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

[MarjaE]

I ordered an Icarus Illumina and it arrived today... but three problems...

First, it flashes if I scroll.

Second, it zooms if I accidentally trigger zooming.

Third, it doesn't have accessibility settings.

I have sensory and coordination problems, so flashing, zooming, and accidentally triggering gestures are major problems. I know android accessibility settings are supposed to allow users to turn off magnification gestures, but I don't know how to install accessibility settings. I tried Nova Launcher because it was supposed to include the full set of accessibility settings, but it didn't.

HELP!

[nhedgehog]

Originally Posted by MarjaE

I ordered an Icarus Illumina and it arrived today... but three problems...

First, it flashes if I scroll.

Second, it zooms if I accidentally trigger zooming.

Third, it doesn't have accessibility settings.

I have sensory and coordination problems, so flashing, zooming, and accidentally triggering gestures are major problems. I know android accessibility settings are supposed to allow users to turn off magnification gestures, but I don't know how to install accessibility settings. I tried Nova Launcher because it was supposed to include the full set of accessibility settings, but it didn't.

HELP!

Hi Marja,
if you are seeking an easy solution I think you have the wrong device, but to your questions:

1) Flashing is normal for eink devices. The screen needs to do that to remove artefacts from the previous shown picture. Most reading apps though have an option, how often this is supposed to happen (every page, every 3rd page ...)

2) I guess you are writing about the reading apps. Pinch to zoom is something most reading apps are offering to make it easier to quickly customize your reading screen. Some apps may allow you to disable it. I just had a look at AlReader 1.6.5, it has an option to deactivate it (Settings - controls - pinch to zoom).

3) accessibility settings If the settings menu has it or not depends on the launcher (some launcher suppress this menu) and on the ROM (if the ROM does not integrate it, changing the launcher won't help) you are using. Most of the actual Android eink devices don't offer thoose but actual Onyx devices have this option. I had a look into it but it does not allow to disable pinch to zoom (just zooming with 3 taps on the screen). You can "upgrade" your device with an onyx rom but will probably loose warranty while doing that. How this is done is explained in this thread. People there are most willing to help.

PS:The ROM I checked who has access to this settings is: Onyx Boox C67ML 1.7.2 RC1 and I use it with Relaunch (launcher).
PPS: Just saw that you are using it mostly for pdf and djvu files. Flashing while scrolling in pdf files is a common problem on eink devices. It can be reduced little but it can't be eliminated. PDF reflow mode is still not working to my satisfaction in the different apps I used (Moonreader, Ony Neo Reader). I would recommend to switch to epub format if possible.

[petrovich]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

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.

Wow. Indeed, I didn't notice first -- I was checking this refresh functionality with AlReader, and what I initially interpreted as "refresh works first several times and then stops to work" turned out to be just "works in regular screen mode, doesn't work in full screen mode". Interesting(I didn't use full!screen app, AlReader has its' own mode switching).

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by nhedgehog

2) I guess you are writing about the reading apps. Pinch to zoom is something most reading apps are offering to make it easier to quickly customize your reading screen. Some apps may allow you to disable it. I just had a look at AlReader 1.6.5, it has an option to deactivate it (Settings - controls - pinch to zoom).

Easier for some people, *far* harder for me.

I have proprioceptive issues. I can't avoid triggering unwanted gestures. Then I have to try to reverse the gestures, without triggering more.

I have sensory processing issues too, and on regular screens, zooming would leave me with immediate, severe, lasting headaches. I often have trouble when someone puts a zooming map on a website, and I try to scroll around it, and I get hammered by the zoom. I can't find anything on what's going on neurologically.

[Cyberman tM]

Quick question regarding the Boyue T62s USB port: Is it a standard Micro USB B, i.e. can I take any cable, or does it use a propietary/non-standard plug on the device side.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Quick question regarding the Boyue T62s USB port: Is it a standard Micro USB B, i.e. can I take any cable, or does it use a propietary/non-standard plug on the device side.

It's a standard plug.

[enthdegree]

On my old Nook Simple Touch I remember a hack where if you would scroll or pinch to zoom in a PDF on an android app, it would switch to a black/white 'fast refresh' mode where you could drag around and it would update at maybe 15fps.

If I install, say, ebookdroid on a Boyue T62 plus (the one with the carta screen), will it do this fast refresh?

Thanks!

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by enthdegree

On my old Nook Simple Touch I remember a hack where if you would scroll or pinch to zoom in a PDF on an android app, it would switch to a black/white 'fast refresh' mode where you could drag around and it would update at maybe 15fps.

