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

[Johann Cat]

I have a T62+D and my device, like others here, still drains rapidly in sleep mode and refuses to auto-shut-off. It drains at a rate of about 5% / hour in sleep mode, even if wireless is off (this seems to have minimal effect on its battery life, oddly, unlike a Kindle or Kobo). I have tried selectively turning off apps by hand, and I have tried battery saver/ optimizer apps. No avail.

Here's what works for me: I turn it off when I am not using it. It boots pretty quickly, and, unlike some android devices, booting doesn't seem to cost much battery power.

This may seem a primitive workaround, but is easy and it works.

I think I will get ~22 hours of real-time use out of it as a reader.

[MarjaE]

Any idea why one would die after 3 weeks? (Fail to start, fail to start after full recharge, etc.) And what to do so another wouldn't die w/in 3 years?

[nhedgehog]

In Germany we have 2 years warranty. Don't know where you live. All those devices are made in China. Nobody can give a prognosis about failure rate but some can give a report about warranty cases and how they are handled.

About your device:
1) It is not responding anymore, right? What is the screen showing?
2) Does the computer recognize it, if plugged in?
3) Did you try holding the power button for 15s and afterwards switching it on with refresh button pressed?
4) Did you try holding the power button for 15s and afterwards plugging it into a cumputer while holding the refresh button without switching it on?

What are the results (1-4).

[nhedgehog]

Originally Posted by Johann Cat

I have a T62+D and my device, like others here, still drains rapidly in sleep mode and refuses to auto-shut-off. It drains at a rate of about 5% / hour in sleep mode, even if wireless is off (this seems to have minimal effect on its battery life, oddly, unlike a Kindle or Kobo). I have tried selectively turning off apps by hand, and I have tried battery saver/ optimizer apps. No avail.

Here's what works for me: I turn it off when I am not using it. It boots pretty quickly, and, unlike some android devices, booting doesn't seem to cost much battery power.

This may seem a primitive workaround, but is easy and it works.

I think I will get ~22 hours of real-time use out of it as a reader.

You know that there are several post about battery life here and that it is common knowledge, that with some tricks or another ROM 14 days standby are normal (mine drains with about 0,2%/h with stock ROM v.5 [energy Reader Pro]). Last month several ROMs came out that took care of the battery problem.
Without telling which ROM you are using, the above provided informations are not very enlightening.

[Dopedangel]

I wanted Google play on my reader so installed ereader pro plus firmware the day I got it my T62+. The battery went from 95% to 20% overnight. So I updated to the latest ereader pro plus firmware that is 2.000b something and factory reset the device. Now my battery lost 1-2% overnight.
I am using the latest version of Relaunch a launcher written specially for eink readers. I also disabled the auto shutdown after a few hours setting which i think runs the processor in the background results in battery drain instead of the gain expected after shutting off.

[Johann Cat]

Originally Posted by nhedgehog

You know that there are several post about battery life here and that it is common knowledge, that with some tricks or another ROM 14 days standby are normal (mine drains with about 0,2%/h with stock ROM v.5 [energy Reader Pro]). Last month several ROMs came out that took care of the battery problem.
Without telling which ROM you are using, the above provided informations are not very enlightening.

I do know, thanks for redundantly pointing out these posts from June that inspired my post, which include such comments as, "Rooting won't necessarily solve this problem. I have a Boyue T62+. I used the Boyue firmware and then tried the Energy Sistem firmware. Both were rooted and I used a CPU management app. I installed Google Play Store and all that goes with it. I found that power management in general, and especially in sleep mode, is very inconsistent," and nhedgehog's own lament that a c. 2012 model Nook has better power management than the T62.

I described my device as a T62D: its Kernel version is 3.0.36; I am using a Nova launcher. It is not rooted, and does not run Google Play or Play services. Most of its real-time battery consumption is credited to Moon+ reader, which serves the device's primary function as an ereader. Standby battery drain, the theme of many posts here, is independent of the apps I have on the device, which are few and can be turned off. (I have performed that experiment.)

