Review: Moaan InkPalm Plus is weird, cheap, small, and my kind of e-reader

After using the cheapest e-Reader for over a decade (Kindle 2 until support ended, Kindle 3 until the same) I finally upgraded to the top Oasis and love it. Things that are absolutely essential IMO are

- physical page turn buttons. the touch screens are finicky, inconvenient for one-hand use, and impossible if i want to keep my hand up a blanket or something

- back/front light, with adjustable color temp, and an actual dim setting that doesn't blow your retinas out

everything i don't care about. but these are must haves.

I personally have Hisense A9, with LineageOS 21, and man, it is just the most comfy device I have had.

Let's see.. Reading is absolutely top tier with KOReader + volume buttons as page turning. Being able to play idle games like Kittens Game, also extremely pleasant. Maps outside? Amazing. As a phone, in Europe at least? Also works. Battery life, is pretty comfy, when I mainly read. And, the specs are decent. 4/6/8GB, 128GB/256GB ROM RAM options (personally I had gone with 6/128 option, because 8/256 was a bit too expensive)

The only minor flaws... well, the camera is not the greatest... (My old OnePlus 6 makes much better photos, as I keep it as backup device, just in case. And for e.g youtube or color content on the go. Just... things that A9 is not exactly the way to go with.) And just lack of microSD card slot.

And on side note, I just adore how simple, and elegant the design on the phone itself is. It just... is. Quiet, simple, unlike most of the modern phones with their.. loud... everything, like notches, too many cameras and such. (Note, its just opinion, just because they have such designs, that doesn't meant they are bad. For others that can be a gooood thing.) (I also like Sony's phones designs, they cute)

And in general.. I just love e-ink. Truly blessed technology, as a user.

I have a Palma (they sent for review) and I think it's great, though I agree it probably isn't worth the price for most.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/03/boox-ereaders-poke-5-palma...

But the text looks good, the light is nice, and you can even install apps that aren't too demanding - a crossword or something.

I've found that even a Clara HD or BW (the latest version) can be a bit bulky when you're going out with no bag, but the Palma fits in any jeans or jacket pocket and is excellent to have when you find yourself with 20 minutes to wait and no desire to doomscroll. I hope these things get more popular and accessible.

I keep this reader in my small bag that I use daily. I use it at the park at the kids and at bedtime. It is a great device with a bit of tweaking.

And I have a GitHub repo over here about it.

https://github.com/philips/inkpalm-5-adb-english

Postponing any of my e-reader purchases until the Daylight Computer tech would reshape the market

https://daylightcomputer.com/

Looking at that picture of the narrow column of text with so many very badly spaced lines of two or three words each firstly gives me flashback of my days in newspaper production and secondly makes me hope it has a landscape view option. Making the type smaller might help, but there's a reason most books don't look like that.

Ever since I stopped having a public transit commute to work, I have basically stopped reading. I have a Kobo Libra H2O but have been struggling to make it part of my daily routine. It sits on my nightstand, but I often end up staying up late and only going to bed when it's time to sleep.

One thing I do do a lot of, though, is waste time browsing Lemmy/Twitter on my phone, because I always have it in my pocket. I bought a Moaan InkPalm Pro in the hopes of replacing the habit with book reading, and it definitely worked. It's so light that I just keep it in my pocket together with my phone, and whenever I feel like filling up some downtime I pull that out instead of my phone.

The battery lasts 1 week+, it has customizable warm/cool front lighting, it can run all Android ebook reading apps (so I can read all my Kindle/Kobo purchases), and it can always be on me. It's the happiest I've been with an ebook reader since I got my first Kindle back in 2009.

I'm looking forward very much to the day a manufacturer begins selling eink handsets and tablets with up-to-date OS/security (Android 14 in this context), GPL compliance, and telemetry compliant with US law/privacy concerns.

The Boox devices get a lot of things right, including the Palma. I wound up with a reMarkable due to the above concerns, but it feels like we are on the cusp of seeing tentative eink products from Google or Apple.

I like the form factor (I'm also an iPhone mini fan), but I don't like the way it makes the justified text look. There are so few words per line that you either end up with big gaps between words (justified) or a very ragged right edge (left-aligned). This would be less of an issue if the text were sized down, but it's a necessary consequence of having a narrow screen.

