Boyue T61/T62 / Icarus Illumina E653 review and Onyx T68 comparison

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Some are calling it the T63, from what I see. I wonder if it will be basically the T62 with an upgraded display, or a truly new device through and through. I'm curious to see more specs besides the 300 dpi (though that's a pretty good start).

Visually, it looks closer to the Kindle Voyage than the T62 (flush bezel and non-physical page-turn buttons).

If it is indeed 300dpi, and does not have any hidden flaws, I may have found my next eReader.

[Nate the great]

And now we have specs:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...300ppi-screen/

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

And now we have specs:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...300ppi-screen/

Only 160g? Also narrower (114mm) than most (all?) of the competition (so fits easier in coat pockets). I'm even more in love.

[rchusid]

Has anyone tried any of the battery saver apps for Android on an ebook reader in response to the battery issues? I wonder if an app were to shut down WiFi and all background processes when the reader is off, and restore them when turned back on, if this would solve much of the battery problems.

I did try installing one program which claims to do this but it doesn't seem to do anything on my Boyue. I'm wondering if any of the other apps which claim to do this will work.

[Hrafn]

The recent announcement of the Boyue T63/Shine has made me think a bit more closely about what is the best way to acquire a Boyue product.

• Banggoods seems to have been a (semi-?) official storefront, but has no Boyue eReaders in stock (and hasn't had any for some time).
• AliExpress has a bewildering array of Boyue products, but a reputation for being very much on the Wild West caveat emptor side of things.
• Boyue rebrands though a number of European resellers, but they make a less appealing buying option for buyers outside Europe (extra markup, extra shipping).

Any other channels I should be looking at?

[trocchietto]

Originally Posted by rchusid

Has anyone tried any of the battery saver apps for Android on an ebook reader in response to the battery issues? I wonder if an app were to shut down WiFi and all background processes when the reader is off, and restore them when turned back on, if this would solve much of the battery problems.

I did try installing one program which claims to do this but it doesn't seem to do anything on my Boyue. I'm wondering if any of the other apps which claim to do this will work.

I will open a new thread this evening if I found some energy
To focus on eink battery

[lolcatze]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

The recent announcement of the Boyue T63/Shine has made me think a bit more closely about what is the best way to acquire a Boyue product.

• Banggoods seems to have been a (semi-?) official storefront, but has no Boyue eReaders in stock (and hasn't had any for some time).
• AliExpress has a bewildering array of Boyue products, but a reputation for being very much on the Wild West caveat emptor side of things.
• Boyue rebrands though a number of European resellers, but they make a less appealing buying option for buyers outside Europe (extra markup, extra shipping).

Any other channels I should be looking at?

I'm also very interested in buying the T63 as soon as it becomes available!. This would be my very first purchase from Asia, but I think It'll be worth taking chances with this one. Lately I've been reading a lot about the Boyue and seems like the T63 will be the first mature, "out of beta" Boyue device.

I'm a little bit worried though. Looks like these Chinese manufacturers are not very consistent with their build quality... not to mention the software/firmware their devices are running. I think they're being very lazy in this regard since 95% of the hard work is being done by the android base... the remaining 5% of the software tweaks could be fixed by hiring some coders for very little money. China has incredible software engineers, but seems like the government has hir...ed... chatched 'em all and turned 'em hackers. . There's no other explanation for this horrible situation with the Boyue!.

Back to topic, it also looks like Boyue has an official store, doesn't it?. The site is all in chinese, and takes you to some sort of ebay website (jd.com): http://www.boyue.com/plus/list.php?tid=5 (click the big red button on the top right corner).

EDIT: even more confusing, and it's been posted before, but when visiting: http://www.boyue.com/a/ebook/

Just below the little girl there's a "store" rectangular banner/button which takes you to http://boyuesm.tmall.com/

Btw, do you guys know if Boyue provides any warranty with their devices?.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by lolcatze

Just below the little girl there's a "store" rectangular banner/button which takes you to http://boyuesm.tmall.com/

tmall.com is the Chinese-language retail website of Taobao. I bought my last eReader through them, using an agent. These agents typically charge 10-20% of the purchase price + international shipping. I haven't tried to see if it is possible to do so without an intermediary.

I notice that the Boyue site also contained a link to this site also selling the T61 & T62, but know nothing at all about "jd.com".

[trocchietto]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

(Apologies in advance - this is a long story: )

You guys, I had such a terrible time yesterday and last night. After being so pleased with my new T-62, I decided to install a dictionary. I thought it would be a fairly simple task. I thought I would install the ColorDict app and use StarDict for the actual dictionary aspect... but when I went to download it, it seems StarDict has been very recently pulled from SourceForge due to copyright issues. I spent a long time searching for other free options, but eventually decided to go with ColorDict and WordNet.

I also had to look up how to sideload an App since I've never used Android. Well, it seemed easy enough. I just copied the ColorDict APK on to the root directory along with the WordNet folder. I tapped it to install it, which seemed to work. Then it asked about downloading dictionaries and I chose WordNet. So far, so good I thought. But when I opened the Colordict app, it was completely black with all the icons and text in a very dark color, which made it almost impossible to see or read anything. That was not what I was expecting. I had to turn the light all the way up just to be able to make out a few icons and the search bar at the top. I couldn't find any way to change it.