Also, while it may be possible to get hundreds-of-per-cent-better standby battery life (sounds like about 2.5x better than stock, at 14 days), I would not call the art of this "common knowledge," if on this forum, many of the posts from certifiable ereader connoisseurs, aficionados, and foil-hat wearing experts, are about how tricky it is to get battery life out the T62D better than ~ 24 hours of real use and five days of standby.

The most recent post above (Dopedangel) notes that after rooting, the use of relaunch, and swapping out the firmware, etc., the battery drain was as bad as any reported here . . . but then improved with another update.

This post (from Dopedangel) could imply that a CPU manager is a missing solution, but others above give that mixed marks or call it useless!

Exactly what ROM is nhedgehog referring to that is potentially a solution to this problem?

[MarjaE]

Originally Posted by nhedgehog

In Germany we have 2 years warranty. Don't know where you live. All those devices are made in China. Nobody can give a prognosis about failure rate but some can give a report about warranty cases and how they are handled.

About your device:
1) It is not responding anymore, right? What is the screen showing?

Yes. I sent it in weeks ago, after getting the rma info. I remember it wouldn't do anything, but don't remember if the screen was blank or was showing something.

2) Does the computer recognize it, if plugged in?

Not as a disk.

3) Did you try holding the power button for 15s and afterwards switching it on with refresh button pressed?

Yes.

4) Did you try holding the power button for 15s and afterwards plugging it into a cumputer while holding the refresh button without switching it on?

Huh? Why would I hold the refresh button?

What are the results (1-4).

I got an rma, mailed it to the Netherlands [EXPENSIVE!], had them refuse delivery because of the European Union's customs duties on repairs [EXPENSIVE, NO WAY TO PAY FROM HERE!].

I could buy a new one for less than it would cost to pay for shipping twice and going through customs. Except that the broken one was a very new barely-used one...

[nhedgehog]

@MarjaE:
Didn't know you don't have the device anymore. My questions were asked to see if it could be revitalized. So this is all theoretical.

4. Huh? Why would I hold the refresh button?

That is having the same effect as adb reboot-bootloader, allowing to flash it with the right tools.

From what you told so far it a lot of things could have happened to your device, from internal failure up to a cracked screen .... Sorry, can't say more.
Generally though, from the reports in several forums I can make an educated guess that those devices are quite reliable.

[JNT]

Originally Posted by Johann Cat

Exactly what ROM is nhedgehog referring to that is potentially a solution to this problem?

Would also be interested to know.

I bought a T62D when I was in China in August. Don't remember exactly what firmware version it had on, but the battery drained in a couple of days. So I started playing around with different firmwares.

The firmware that I am using now (and it does not seem to have a battery drain problem, since I have been using it for more than 2 weeks and the battery still has not reached zero) is the energy sistem version 2.0.0B.

I downloaded v1 from their web page (http://storage.energysistem.com/arch...52TGHkcIjhnb2w).
Flashed this full firmware using the tools (http://www.freak-tab.de/finless/rk_tool21_how_to.zip) on (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=254042).
It did not want to update OTA, so I downloaded v2 from a link on this forum (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=180) and updated manually.

Quite happy thus far.

[nhedgehog]

Originally Posted by JNT

Would also be interested to know.

I'm sure I mentioned it:

nhedgehog:
You know that there are several post about battery life here and that it is common knowledge, that with some tricks or another ROM 14 days standby are normal (mine drains with about 0,2%/h with stock ROM v.5 [energy Reader Pro]). Last month several ROMs came out that took care of the battery problem.

The Energy Ereader Pro+ ROM which equals the above mentioned stock ROM v.5 [Energy Reader Pro] is the ROM you mentioned: energy sistem version 2.0.0B.
With this ROM I changed only the Launcher to Relaunch, since I like that better. No other changes were necessary on my device.
I have WIFI allways disabled.

Other ROMs with comparable batterylife are the borrowed ROMs from C67ML starting with firmware version 1.7.2RC. FOV5 provided some in this thread.
To get a better batterylife with this one I had to make some changes:
I registered it with google play and disabled background synchronization to prolong battery life.
Also disabling Auto-Update in Google Play and killing "Google Play Services" was increasing it.