I got the meebook m6 and I love it. Stripped down Android os installed, I can bring on kormega? reader, and eink.

I wonder if anyone is running einkbro (https://github.com/plateaukao/einkbro) on this thing. Scrolling long-form web content in slow-refreshing eInk displays is jarring. I wish the browsers in other non-android readers like Kindle Scribe had the option to map pageUp/pageDown behaviour to a button or a page flip gesture similar to einkbro or maybe there's a way to overlay a button to do this on any web content somehow?

As a general rule, I don’t like small eReaders (for which my primary experience is my phone). I find I read much less when using them, because the act of turning a page tricks my brain into thinking I’ve made more progress than I have. Consequently, it makes even short reading sessions feel like a chore.

That said, I think I would love this thing for one very specific use case: backpacking! Space is always at a premium, and I’ve long lamented the Kobo Mini never got a frontlit model.

Hmm does the OP read so much on the go?

When I'm out I'll make do with my phone. When I'm home I'd rather use something larger.

~5 words per line would drive me insane.

Random e-reader tip: stick some sort of pop-socket thing on the back of the reader so that it "grips your hand" while reading. Then you don't have to "hold" the book/kindle, you just place/maneuver it.

See "love handle" for something similar / in the ballpark (phone elastic strap), as I don't remember the actual brand that I ended up buying.

Everybody thinks of using them for their phones, but I've rarely seen them suggested/used for e-readers where I think they make a ton on sense!

...back on topic: $95 for an e-ink android thingy? Have I found the proper device for junky home assistant dashboards / control panels? Still it'd be great to figure out mounting, magnetic charging, or direct-wire power, as if you were thinking of a detachable replacement for alarm-system pads, managing device battery can be a real hassle for long-term (years) usage.

I owned ereaders for a while (had the first Kindle) but I ended up going back to my phone for reading books in the end. One device, less charging, less things to remember. The Kobo app works great now it’s matured, and everything is super snappy and responsive.

Leading into OT... but does anyone have suggestions for the opposite of this. I would like a large eReader, where the text for say a paperback can be scaled to 8.5x11" size, or similarly reading a technical book at equivalent to print size.

I daily the InkPalm for reading. It replaced my Kindle given its pocketable size. I still run the Kindle app on it and it works well without page turn animation. I am curious to see new eink development when the eink pattern expires.

I'd like a see clamsell foldable with eink inside and a small oled screen outside as camera view finder and occasional video watching. Or bring back Yota phone.

Srsly, just buy a 4th gen Kindle on Ebay.

They're around $70 USD un-opened/new and around $35 USD used atm, have physical buttons, and are lighter/thinner than later-gen Kindles. Hell, they're even lighter with the added weight of a cheap clip-on book-light than later-gen Kindles.

Bonus, since they're so old, they no longer use the ad network so no ads, but you can still buy and download from the Amazon marketplace or upload your own e-books.

i got a hisense hi reader pro and it's nearly good enough to be an e-ink android phone. as a reader, it's near perfect - pocket sized while having a good aspect ratio for reading. battery lasts for a week.

I definitely get the emergence of eink on phone form factor for various activities but... as a dedicated ereader? the tall form factor just feels a horrible for long read ergonomics.

anyone else using a PocketBook Verse? mainly wondering if others have done interesting things except for using it as an eReader.

Line length is too short for a comfortable reading. Author may haven’t noticed, but he will feel this issue pretty quickly.

this post made me go down a rabbit hole trying to find where I can buy this it seems the only place is AliExpress.

The alternative seems to be the boox Palma but it's 300 bucks compared to 100.

I'm currently using the 13 inch boox lumi or something. Happy daily user for 6 years. Kind of want a pocket device though

what is a good light device for taking notes about programming projects while on the go?

The TLDR of these kinds of devices: great for reading/text, terrible for video and scrolling. Love mine, here's a video of me using a similar device with lots of common android apps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvO9ScTdwz8

This trend of phone shaped e-readers is just so redundant. Phones already have amazing screens that are perfect for reading despite not being e-ink.

The only argument people make is that you separate your reading from your phoning and it's a weak take that feels like a capitalistic trend to just justify buying more gadgets.

This thing sounds like an absolutely massive piece of shit.

Chinese characters, glossy screen, slow refresh, and on and on and on.

Good thing it was cheap!