Then I opened a couple books and kept trying to get a definition to pop up, but it wouldn't work. I read online that it might be because the dictionary had to be indexed, but the option for that was missing in my ColorDict. I was able to type in words in the actual program and get a definition to pop up there, but after trying everything I could think of, I still couldn't get it to work with FBReader.

How can I understand you, 7 years ago with my sony I had inbuilted high quality licensed dictionaries with immediate pop up, no installation, no root, no new apps to download, today that sony went away from the market... ereader manufacturers do not offer nothing!!!!
SHAME on them one of the main causes I do not buy new readers, I prefer to read a sluggish and grey screen old Sony without backlight than go through every sort of trick, bugs, wasting my few free time to find my system.

Kobo, Kindle, Energy Pro, Onyx, Boox, Bouye, and all the android/ios apps, shame on you. I look forward to jump on the newcomer that understood what is a decent user experience! At the moment my Sony PRS T 2 works perfect and I do not need you!

[Confringo]

Posting it here for exposure, please try helping out with this: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=262266

[petrovich]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Do you have a T62D (or T62+)? That's what I have. This won't work on a T62 B or C.

I used the ROM dumper tool found here - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=254042. You can check out instructions of how to backup your device and how to install img files. You need a system.img and a slightly edited boot.img (that edit enables the Onyx front light control to work on the Boyue). In post #89, you'll find my boot.img as boot.zip. In that thread, you can find other people who have done this. I have my system.img in my Dropbox, and it worked for aceflor. If you want it, PM me and I'll send you a link.
.

Well, finally I found the time for onyxizing my Boyue. Thanks a lot for your kind support and advises. Everything looks fine and turned to be much lkess scary than it was imagined.
Let's see how the battery behavior will change now...

Refresh button, I'll miss you, but hope you forgive me... bye-bye, my dear...

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by petrovich

Well, finally I found the time for onyxizing my Boyue. Thanks a lot for your kind support and advises. Everything looks fine and turned to be much lkess scary than it was imagined.
Let's see how the battery behavior will change now...

Refresh button, I'll miss you, but hope you forgive me... bye-bye, my dear...

Guess what? The refresh button isn't really gone! Press and hold the top of the page turn button on either side (the arrow that points left) and the screen refreshes after a second or two. On the Onyx, the left page turn button doubles as a refresh button. Works the same way with our T62+!

[kawasakiguy37]

T62+ or wait for the T63...... decisions decisions. Anybody have any hard info on how long we may have to wait before this thing is released?

[petrovich]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Guess what? The refresh button isn't really gone! Press and hold the top of the page turn button on either side (the arrow that points left) and the screen refreshes after a second or two. On the Onyx, the left page turn button doubles as a refresh button. Works the same way with our T62+!

YESSSSSS!!!! And no. First, I've got a strange impression that the very first time it reads long press as a short one and runs page back. All the next long presses indeed work as refresh. Then, after some time(read a bit, etc) first long press again works as page back and all the following ones as refresh. This effect, though, could be just my finger's feature, something like "on the first attempt the finger is not adapted yet, the muscle relaxes spontaneously right after the first push" etc.
However, another strange twist -- right now it doesn't work at all. Short press pages back, long press does nothing, exactly in the same way as Boye's fw stopped to go to timed out sleep after certain time.

BTW, regarding going to sleep on timeout -- sometimes this things draws the usual screensaver picture and leaves it there, but sporadically it immediately covers it by just a plain "white silence". Not that it is a big trouble, but what's the heck?

I also had some(very weak, though) hope that Onyx fw will enable magnetic sensor and thus magnetic cover will provide automatic sleep–wake up function. Alas, it didn't happen -- probably T62 doesn't have magnetic sensor at all.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by petrovich

YESSSSSS!!!! And no. First, I've got a strange impression that the very first time it reads long press as a short one and runs page back. All the next long presses indeed work as refresh. Then, after some time(read a bit, etc) first long press again works as page back and all the following ones as refresh. This effect, though, could be just my finger's feature, something like "on the first attempt the finger is not adapted yet, the muscle relaxes spontaneously right after the first push" etc.
However, another strange twist -- right now it doesn't work at all. Short press pages back, long press does nothing, exactly in the same way as Boye's fw stopped to go to timed out sleep after certain time.

BTW, regarding going to sleep on timeout -- sometimes this things draws the usual screensaver picture and leaves it there, but sporadically it immediately covers it by just a plain "white silence". Not that it is a big trouble, but what's the heck?

I also had some(very weak, though) hope that Onyx fw will enable magnetic sensor and thus magnetic cover will provide automatic sleep–wake up function. Alas, it didn't happen -- probably T62 doesn't have magnetic sensor at all.

Sometimes I get the "white screensaver", too. It looks like others also get it. I think FOV has a version of the Onyx firmware out as of today that fixes that glitch. It doesn't bother me at all, though. I can live with it.

Yes, the "screen refresh button" usually works for me, but not every time. Here's something interesting. I installed the full!screen app, so all my apps can use the full screen. In full screen mode, that scene refresh button doesn't work at all. As soon as I disable full screen in the full!screen app, my refresh button works again. I wonder what the connection is.