Meet the BOOX Picco: A Reader the Size of a Playing Card

The BOOX Picco is the smallest reader BOOX has ever made, and it is a different kind of device from everything else in the lineup. It has a 3.97″ E Ink screen, it weighs about 58 g, and it is about the size of a playing card. It is not trying to be a tablet. It is trying to be the thing you reach for instead of your phone when you have four minutes in a checkout line.

What the Picco is

Picco is the first device in BOOX Tiles, a new family of small lifestyle devices that sits next to the familiar BOOX tablets. That matters, because it explains almost everything about it.

• A 3.97″ black and white E Ink screen at 800 × 480 (235 ppi), with anti-aliased text so small type stays clean.
• Physical page-turn buttons on the side, plus a touchscreen, so you can read one-handed either way.
• A warm and cold front light you can tune for daylight or bedtime.
• A 16 GB microSD card in the box, already installed, with room for cards up to 2 TB.
• About 58 g and 5.5 mm thin, at 105.5 × 62 mm.

There is also a function switch you can set to toggle the front light or Dark Mode, and a gyroscope that rotates the screen four ways, so it works for left- and right-handed readers and in landscape.

BOOX 3.97" Picco$139.99

The honest part: it is not Android

Every other BOOX reader we sell runs open Android. Picco does not. It runs the BOOX Tiles system on a small low-power chip, and it does not install third-party apps. There is no Kindle, Kobo or Libby app, and books bought in those stores are normally copy-protected, so they stay in those stores.

What Picco reads instead is a long list of files you own: EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, FB2, TXT, RTF, HTML, CHM and more, plus images. That covers DRM-free ebooks, public domain classics and your own documents converted to EPUB. It does not open PDFs, which on a screen this size is no great loss, but worth knowing before you buy.

If you want your library apps in your pocket, the BOOX Palma is the one to look at: a phone-sized reader that runs Android. Picco is for people who want less, on purpose.

Reading on a screen this small

The surprise with Picco is how comfortable it is. You adjust font, spacing and margins until a page holds the right amount of text for you, and the page buttons make turning feel quick.

Dark Mode flips the page to white text on black, and the front light goes from cool to warm, so the same chapter works on a bright bus and in a dark bedroom.

It also does a few small things that have nothing to do with books: a to-do screensaver, custom wallpapers, a Pomodoro timer, countdown days and a word notebook. They are the "Tiles" part of BOOX Tiles, and they are what make it feel like a pocket gadget rather than a shrunken e-reader.

Getting books onto it

Picco pairs with the free BOOX Tiles phone app by scanning a QR code. From there you upload books, fonts and images from your phone, over the same Wi-Fi or through the cloud when you are not on the same network. You can do the same from a browser at booxtiles.com, or plug Picco into a computer with a USB-C cable. The microSD card also works the old-fashioned way.

Who it suits

Picco is for readers who want a book on them all the time without carrying another tablet. Commuters, people who read in queues and waiting rooms, and anyone trying to swap a few minutes of scrolling for a few pages of a novel. It also makes an easy gift, because there is nothing to set up beyond pairing a phone.

It is not the right choice if you read PDFs, borrow from Libby or live inside the Kindle store. For those, a small Android reader such as the Go 6 (Gen II) or the Palma does more. Our guide to choosing an E Ink tablet walks through the trade-offs.

Buying one in Canada

TIFAN is an authorized Canadian BOOX dealer. The Picco comes with the full BOOX manufacturer warranty, and we handle the claim with BOOX for you if you ever need it; our warranty page has the details. New devices come with 30-day returns and free shipping across Canada on orders over $100.

A screen this small is easier to judge in your hand than in a photo. Come and try one at our Oakville showroom, next to the Palma and the Go 6, and see which size you actually reach for.