbersome, they don't fit in a pocket?
Well, this is the Palma II from Books, B-O-O-X, and this is an e-reader which takes the guise of a smartphone.
Now this means that it looks like a smartphone, which to some people is probably going to be a turnoff, but it also means that it fits in a back pocket or jacket pocket or even a shirt pocket if you've got a nice deep one."
"Point is, you'll be able to bring this into scenarios where you probably normally wouldn't carry a Kindle or something like that, which I think makes a lot of sense.
There are also other upsides to the Books Palma II, but that is definitely one of them.
And thanks to this, well, mostly also because I had to test it, I've been reading a book which I really enjoy."
"So what I do now or during the testing period, every time the lights are turned off, my girlfriend wants to sleep, I leave my bed light on for a little while and then I read some of the Night Lord's Omnibus, which is a Warhammer 40K novel that I've been trying to get into, and so far I'm actually succeeding."
"Now the Books Palma II is smartphone shaped.
It is an A24 by 1648 E-Ink Carta 1200 display.
It is an E-Ink display, which basically means there is very little to the way of backlight.
That also means that it is way better for your eyes to basically calm down after being exposed to so much direct blue light, which, well, in some cases can really mess with your body's natural clock, meaning that if you sit with your smartphone in your face right up until the moment where you have to sleep, you may find that to be taxing or hard."
"But with natural lighting and something which doesn't emanate natural light because this is E-Ink, well, then it gets smoother.
And I've just experienced a better way of getting into a sort of sleeping mood.
That is really nice."
"It has a 3950, so 3950 milliamp hour battery, which will last you weeks because the thing about E-Ink displays is that they only really change power when they change shape, meaning as it stands right here with this static text, it basically consumes no power at all.
So if you use it every now and again to read, well, that's it."
"Now there is a couple of things with the Books Palma that is a bit weird, and I'm going to tell you about that.
The first thing is that this looks like a smartphone.
I should state that I am not inherently vague, or vain, I should say, but I do care to some degree how I am perceived."
"And not a bad word to any boomers out there that sit with their smartphones in these book style covers, you know, all power to you.
But when you look at this, you don't rarely see a young person.
These are made for..."
"My mom has this, my dad has these.
They usually have their cards and whatever things inside here, and that's totally fine.
They like the extra protection.
Young people rarely have that."
"When I'm sitting here and I'm reading, you don't know that I'm sitting with an e-reader, if I'm sitting on a park bench or whatever.
So I'm sitting there looking a little bit like a senior in this particular regard because you can't see that this is an e-reader because in order to slim it down to make it more compact, you've sacrificed the look of an e-reader towards a look of an ancient smartphone."
"This is a big of a thick smartphone, and inside this book style cover, it does look something like my mom would carry, which again, isn't a particular problem.
I just found it a bit funny that by changing the form factor, you're also changing the way in which the device is perceived."
"The second thing which is a bit weird is that this e-reader has Android.
I found a couple of reviews where people say that it was actually quite nice to play mobile game X and Y, and I read that and I was like, why would you play mobile games on this?
Sure, it outperforms in snappiness for an e-reader display, but surely you carry a smartphone that could do that."
"Why would you have Android here?
There is a couple of things which make sense.
There's a rear-mounted camera here that, for instance, books say is for scanning documents.
That makes sense."
"We stay in the analog world, but who downloads apps from the Google Play Store on this thing?
I don't know.
It might be so that people can gain access to different kinds of book libraries or apps where you can naturally pick up e-books."
"That is a good point I just thought of, but still seems weird to have Android and not just have a wide curated array of apps that are made and corrected and done well by books to give you that more streamlined experience.
Still, what I can say is that the Books Palma 2 is pretty unique."
"No other e-reader has this form factor.
If you're thinking, small e-reader, that's cool, then this is it, and it's pretty good, but I want to see a more streamlined version of it.
See you on the next one."
