TCL NxtPaper 11

[Quoth]

Tested Screencast/screen mirror / smart screen with 55″ Samsung 4K HDR TV. Simple "pairing". Unlike earlier TVs and Tablets the video is smooth and all applications / Home screen work rather than just some.

No WiFi password or WiFi setup needed on TV. Seems peer to peer.

Quality good enough to read a two page PDF spread in Pocketbook for POD paper. The tablet screen can be turned off and "finger paint" overlay is available.

[Quoth]

Leaving aside the usefulness for reading, which is nearly perfect if you manually set the brightness so the virtual paper is just slightly dimmer than laser / copier paper (which is brighter than all but POD books), expanding the usefulness needs an OTG adaptor for one USB-A device or an OTG adaptor and a USB hub.

I tested 4 hubs that work with laptops and my Optiplex 7050 workstation. I also tested three USB-C OTG to USB-A adaptor solutions (all worked). I have also some USB-C plug to micro and mini sockets. None do OTG. Some are power only, just to charge a USB-C device (slowly) using a micro or mini charging cable. One of each kind had also data, and then a micro USB OTG to USB-A adaptor worked, or keyboards or hubs with OTG wired mini or micro plugs.

The most demanding peripheral that works is the USB TV stick for a laptop or PC.

First using an all-in-one stubby USB-C OTG USB-A socket.
1) Metal case and coax optional power jack socket. Uses a mini USB to USB-A. It didn't work at all, even with a portable USB Keyboard, with or without power.

2) Really cheap USB 2.0 €2 transparent blue plastic with a socket on each of four sides and integral USB-A plug. The TV stick didn't work, but mouse, memory stick. keyboard and Kobo Sage did, all simultaneously. I changed the cable for a mini-USB OTG cable off a broken folio USB keyboard for a 6" tablet and tried it with USB-C to mini-USB socket. Same result. I added a pair of parallel Schottky rectifiers in series with +5V and coax jack socket for optional power and everything except the USB TV stick worked, with or without power. I'll use this for Mini-USB gadgets as hub without need for a separate OTG adaptor.

3) A cheap USB 2.0 hub, white plastic, 3 sockets on top and one at end with integral USB-A cable. Everything except the TV stick worked.

4) A real USB 3.0 hub with integral USB-A cable (Amazon link & under £11), but USB 3.0 spec. Everything including the USB TV stick (which works on a a laptop USB-A 2.0 port) works. On the laptop 3.0 port with a USB 3.0 1Gbps ethernet adaptor I get 550 Mbps on the fibre test (same as workstation on 1 Gbps cable built in port).

I tried the TV Stick on a Y cable with USB-A socket for power, designed to put DVD player/writer etc on a low power USP port. This allowed TV stick to have separate power, but naturally doesn't charge the tablet.

I also used a short cable USB-C OTG to USB-A socket. Less scary than direct adaptor and it was fine with everything.

So how to charge the tablet while a USB device is connected? This was a problem with mini and micro USB OTG, though a few models had a non-standard port that allowed a special Y cable to charge. I've one Juno 10 tablet that only slow charges on micro USB and fast charges on a coax power connector. It runs the TV stick poorly being a budget rubbish tablet.

It's possible on some USB-C gadgets using a USB-C OTG USB-A socket adaptor with a USB-C power socket (Amazon under £7.50), which arrived at lunchtime. No assurance it would work, but it does, though a little fussy on order of connecting. The USB TV stick (or the stick via USB 3.0 hub) is powered from tablet, or if the external power USB-C (charger or power bank) is plugged in the Tablet is charged, the OTG mode to USB-A socket works and the USB-A devices are powered. Magical.

None of my USB CD/DVD devices work on cheap Android 8.0 tablet or the TCL NxtPaper 11, though I'm sure something Android worked in the past. So use SD card or memory stick and ripped files of CD / DVD etc.

[Quoth]

Also two USB audio dongles for laptop/PC bought ages ago at about €6 each for testing the Kindle PW3 Voice view like interface work (Also work on PW3 and laptop). The one with volume & mute buttons gives better headphone drive. However BT headphones or bud are handier.

[Quoth]

Quick answer.
The supplied charger seems to be a Qualcomm specification Quick Charge 2.0 (2014) Class A: 5 V (15W), 9 V (18W), 12 V (18W), which is why charging is very fast. It does charge from a regular USB-A 5V charger, but slower.


Long answer
I noticed that a charger was included and charging, despite 8000mAH (likely capacity of LiPoly 3.7V to 4.2V), is very fast. Though the Lenovo I had has 10,000mAH and a 2 A charger (5V supply vs average of less than 4V cell, so less than 5 hours).