I played with changing the CPU speed but couldn't get mentionable better batterylife out of it.

@Johann Cat:

Kernel version is 3.0.36

is not what I asked to know. For the Energy EReader Pro + only the firmware versions 1.0.0 & 2.0.0B are available as far as I know.

[Johann Cat]

Thanks all for these specifics--sorry I didn't process the note on "stock ROM v.5" in the earlier nhedgehog post, as I didn't know the energy sistem nomenclature. Also I now see the other thread in which these energy sistem ROMs retrofits to T62s are discussed in more detail.

My T62+D is running the stock Boyue ROM. I have to say my only substantive complaint about it is its standby battery behavior, and its refusal to auto-power off. It runs very smoothly otherwise, in general responsiveness, keyboard behavior, and with Moon and Aldiko reading apps, etc.

[nhedgehog]

Originally Posted by Johann Cat

Thanks all for these specifics--sorry I didn't process the note on "stock ROM v.5" in the earlier nhedgehog post, as I didn't know the energy sistem nomenclature. Also I now see the other thread in which these energy sistem ROMs retrofits to T62s are discussed in more detail.

No problem, I guess I got confused by the T62+D device name (I know only T62+ or T62D which are the same I guess). Out of this I somehow assumed you were having an Energy eReader Pro+ (I see now that you didn't mention it anywere) and that stuck. Otherwise I would have answered more elaborate.

[Johann Cat]

Yeh, I didn't realize energy sistem identified this reader as a T62 as well, sorry. I thought that was Boyue's name for it, so when I said T62D, I thought I was indicating a Boyue ROM. My intuition is that Boyue used some defaults for this reader that are common to android phones--thus the standby on the Boyue T62D is more like a phone standby, as if ready for a call, with screen semi-dormant, than a Kindle or Kobo, which really standby. It sounds like the energy sistem ROM behaves more like an e-ink reader in standby. I will reread the other thread, esp. Hob's posts, as I think he retrofitted a Boyue T62 with an es ROM. People have also mentioned that the current Boyue firmware sets the backlight very bright--but an aftermarket app can further adjust this. But if Boyue is listening: in your next firmware update, please fix the light intensity and standby power rapid-battery-drain issues.

But to be simple and direct, as I consider swapping the Boyue ROM for an es ROM: has anyone retrofitted a Boyue T62D with an energy sistem ROM and had issues to note? Is it a fairly smooth process?

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by Johann Cat

Yeh, I didn't realize energy sistem identified this reader as a T62 as well, sorry. I thought that was Boyue's name for it, so when I said T62D, I thought I was indicating a Boyue ROM. My intuition is that Boyue used some defaults for this reader that are common to android phones--thus the standby on the Boyue T62D is more like a phone standby, as if ready for a call, with screen semi-dormant, than a Kindle or Kobo, which really standby. It sounds like the energy sistem ROM behaves more like an e-ink reader in standby. I will reread the other thread, esp. Hob's posts, as I think he retrofitted a Boyue T62 with an es ROM. People have also mentioned that the current Boyue firmware sets the backlight very bright--but an aftermarket app can further adjust this. But if Boyue is listening: in your next firmware update, please fix the light intensity and standby power rapid-battery-drain issues.

But to be simple and direct, as I consider swapping the Boyue ROM for an es ROM: has anyone retrofitted a Boyue T62D with an energy sistem ROM and had issues to note? Is it a fairly smooth process?

Very simple process install the firmware from the website then update to the latest version and factory reset.

[JNT]

Originally Posted by Johann Cat

But to be simple and direct, as I consider swapping the Boyue ROM for an es ROM: has anyone retrofitted a Boyue T62D with an energy sistem ROM and had issues to note? Is it a fairly smooth process?

This is exactly what I did (as described above). I flashed the complete image of v1, then updated manually to v2.0.0B. Did a factory reset afterwards as suggested. Had no issues with this process.

Still happy with it.