BOOX has long demonstrated that e-ink technology can be used for much more than simply creating Kindle alternatives, and its latest release is probably one of the most intriguing examples. The new BOOX Picco is a tiny e-ink reader with a screen of just 3,97 inches and weighing only 58 grams—practically the size of a credit card. It's also the first member of BOOX Tiles , a new family of e-readers with which the company intends to experiment with different formats. The idea behind Picco is simple: to always have a book literally in your pocket and take advantage of those five or ten spare minutes of the day to read instead of ending up, almost by inertia, scrolling on your phone.
Its monochrome e-ink screen offers a pixel density of 235 ppi and features adjustable front lighting with adjustable intensity and color temperature. This isn't the device you'd likely want to read a novel on for four hours straight, but that doesn't seem to be its intention. Picco is designed for short reading sessions and to accompany you everywhere. It even comes with a magnetic case that allows you to attach it to the back of your smartphone . It combines touch controls with physical buttons for page turning, while a sensor allows you to automatically rotate the interface in four directions. BOOX has also adapted its software to the screen's unusual size, allowing you to modify fonts, margins, line spacing, and text size. It also includes a 16 GB microSD card expandable up to 2 TB —a huge amount for storing books—and allows you to transfer files via the BOOX Tiles app, a web browser, or USB-C.
What's interesting is that BOOX doesn't want Picco to be just a miniature eReader. We can use our own screensavers and install tools like Pomodoro, Todo, or Countdown , turning it into a kind of small eInk panel free from the usual smartphone distractions. And that's probably its biggest appeal. It doesn't aim to replace your phone or compete directly with a traditional six- or seven-inch e-reader, but rather to occupy that awkward space between the two. Personally, the possibility of pulling out a 58-gram device while waiting for a coffee seems much more appealing to me than unlocking Instagram for the umpteenth time. BOOX Picco is already available for pre-order on the company's online store , and we'll have to see if this peculiar format manages to turn those dead minutes into a few more pages a day.