Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to document viewing within a battery powered computing device and provide a method, system and computer program product for the power optimized use of a battery powered computing device for selective document viewing. In one embodiment, a battery powered computing device configured for power optimized selective document viewing can be provided. The device can include a central processing unit (CPU) and a microcontroller, both coupled to a battery, static memory, and a display within a single computing case. The device further can include a boot read only memory (ROM) programmed to selectively bootstrap into either a personal computing mode powering the CPU and display, or a document viewing mode powering the microcontroller and display.