If I install, say, ebookdroid on a Boyue T62 plus (the one with the carta screen), will it do this fast refresh?

Thanks!

It switches automatically to fast refresh. I don't have ebookdroid installed, but I can scroll on other apps like Calibre Companion and InoReader. As long as I don't lift my finger up I can read as I scroll.

[MarjaE]

My E653 won't wake up. I had just recharged it. I have tried holding the power button even longer. I have tried the reset button. Any suggestions?

P.S. My E653 is stuck in the "press power to wake up" screen. It does not show as a drive when I connect it to my computer.

P.P.S. I thought the battery might have run down again, even though I've set the device to turn off after two hours. I recharged it again, until the green light went out. I have tried everything all over again, still without success...

[MarjaE]

Since their support site is buggy, and the shipping costs are absurd, and the warranty does't cover shipping costs, does anyone know how to repair one of these?

[hob]

Well I think I figured out a way to make my Boyue T62+'s battery last waaay longer!

In the past few months that I've been using and enjoying this nice device, one thing became obvious: There seems to be a bug in the OS that's triggered later by installing apps and this bug causes the device's battery drainage rate to go much higher and go down faster when it's actually in "Sleep Mode" and is supposed to not do anything important!

Although I haven't got much free time to spend on finding the root of this problem but I've been investigating the cause for some time without any success. It was obvious though that the device's battery usage rate is much higher when it's not ON or completely OFF but in "SLEEP" mode!

So I got this idea to activate this feature in "Better Battery Stats" (BBS) app for "Active Monitoring" which is supposed to monitor the device's activity 'actively' by waking it up for a few seconds every hour, create a log of the situation, and go back to sleep.



After activating this I started to notice that the battery drainage rate while the device was in Sleep mode, went from like 2%+ per hour to 0.05% per hour! So after a few days I went in BBS' settings and changed the frequency of waking the device up for that "Active Monitoring" thing from every 1 hour to every half an hour and this resulted in an even lower battery drainage rate of around 0.03% on average!

As you might have noticed on these devices, when you fully charge them to a 100% until the green LED turns off (which means the battery is fully charged) the battery level shown inside the OS stays at 100% for hours and then starts to go down relatively fast. After activating this and after a full charge, the device's battery level remained on 100% for the first 3 days!

Now more than 7 days have passed since I fully charged it and I've used the device for more than 10 hours with a few hours of WiFi and Front-light and even audio output, and there's still 22% of the battery left. The device was giving me at most 1.5 days with the same usage hours before which was awful and I had to recharge it every day or two! [I did turn the "active monitoring" thing off for about 6 hours once during these past 7 days which resulted in almost 10% of fast battery drainage while the device was in Sleep! If I hadn't done that, it would've probably been at 32% now instead!]





Here's some info about my device, the ROM currently on it, and the apps I have installed (both active and inactive/disabled) in case you wanna compare:

Spoiler:

Also I did this thing a while ago using a feature in the app "ES Task Manager" called "Startup Manager" to prevent any app that I don't need, from occupying RAM space after every time I turn the device ON (either from Sleep or Off state) and by doing this I've got more free RAM space and the device and apps run more smoothly and much faster cuz there's more free RAM available at any moment:




Hope these work on your devices, too, to get more battery life out of them. Also notice that you might need to root your device for some of these apps/features to work.

[hob]

New updates for Energy Sistem eReader Pro (Boyue T62[C]) and Energy Sistem eReader Pro+ (Boyue T62+[D] with E-Ink Carta) ROMs available and they claim they've optimized battery usage both while the device is in use and when it's asleep:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...13#post3146713

[MarjaE]

Does anyone know how to repair one of these?

I finally got Icarus' site working, got an rma, sent it across the Atlantic to the address they gave, but they didn't accept the delivery.

P.S. Does anyone know of another e-ink e-reader for someone who has trouble with touchscreens, flashing pain-lights, etc.? I have also been using the iRiver Story Hd, but it keeps freezing, it won't display certain pdfs, and it won't display any djvus. I thought the Icarus Illumina e653 was an improvement, while it worked.

[bagheera]

howdy,

for those who do not know, pocket is a great app for reading web based articles on our lovely boyue t62. but...

at first, it was working great. then an issue occured. on the articles screen, there is a menu button on the top right. but i cannot press it anymore. strangely, when i installed a screen rotation app and turned the screen direction, saw the menu was functioning again. but it still is not on the default position.

so anyone to help? thanks in advance.

[MarjaE]

I can't get mine repaired. Due to shipping costs and customs fees it would be more expensive than trying to get a new one. I wonder if I should get a new one, or if it is likely to break too.