Fine print on charger (read with magnfying glass)

5V 3A (15W)
9V 2A (18W)
12V 1.5A (18W)

By default, as it should, it is 5V. However it looks like a regular USB-A socket (and not USB 3.0 SS pins), so I don't understand how it does more than 1.5A or more than 5V, unless there is not just static sense of D- and D+, but serial data.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Power

USB-A can be white (usually means USB 1.x to USB 2.x) having only four connections or blue (USB 3.0) having 5 additional connection pads as well the four regular strips. The five pads on a USB-A 3.0 socket are easily seen at the front. The five pins on the USB-A 3.0 plug are at the rear and harder to see.
USB 3.0 and connectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_3.0

The things I have with USB-A USB 3.0 plugs are:
2 x HDD enclosures (one is using a double ended USB-A 3.0 plugs cable and one has USB-A 3.0 plug and stacked USB-B 3.0 plug.
USB-C socket to USB-A 3.0 plug adaptor
USB-A 3.0 four way hub
3 x different kinds of USB-C OTG with USB-A 3.0 sockets
1Gbps Ethernet adaptor.

All my USB-C plug to USB-A plug cables look like 4 connections only.

So how does the TCL charger work?

The white socket looks like 4 pins only. Most USB-C plug to USB-A plug cables seem to be USB 2.x, only four connections. All my cables are.


See also
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#BCS
and (same web page):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_ha...Power_Delivery

My conclusion is don't use an alternate PSU or lose the one that came with it.

Faster-charging standards
A variety of (non-USB) standards support charging devices faster than the USB Battery Charging standard. When a device doesn't recognize the faster-charging standard, generally the device and the charger fall back to the USB battery-charging standard of 5 V at 1.5 A (7.5 W). When a device detects it is plugged into a charger with a compatible faster-charging standard, the device pulls more current or the device tells the charger to increase the voltage or both to increase power (the details vary between standards).

Such standards include:

Anker PowerIQ
Google fast charging
Huawei SuperCharge
MediaTek Pump Express
Motorola TurboPower
Oppo Super VOOC Flash Charge, are also known as Dash Charge or Warp Charge on OnePlus devices and Dart Charge on Realme devices
Qualcomm Quick Charge (QC)
Samsung Adaptive Fast Charging

A search reveals: The TCL 20 series phones use Qualcomm's Quick Charge fast charging technology.

Quick Charge requires both the power supply and the device being charged to support it, otherwise charging falls back to the standard USB ten watts (though I thought 7.5W was the standard, which is what the faster Kobo charging uses).

Quick Charge 2.0 (2014) Class A: 5 V (15W), 9 V (18W), 12 V (18W). That matches the charger. The standard USB-C faster charging has no 12V.

So now we know how it uses a regular USB-A plug and socket without USB 3.0 connections.

The charger should be OK to charge ordinary 5V gadgets. I'd used it with my Kobo Sage before I realised it had 9V and 12V, because most USB-A sockets are 5V only!

The USB OTG adaptor with USB-C charging port should in theory support USB-C 20V. I'd need an inline USB-A measurement to see if the fast charge mode works. It certainly charges.

[DrChiper]

Remember that the total chain is tablet <> cable <> charger.
The tablet requests the charger what it can deliver (5V, 9V, 12V, etc); both tablet and charger can request the (intelligent) cable what it can support (1A, 3A, 5A, etc); thereafter the tablet makes its calculated request for required charging. That can be less than expected.
For this purpose I acquired such an intelligent USB load cable. When the cable is not intelligent or not genuine the max load is autogamically limited to 1A.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DrChiper

Remember that the total chain is tablet <> cable <> charger.

Standards are so wonderful.
At a minimum need a regular dumb cable that has all the wires.
I was just surprised that this case didn't need a USB 3.0 USB-A or USB-C to USB-C, yet has more than 1A, 1.5A or 2A (the 3 common high powers for 5V only USB-A using D- and D+ "passive signalling" (fixed resistors or fixed voltages at the USB-A charger socket). A so-called "charging" only cable has no D- and D+ and thus the gadget might only take 150 mA (or sometimes up to 500mA = 0.5A).

Origin of USB-C

From https://xkcd.com/927 CC

I'd not been paying attention for some while on charging and didn't realise some USB-A charger sockets can do more than 5V or more than 2A. It's well known that USB-C charge sockets can do 5V to 20V and up to 5A.

