Disillusioned with Onyx Boox battery life

[E_inkFuture]

So I recently got the Note Pro, and I love it, it’s surprisingly competent in all aspects... but the one thing I have yet to come to grips with is the battery. Just this morning I was browsing the web (kiwi browser) with bluetooth on (keyboard), and I think my battery drained about 15-20% in less than an hour. For an ereader I did not expect this at all; but I suppose Android is a battery hog in combination with wifi and bluetooth.

Should I resign myself to the fact that this will happen if I treat the device as regular tablet, no matter what programs I use? Or are there ways to mitigate this kind of extreme drain— I have concerns about the lifespan of the battery. Are certain browsers much better than others?

I installed accubattery but I think it is still analyzing my app usage.

[tommyer]

Originally Posted by E_inkFuture

Just this morning I was browsing the web (kiwi browser) with bluetooth on (keyboard), and I think my battery drained about 15-20% in less than an hour. For an ereader I did not expect this at all; but I suppose Android is a battery hog in combination with wifi and bluetooth.

That‘s dramatic. (Afterthought: Is it really compared to IPad?) Put the frontlight on and see what happens then...
The old OB devices (I think linux based, Internet was out of the question for me) lasted like weeks. Android should need a lot of energy alone plus WIFI, surfing and bluetooth. It might tend to being usable only when plugged in the socket.

What I hope for is that reading and annotations in flight mode will give you a enough time, like say a week. But I doubt it. I‘ll see, my Note being on its way, if I will use it (plugged in or not) for searching the net for news articles and databases for other articles, converting some of them to pdfs. Because the IPad is very good at that, then use cloud or bluetooth to bring them over.

[tommyer]

In total 1 hour IPad with bluetooth keyboard, browsing and 5 minutes YouTube took 10% of the battery here. Very low light.

[E_inkFuture]

I don't know, will have to analyze further. Wifi and third party browsers seem to be the major culprit. I would use just the onyx browser but it strangely doesn't include an adblocker, or a way to install one afaik. What I need is a browser that dramatically reduces the quality of images, or maybe just a text only browser.

In any case I haven't gone through a whole charge yet, accubattery says I should just charge to 80% to maximize battery lifespan.

[bit101]

It's an e-reader that has the benefit of having some other functionality. If you use it like a general use tablet, using bluetooth and wifi and browsing the web for long periods of time, it's going to get tablet/phone like battery life. 20% for an hour of solid activity like that is not bad. You can't compare that with the "weeks" of battery life on a Kindle where all you are doing on a Kindle is reading books. On my Nova Pro, doing primarily reading, and quite a bit of it, I can probably get close to a week of battery life.

You can say that it should be getting better battery life than another tablet because... eink. But one of the big benefits of eink is that it only uses significant energy when it's refreshing the screen. Browsing the web means almost constant refreshing - loading new content, animations, scrolling, etc. As opposed to 1-2 refreshes per minute if you're reading a book.

[Dav_25]

Originally Posted by E_inkFuture

I have concerns about the lifespan of the battery. Are certain browsers much better than others?

Yes there are, Brave Browser is by far the best browser for saving battery life... and it blocks ads too:
https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-uses...-startup-says/


PS: Keep in mind that a "Googled Android" (in opposition to an "Ungoogled Android") is terrible with battery life in general, as it keeps trying to send all your data to Google all day long...
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...es-082218.html

[Luminose]

Originally Posted by bit101

It's an e-reader that has the benefit of having some other functionality. If you use it like a general use tablet, using bluetooth and wifi and browsing the web for long periods of time, it's going to get tablet/phone like battery life. 20% for an hour of solid activity like that is not bad. You can't compare that with the "weeks" of battery life on a Kindle where all you are doing on a Kindle is reading books. On my Nova Pro, doing primarily reading, and quite a bit of it, I can probably get close to a week of battery life.

You can say that it should be getting better battery life than another tablet because... eink. But one of the big benefits of eink is that it only uses significant energy when it's refreshing the screen. Browsing the web means almost constant refreshing - loading new content, animations, scrolling, etc. As opposed to 1-2 refreshes per minute if you're reading a book.

This is the correct answer. Turn off all wireless connections and read a book, you'll get amazing battery life. You won't get any battery savings using it like you would an iPad.

[E_inkFuture]

Originally Posted by Dav_25

Yes there are, Brave Browser is by far the best browser for saving battery life... and it blocks ads too:
https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-uses...-startup-says/


PS: Keep in mind that a "Googled Android" (in opposition to an "Ungoogled Android") is terrible with battery life in general, as it keeps trying to send all your data to Google all day long...
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news...es-082218.html

Thanks for this, I tried out Brave Browser and looks like it will be my go to. And I suspected as much with Google; think it was after I installed play store and a few apps that I really started noticing the drain... Just this morning it seemed to be losing 1 percent every 1-2 minutes. I will probably need to do a factory reset.

It’s disappointing because Google Docs seemed to work really well, I was going to use that as my word processor with the added benefit of cloud storage, but I guess I’ll need to find something else now.

[E_inkFuture]

So I did a factory reset, and before I did I unchecked 'Enable Google Play'... However, after reseting, I received two notifications: 'Google Play services requires an action', and 'Google Play Protect is turned on'. Enable Google Play is still unchecked after the reset.

Is this a standard notification on this device? I don't want Google's shenanigans in the background.

[Pajamaman]

I have a poke pro. Browsing works great but sucks battery. Reading is much better. But I think the battery is small. Also its android 6 so probably uses more power. I have playstore but my device is not recognized. I didnt realise it used a lot of juice. I wonder if I could rip it out...I don't use it or want it.

Thanks for bravebrowser tip. I use bromite on a tablet but it doesnt works so well on the onyx.

[plusz]

The draining issue remains me my experiments with building android firmware from scratch. The crucial issue was wipe out the JIT intermediary blobs between Java components updates. Theoretically JIT should handle it well, but in practice didn't wipe out incorrect byte blobs from the cache. Best practice is to clear the JIT cache but on Onyx device, with sealed bootloader I don't even know if we can do it.

BTW, Android 6, IIRC was the first one to expose proper power management and app permission settings but again we don't have it in Onyx sealed/crippled firmware.

[Roadsidetree]

Originally Posted by E_inkFuture

Thanks for this, I tried out Brave Browser and looks like it will be my go to. And I suspected as much with Google; think it was after I installed play store and a few apps that I really started noticing the drain... Just this morning it seemed to be losing 1 percent every 1-2 minutes. I will probably need to do a factory reset.

It’s disappointing because Google Docs seemed to work really well, I was going to use that as my word processor with the added benefit of cloud storage, but I guess I’ll need to find something else now.

Hi, Did you see any change with battery after reset?
I got my nova pro and the battery with wi-fi on is draining at same rate and the back is heating up. Is it normal?

[chrismscotland]

I noticed the same when using it for Music Playback with Spotify, even offline music - the battery is great when using it for eBooks or Notetaking, etc but not as a regular tablet.

[E_inkFuture]

Originally Posted by Roadsidetree

Hi, Did you see any change with battery after reset?
I got my nova pro and the battery with wi-fi on is draining at same rate and the back is heating up. Is it normal?

Reseting didn't help, removing Google may have helped marginally but I didn't really give it a chance. I'd rather have play store access. I use the brave browser which probably helps. But overall the battery just kind of sucks for tablet use, as others have said. Mine doesn't really heat up.