approaching EOM, newer firmware, Onyx? - Page 2

pidgeon92 · 09-15-2011, 02:29 PM

I did finally use the shut down command, after I couldn't get it to respond to the pen at all. I turned it back on, hooked it up to my iMac, and removed all of the books on it via Calibre. Then I added two books, and opened one, then put the unit to sleep.

After waking it, the next page button would not work again. Neither did the home button. After pushing a few more random buttons, the thing finally responded and flashed here, there and everywhere. It finally landed on the library, where I opened the same book up, and now the pages are turning.

It really ought not be this much trouble.

BCotton · 09-19-2011, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

I did finally use the shut down command, after I couldn't get it to respond to the pen at all. I turned it back on, hooked it up to my iMac, and removed all of the books on it via Calibre. Then I added two books, and opened one, then put the unit to sleep.

After waking it, the next page button would not work again. Neither did the home button. After pushing a few more random buttons, the thing finally responded and flashed here, there and everywhere. It finally landed on the library, where I opened the same book up, and now the pages are turning.

It really ought not be this much trouble.

Strange that different people have different problems with the device. Wonder if it is the hardware/poor QC.

pidgeon92 · 09-19-2011, 09:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BCotton

Strange that different people have different problems with the device. Wonder if it is the hardware/poor QC.

I will go with an unequivocal yes.

Syncopated · 09-24-2011, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jian1

I have heard it has poor PDF support and that's why I shunned away from Kindle.

Not many 9" pearl screens around.

I just bought an Onyx M91S to replace my Kindle DX, hoping to avoid some PDF problems I had on Kindle DX. Unfortunately, I found out after receiving my M91S that it has its own share of PDF problems. I hope they fix them.

jian1 · 09-25-2011, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syncopated

I just bought an Onyx M91S to replace my Kindle DX, hoping to avoid some PDF problems I had on Kindle DX. Unfortunately, I found out after receiving my M91S that it has its own share of PDF problems. I hope they fix them.

How does Kindle handle PDF files? What I wanted is a nicely formatted, margin cropped PDF, and that's it. M90 has been giving me headaches for months...

Syncopated · 09-25-2011, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jian1

How does Kindle handle PDF files? What I wanted is a nicely formatted, margin cropped PDF, and that's it. M90 has been giving me headaches for months...

Here are some observations about the Kindle DX:

Rendering is mostly OK, meaning the page is rendered quickly and accurately, but for certain pages, especially certain TOC pages, it can be slow, slower than the M91S, sometimes unbearably slow. For many, if not most, pages I've seen, the two devices are about equally fast. On the other hand, although I've only had the M91S for three days, I've already spotted two obvious rendering problems with two of the documents I have.

It fails to properly extract the Title and Author for many documents when showing a list of documents.

It fails to render certain images that the M91S has no problem with. This happened with one technical book I have. The rendered image is garbled.

It crops out white margin automatically. Sometimes, it is very aggressive about this for a page that is almost blank, and you get extra-large text. Not a big deal for me, better than not cropping at all. For documents that are just bitmap images, I don't expect margin cropping. It seems to display most bitmap documents fine, but I have one 300MB one for which it falls flat on its face, failing to render after the first few pages, with an error message. It could be the funky way in which that document was constructed, but the M91S had no problems with that document.

adrhc · 09-26-2011, 03:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Syncopated

For many, if not most, pages I've seen, the two devices are about equally fast.

Hm, interesting notice; could you please compare the device with the attached technical pdf (a programming guide); start with page 45.

Oh, and by the way; does Onyx have that Kindle's function only for pdfs that allows you to make font darker ?

gr650 · 10-26-2011, 04:28 AM

Back to topic: there's a new firmware for the M90: https://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-...x-m90-firmware

I installed it on my M90, but haven't noticed any major differences so far.

Onyx Europe · 10-26-2011, 04:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gr650

Back to topic: there's a new firmware for the M90: https://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-...x-m90-firmware

I installed it on my M90, but haven't noticed any major differences so far.

I'm experiencing major differences when scribbling. It is much faster and for my test device the blind spot is fixed.

gr650 · 10-26-2011, 01:14 PM

I haven't noticed any improvements in the scribbling. It's been like this right from the beginning, rather quick, but still with a short delay between when the pen hits the tablet and when the ink is actually displayed. No major issue.

I've never personally had the problem with the blind spot.

But I have two issues with scribble. First, there's two mysterious displacement lines, between the arrows marked 1/2 in the image. That gap/line is also occurring in pdf sketches, i.e. anywhere the pen is applied. Second, why is there tons of white space on top and bottom of the image (3)? Is that because of the blank template? (Larger resolution linked below the image).

http://www.georgruss.de/tmp/booxm90-scribble-large.jpg

Onyx Europe · 10-27-2011, 06:04 AM

It is really strange that the notes-taking for you is really slow. And for my device it's really quick. (This device is from the first batch in June)
Maybe the touchscreen in your device is a bit faulty.

