I spend too much time on my phone. Whether it’s reading, scrolling, or texting, using our smartphones is a habit we struggle to break. While there are ways to manage screen time, its pull is stronger than ever with phones that have better processors, displays, speakers, and cameras. And we haven’t even considered phones that can now flip, fold, and perform all sorts of fancy tricks.

While it’s fine to limit screen time, they’re all enforced and disabled by the user, and willpower affects their effectiveness. As a recovering workaholic and people pleaser, I’ve found that the most effective way to reduce the appeal of my smartphone is to simply make it less enjoyable to use, and to tone down the addictiveness by taking out the gorgeous OLED colors and spatial sound.

I say we need more E Ink smartphones. But if you live in the United States, your options are slim to none. And that needs to change.

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I would finally have a phone that doesn’t turn into a palm-sized oven in sunlight

E-Ink devices cope better with direct heat and light

E-Ink readers and I have been friends for a long time. After over a decade of taking a Nook or Kindle to the beach or spending an afternoon reading on the porch, I always had one advantage over my phone or tablet: They stayed cool as a cucumber while sunbathing.

Some phones handle heat much worse than others, but their overall tolerance for direct sunlight is far lower than an E Ink device. My iPhone 15 can’t even charge in my car on a sunny day, even with the air conditioning on. Sure, exposing electronic devices to blistering heat or sunlight will eventually burn them out, but E Ink matte displays are also usually easier to read outdoors.

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Spend fewer hours scrolling on an OLED device

Many modern E Ink devices (like those that have come out in the last two to three years) use a backlight and optionally a frontlight to make the screen readable in low light conditions; and even then, the light remains diffuse and soft, placing less strain on your eyes than a burst of LED light.

Reduced eye strain is the more obvious benefit, but it’s also one of the reasons why an E Ink phone won’t drain its battery as quickly as a regular smartphone. Especially if an E Ink smartphone doesn’t encourage you to watch a lot of videos and scroll due to its display limitations, that device would probably only need to be charged once or twice a week at most.

On the many E Ink devices I’ve used, battery life doesn’t drop more than ~5% every three to five hours. Even when you factor in the higher processing demands and the more hours of daily use you’d expect from a phone, the battery life of an E Ink smartphone can still be longer than that of a traditional phone.

With the Palma, Boox has come so close to an E-Ink phone

We are just a SIM slot away

The Boox Palma, a smartphone-sized E-Ink smartphone with a speaker, microphone and camera, is currently the closest I am to.

Without a SIM tray, the Palma becomes a full-fledged smartphone when using Wi-Fi voice/communication apps like Google Voice and WhatsApp. To take calls and send messages on the go, you’ll still need an internet/data connection, such as through a mobile hotspot (which, ironically, is offered by a real, fully functional smartphone).

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The Palma shows us that E Ink technology has advanced far enough to meet most everyday smartphone needs. On Boox’s mobile-sized device, I was able to watch a lot of videos and type quickly without E Ink ghosting gumming up the display. It wasn’t a perfect experience, especially with darker or poorly lit videos, but that’s part of the appeal of an E Ink smartphone: fewer wasted hours staring at the screen.

Of course, most people don’t want all the media they consume on their phone to be black and white, but I’m convinced that applying ultra-fast E Ink refresh rates to color E Ink isn’t that far away.

E-Ink phones have a checkered history on the American market

No 5G support in sight

If you were to walk into one of America’s popular cell phone stores and ask for an E Ink phone, you would probably be met with raised eyebrows and scrutiny, as they are not displayed as prominently on the shelves as the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy.

There are, however, E Ink phones. Hisense has a number of them on offer, including color E Ink smartphones. The Light Phone II is an E Ink device, although the upcoming Light Phone III jumps on the OLED bandwagon. The Minimal Phone is a QWERTY-style E Ink phone currently on IndieGoGo. And we’re eagerly awaiting the Kompakt, an E Ink phone from Polish brand Mudita.

That said, while E Ink phone availability isn’t widespread, that’s not the big issue. The point is that even if you do get your hands on one, it probably won’t work very well on American cellular networks. There are myriad requirements phones must meet to get on a U.S. carrier’s network, and 5G coverage for an E Ink phone in the United States is currently unknown.

We hope that the E Ink phones coming in the near future, including the Minimal and Compact, can finally bridge the gap between American cellular networks and users who want a simplified smartphone that shares their goals of minimizing screen time and more conscious consumption.

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