M96 + T68. Updates and more ...

[japinder]

Originally Posted by Yassair

How can I erase them or rename, do I have to download a file explorer and be root (because I'm not)

- You need to be root. On my M96, I use Towelroot v1.
- Install ES File Explorer or a similar app.
- Mount '/' as Read/Write.
- Go to '/system/app'.
- Rename Phone.apk & TelephonyProviders.apk.
- You may subsequently get error messages like 'Messaging has stopped' etc, which can be safely ignored.


Jp

[japinder]

Originally Posted by japinder

Say, is anyone using the landscape mode to read PDFs in the default reader? After the latest update from Sept 26th, in landscape mode, the PDFs seem to be horribly affected by ghosting/artifacts/remnants of the previous page. Sometimes the sides of the documents are just missing/blank. The reader also seems to get stuck/non responsive. Especially when the next page contains a diagram. No problem at all in portrait mode.

I'm just warming up to the landscape mode, so can't say whether it was working fine in the earlier releases.

Anyone using the landscape mode with PDFs on M96 with the latest (or prior) release? What is your take?

EDIT: The inbuilt reader on M96 is useless for landscape, completely unresponsive for several seconds in between. As compared to Moon+ Pro & ezPDF Pro, the Mantano Free version seems to be better equipped with handling the landscape mode on my M96. However, I need to do a scroll with the stylus to reach the bottom half of the page, which causes those weird animations. Clicking on the right hand side just brings up the menu. Clicking the next/previous buttons & the D-pad skips a page altogether.

EDIT 2: ezPDF has a full screen option, but doesn't work on my M96. Open ezPDF, try from Menu, doesn't work.
The nearest I've been able to come to my requirement is this scenario using 800x1200 pixels (assuming 25 pixels lost to system bar):
- Crop the PDF margins in briss to almost the text edge.
- Use Rotation Locker to force the system orientation to landscape. (Random OnyxLauncher crashes)
- Open PDF in ezPDF (Pro).
- In settings, use Minimum Zooom to Page Height, which is ~100% (if I use Page Width then minimum zoom is ~240%, at which due to less screen real estate, each page has to be viewed in three parts)
- In settings, set action of volume button to Page Flip.
- Increase zoom to a level at which you get maximum magnification, but still are able to view the page in two parts.
-

How do you guys use landscape mode for PDFs?


Jp

[dnastase]

Is it me or the battery life is not so good after the latest upgrade ?

I mean the device is off and it consumes like 20% percent per day ?!
With all the battery and whatnot issues that I know that my device has, it didn't used to do that before ...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by dnastase

Is it me or the battery life is not so good after the latest upgrade ?

I mean the device is off and it consumes like 20% percent per day ?!
With all the battery and whatnot issues that I know that my device has, it didn't used to do that before ...

If the device is off, it should use no power (ignoring the very slow natural discharge rate of the battery). If it's using power, it must be asleep, rather than off. I have my T68 set to turn off after 1h of inactivity, and it last for weeks between charges.

[Sweetpea]

It sounds like there's a process that keeps running instead of going to sleep. You can check what processes are using the battery in the settings.

[anton_dys]

Hello everyone!

I have an M96M Zeus (that's what the Russian edition is called) and am very much satisfied with the device - almost perfect for my travelling and other needs. The only thing I really miss in the standard PDF reader and NEO PDF reader is the support for hyperlinks inside the document! It's such a pain having to scroll through 10 pages instead of just clicking the link "see Eq.1" or "Fig. 34". And then you have to go back to where you were..

I've tried dozens third-party Android PDF readers, but most of them are either not too good for an E-ink display or have some other issues. Mantano Reader is great and it has hyperlinks support, but it doesn't have that "boldfaced text" feature so the text in PDF appears thin and hard to read.

Standard Adobe PDF reader seems to support hyperlinks but it crashes on my device when I try to launch it after installation..

So is there support for hyperlinks in the latest updates for M96? If not, is it going to be included in future updates? Oh, please, let it be included!
And is it safe to install Booxtor's updates on a Russian version of M96?
On our Russian site there were no updates since July...

Any other advice would be very much appreciated!!!
Thanks!

[japinder]

Originally Posted by dnastase

Is it me or the battery life is not so good after the latest upgrade ?

I mean the device is off and it consumes like 20% percent per day ?!
With all the battery and whatnot issues that I know that my device has, it didn't used to do that before ...

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the device is off, it should use no power (ignoring the very slow natural discharge rate of the battery). If it's using power, it must be asleep, rather than off. I have my T68 set to turn off after 1h of inactivity, and it last for weeks between charges.

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

It sounds like there's a process that keeps running instead of going to sleep. You can check what processes are using the battery in the settings.

My beloved M96 doesn't have a SIM card or the ability to connect to mobile networks, however, Onyx's instructions keep asking her to keep searching for networks &/or keep the process running.

Till the update from Sept 2nd, Using a combination of:
- Mobile data off
- Airplane mode on
used to keep the battery protected from theft by Cell standby.