AFIAK there are no "intelligent" cables. These are all just wires:

1. Simple charge only, only 2 wires. No sensing or signalling. Safe outdoors where a public charger might have malware.
2. Simple USB-A with four wires: 2 for power and D- & D+ for data, but non-proprietary proprietary USB-A chargers put resistors or voltages on D- and D+. Apple was different to others, thus the "wrong" 1.5A or 2A charger would only do 0.15A or 0.5A.
3. Simple USB-A with four wires: 2 for power and D- & D+ for data. Same cable as (2) but a proprietary D- & D+ protocol for more than 7.5" or 10W from proprietary chargers, some do mopre than 5V, but all default to 5V and allow 2A. Incompatible devices may take 0.15A or 0.5A at 5V. I've tested this in the lab. My supermarket 2A 5V chargers do 2A to a dummy load, but no phone/tablet/ereader I have takes more than 0.5A. Maybe they suit Apple for 1.5A or 2A, but I don't have any suitable Apple gear.
4. USB 3.0 has five extra connections on USB-A and extra top on USB-B or extra connections at side on micro USB.
5. USB-C to USB-C is a kitchen sink. It has an extra serial port for power signalling, optionally HMDI like video separately and optionally analogue audio I/O duplicating 3.5mm 4 pole jack. Does USB 3.0 if both devices support it. Not all things with USB-C have USB 3.0, nor video, nor OTG, nor charging + OTG, nor analogue audio and adverts/specs rarely say.

A Nintendo switch seems to need a real USB-C charger or its dock, not a USB-C to USB-A cable (even if USB 3.0).

[DrChiper]

The "intelligence" I'm referring to is that it can be approached to reveal certain aspects. See attachment: I've a handy gizmo that reveals something of USB-C cables. I use it for example to see whether the cable I bought is indeed genuine (Vendor ID). Further, this gizmo can say something about the attached charger.
The 2nd picture provides the capabilities of the charger I mostly use for the Nxtpaper 11, while the 3rd picture lists the capabilities of the TCL provided charger. The 4th picture list the charger I use for all my smartphone as it has the most capabilities. (Green shows what can be got from the charger)

[Quoth]

The 3rd pic doesn't show any 9V and 12V, which is marked on the charger. It can't be doing only 5V @ 1.5A.

Interesting gadget.

[DrChiper]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Interesting gadget.

It is and can be had with amazon: FNB48S and its followup FNB58 (which is encased in aluminum).
Beware though: its information provided is to be regarded for indication only. Don't expect very precise details.
WARNING: the user manual is crap, and you can fry your Device Under Test when handling it wrong!

Originally Posted by Quoth

The 3rd pic doesn't show any 9V and 12V, which is marked on the charger. It can't be doing only 5V @ 1.5A.

It does actually: QC version 2.0 can be delivered for 5V, 9V, 12V and 20V. However, it is not active as the device is just the USB meter itself, and no actual load (like a tablet) is present.

The USB meter just asks the charger what it can deliver for predefined protocols. That is what you see.

Funny fact: when I connected the NxtPaper 11 to a PD-only charger, the NxtPaper showed an info message, stating: Very slow charger. Please use another charger like the one provided with the tablet. The NxtPaper has power management beyond my smartphone

[Quoth]

I'm very impressed by Nxtpaper 11 and regular readers will know I'm a sceptic about tech adverts and claims.

[DrChiper]

Assumptions can be deadly and being skeptic is very healthy

[JohnCheese]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's €167 inc VAT, ex shipping on Amazon DE today, so the Wife has bought one, pen, plus "official" case with pen holder and 256 G micro SD card* to replace her nearly 5 yo Lenovo Tab 10 that has a 128G SD card.

(*I think better value and reliability than 512 G, 1T or 1.5T).

Do you have a link/picture to the case? I am having a hard time finding a good case. Does anyone have one they recommend? I want one that stands vertically but all of them only seem to go horizontal

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JohnCheese

Do you have a link/picture to the case? I am having a hard time finding a good case. Does anyone have one they recommend? I want one that stands vertically but all of them only seem to go horizontal

I use a €2.50 locally bought folding stand sold for books (such as a cookery book in a kitchen). Hinged wire-like support and and plastic base. Adjustable angle. Works for ereaders, 6″ and up, tablets and of course physical books. Compact when folded so as to fit in a bag.

This supposedly official case id more to stop damage to screen in transit and landscape use.
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0CS3MF8Q6/
In this case I think "Screen protector" may mean cover flap.

There are actual transparent 3rd party screen protectors which are stupid because they make the screen glossy. Shiny/Glossy is the single worst attribute of a screen.

[DrChiper]

I'm using something like this.

[Quoth]

Mine is like this, except it was much cheaper locally, about €2.50 instead of €7 plus €8 shipping approximately.

I removed the front clip and put a couple of rubbery stick on feet to reduce depth. I also reversed the tail to get a steeper angle.

@DrChiper: Your stand looks posh!