Onyx, the company behind the BOOX line of E Ink devices, has teased the BOOX Picco, an ultra-compact e-reader with a 3.97-inch screen. Its smallest model so far has been roughly the size of a smartphone, but the Picco goes a step smaller and arrives as the first product in a newly created category called BOOX Tile. Most of the specifications remain under wraps.

Noticeably Smaller Than a Phone at 3.97 Inches

So far Onyx has confirmed only three hardware details, plus one intention: a 3.97-inch monochrome E Ink panel, a front light, a microSD card slot, and an accessible price point. Nothing has been said about resolution, pixel density, the processor, memory, or the operating system.

For a sense of scale, the Palma 2 series that Onyx has positioned as its compact option uses a 6.13-inch panel with 824 by 1648 pixels at 300 ppi. The higher-end Palma 2 Pro sells for 399 USD (about 63,000 yen) on Amazon in the United States, and while it does fit in a pocket, it takes up about as much room as a phone. At 3.97 inches, the Picco is clearly smaller than even today's compact smartphones.

The teaser images show a plain white body with a flat bezel and a slightly taller chin below the display. The front light means it can be read in the dark, but the panel is grayscale only, with no color layer. Books are expected to travel on a microSD card.

BOOX Tile Is a Container for Breaking Out of One Shape

The other notable part of the teaser is the new BOOX Tile product category. Onyx describes it as a bracket for ePaper devices in a variety of form factors, extending beyond traditional e-readers and handwriting-focused eNotes. The Picco is the first entry.

Read another way, Onyx is trying to free its E Ink hardware from the shape of a slab you read books on. Alongside the two pillars it has built its lineup around, reading devices and note-taking devices, it now has a third bucket with no fixed size or purpose. It may simply be that the Picco was too small to fit either existing line, but once a name like Tile is attached, it is reasonable to assume more devices are lined up behind it.

Aiming at the Budget Tier Xteink Opened Up

There is no mystery about what the Picco is up against. Over the past year or so, Xteink's pocket-sized readers have built real momentum. The recent X4 Pro measures 4.3 inches and costs 99 USD (about 16,000 yen), roughly a quarter of the Palma 2 Pro. It is widely seen as less capable than Onyx hardware, yet it has won people over on price and portability, and some owners have gone as far as installing community-built custom firmware.

In other words, Onyx is bringing its brand and years of E Ink tuning into a price bracket it had left alone. At 3.97 inches the Picco is smaller than the 4.3-inch X4 Pro, so it is competing on size head-on as well. The company has not said what an accessible price point actually means in numbers, but it surely understands that Palma 2 Pro money will not win this particular fight.

※1 USD = 159 JPY (as of July 31, 2026)

Summary

For now the BOOX Picco exists as a minimum set of facts: a 3.97-inch monochrome E Ink panel, a front light, and a microSD slot. Resolution, price, and release timing are all undecided, but with teaser images already out, a formal announcement is unlikely to be far off. That Onyx went as far as launching the BOOX Tile category to move into small devices suggests E Ink hardware is spreading beyond the reading-only box it has lived in. It is worth waiting for the details.