However, in the latest update from Sept 26th, there's one additional thing which I need to do:
- Rename (/system/app/) Phone.apk & TelephonyProviders.apk to anything but their original names

Even now, the Cell standby figures in battery usage, however, the drain due to it is gone for sure.

Your mileage may vary.


Jp

[markom]

Originally Posted by japinder

Anyone using the landscape mode with PDFs on M96 with the latest (or prior) release? What is your take?

...
Jp

Now that there is pdf exporting with scribblings and highlights in Neo Reader, could you try and let us know how quick is to flip through, scribble and highlight in landscape mode and save the pdf e.g. using original letter-size color pdf and then that (grayscale) pdf optimized for landscape in k2pdfopt app.

[cmavr8]

Originally Posted by markom

Now that there is pdf exporting with scribblings and highlights in Neo Reader, could you try and let us know how quick is to flip through, scribble and highlight in landscape mode and save the pdf e.g. using original letter-size color pdf and then that (grayscale) pdf optimized for landscape in k2pdfopt app.

Oh yes, export to PDF, I almost forgot to report my findings:
- the option is not always there. If I close and re-open a pdf, the scribble and export options may or may not be there. closing and opening again produces different results every time. For some PDFs the options are never there

- It doesn't really seem to work. Even when the option is available, and I manage to use it, I get a PDF that does NOT contain my highlights, when viewed on PC.

- Opening a highlighted PDF does not show highlights. Although the highlights are shown when the PDF is opened by Moon+ or my PC's viewer, Neo Reader does not recognize them


BTW I'm still waiting for an update from Onyx on that ticket about TS. If nothing happens I'll start the return process on monday.

[bruja_phoenix]

Originally Posted by bruja_phoenix

Booxtor, I very much appreciated the last update, but unfortunately the improvement I most hoped for is still there, with NeoReader.
I really hope you will solve it, cause I love NeoReader and can't use it when I need to enlarge the font size for this one reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac0E...dwREqzO4F_5YxQ

thank you guys, the latest update solved this problem in Neoreader.
If you could insert in Neoreader TTS, like there is in Onyx reader, would be perfect!

[cmavr8]

Battery from 100 to 3%, just for fun.

What looks stupid is that connecting to a computer (USB, to transfer books) for 1 minute brought battery from 100% to 65%. This happened right after disconnection.

Also, going from 50% to 3% was very abrupt. The device was used yes, but it wasn't watching videos or anything...

Otherwise, while screen is off, things look good I think

Anyway I'm not complaining yet. Once I fix my TS problem I can gain root and start analyzing battery. I think this is fixable easier than the TS.

[dnastase]

Originally Posted by cmavr8

Battery from 100 to 3%, just for fun.

What looks stupid is that connecting to a computer (USB, to transfer books) for 1 minute brought battery from 100% to 65%. This happened right after disconnection.

Also, going from 50% to 3% was very abrupt. The device was used yes, but it wasn't watching videos or anything...

Otherwise, while screen is off, things look good I think

Anyway I'm not complaining yet. Once I fix my TS problem I can gain root and start analyzing battery. I think this is fixable easier than the TS.

May I ask how are you going to fix a faulty physical battery ? (I understood you meant by software changes).

[cmavr8]

Originally Posted by dnastase

May I ask how are you going to fix a faulty physical battery ? (I understood you meant by software changes).

Oh I wasn't aware that people had issues with batteries!
I thought it was just misconfiguration that caused drain (e.g. cell related apks trying to connect all the time), so I thought I could tackle that.

So.. another reason for me to return the device? But how do you check if your battery is ok? We should have a standard test, like screen on, backlight at minimum, wifi off -> lasts X hours

[dnastase]

I guess one such test could be devised.

I have a theory/feeling that allmost all the issues of the device come from the faulty battery. Maybe including the touchscreen issues (where I've noticed that the touchscreen is more accurate when it's plugged in).
The battery seems to have a weird chemistry where it discharges non-linearly and I think sometimes just doesn't have enough power at all, that's when you get into the coma behaviour or the reboot loop.

While it's true the the Android core could be optimized more for the power consumption, that's just one angle.
I'm afraid the other is the faulty battery
At least I'm sure I have one, and from the data you're showing (that looks just like mine) I would say you do too (

[por]

On the new firmware version (1.6.4) for the M96:

Great job with the scribbling! "Export" seems to work well (even for straight lines ) and the line width at the lowest setting is perfect. I guess the M96 is turning into the ultimate reader/writer on the market!

The last feature I think would be very useful when scribbling is to have an option to scribble without seeing the scribble bar (with eraser etc..). This was possible on the M92 and I enjoyed it a lot since I was able to use the whole surface of the screen for my scribbles.

There is also this strange bug when scribbling mode randomly switches off while you're scribbling. Maybe this happens if you try to scribble exactly at the moment when the device is processing the scribbles? Have some other users experienced that?