Below you can see the scribble I've made. You can see I am not experiencing the mysterious displacement lines.
Why there's a big white space at the top and bottom... I don't have a clue

I'll ask why they did it.

gr650 · 10-27-2011, 07:55 AM

Sorry, don't ask, I solved the "scribble not on full-screen" issue. OMG, the onyx programmers are just plain stupid. There are by default four templates, which can be seen from the firmware update archive in the /notes_template folder. Here comes the clue: the images are resized to fit the M90's screen. That's no big deal, but then you can't simply put 600x800 template images in that directory, but something with an aspect ratio of 768x1200 (or 768x1170, since the bottom tool bar can't be removed, it seems).

So, in order to fix this: download newer firmware, put a blank png file with a resolution of 768x1170px into the /notes_template folder and do the updating procedure. Then scribbling works in full-screen:

.

It's those sorts of plain stupid usability issues that the M90 has

gr650 · 10-27-2011, 08:12 AM

Oh, and just now it crashed again while I was simply going to the options menu while reading an epub ebook from the internal storage. Damn.

Onyx Europe · 10-27-2011, 08:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gr650

So, in order to fix this: download newer firmware, put a blank png file with a resolution of 768x1170px into the /notes_template folder and do the updating procedure.

Thanks. Those Chinese engineers are just that stupid

rkomar · 10-27-2011, 12:39 PM

So what they're probably doing is scaling the scribbles to match the resolution of the template image, storing the line segments that way, and then rescaling back to screen resolution to show each update. That will definitely be slower than not having to scale at all (i.e. using a template of the correct screen dimensions). It does look like their scaling algorithm is off, judging by the breaks in the lines, but I wouldn't call them stupid over that. It would be interesting to see if the saved image has those line breaks or not. Then we'd know if the problem is in scaling the line segments to the template when storing them, or in resizing the segments back to screen dimensions when showing them.

10-26-2011, 01:14 PM	#25
gr650 Member Posts: 18 Karma: 172 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: Boox M90	Scribble unchanged in my new firmware I haven't noticed any improvements in the scribbling. It's been like this right from the beginning, rather quick, but still with a short delay between when the pen hits the tablet and when the ink is actually displayed. No major issue. I've never personally had the problem with the blind spot. But I have two issues with scribble. First, there's two mysterious displacement lines, between the arrows marked 1/2 in the image. That gap/line is also occurring in pdf sketches, i.e. anywhere the pen is applied. Second, why is there tons of white space on top and bottom of the image (3)? Is that because of the blank template? (Larger resolution linked below the image). http://www.georgruss.de/tmp/booxm90-scribble-large.jpg Last edited by gr650; 10-26-2011 at 01:26 PM. Reason: added some information

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09-15-2011, 02:29 PM	#16
pidgeon92 Wizard Posts: 3,144 Karma: 8426142 Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Chicago, IL Device: Kindle PW2, Kindle Voyage, Kindle DXG, Boox M90, Kobo Aura HD	I did finally use the shut down command, after I couldn't get it to respond to the pen at all. I turned it back on, hooked it up to my iMac, and removed all of the books on it via Calibre. Then I added two books, and opened one, then put the unit to sleep. After waking it, the next page button would not work again. Neither did the home button. After pushing a few more random buttons, the thing finally responded and flashed here, there and everywhere. It finally landed on the library, where I opened the same book up, and now the pages are turning. It really ought not be this much trouble.

10-26-2011, 04:28 AM	#23
gr650 Member Posts: 18 Karma: 172 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: Boox M90	Back to topic: there's a new firmware for the M90: https://www.onyx-boox.com/onyx-boox-...x-m90-firmware I installed it on my M90, but haven't noticed any major differences so far.

10-27-2011, 06:04 AM	#26
Onyx Europe Distributor Posts: 114 Karma: 66 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Netherlands Device: Onyx Boox M91S	It is really strange that the notes-taking for you is really slow. And for my device it's really quick. (This device is from the first batch in June) Maybe the touchscreen in your device is a bit faulty. Below you can see the scribble I've made. You can see I am not experiencing the mysterious displacement lines. Why there's a big white space at the top and bottom... I don't have a clue I'll ask why they did it.

10-27-2011, 07:55 AM	#27
gr650 Member Posts: 18 Karma: 172 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: Boox M90	Sorry, don't ask, I solved the "scribble not on full-screen" issue. OMG, the onyx programmers are just plain stupid. There are by default four templates, which can be seen from the firmware update archive in the /notes_template folder. Here comes the clue: the images are resized to fit the M90's screen. That's no big deal, but then you can't simply put 600x800 template images in that directory, but something with an aspect ratio of 768x1200 (or 768x1170, since the bottom tool bar can't be removed, it seems). So, in order to fix this: download newer firmware, put a blank png file with a resolution of 768x1170px into the /notes_template folder and do the updating procedure. Then scribbling works in full-screen: . It's those sorts of plain stupid usability issues that the M90 has

10-27-2011, 08:12 AM	#28
gr650 Member Posts: 18 Karma: 172 Join Date: Oct 2011 Device: Boox M90	Oh, and just now it crashed again while I was simply going to the options menu while reading an epub ebook from the internal storage. Damn.

10-27-2011, 12:39 PM	#30
rkomar Wizard Posts: 2,986 Karma: 18343081 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Sudbury, ON, Canada Device: PRS-505, PB 902, PRS-T1, PB 623, PB 840, PB 633	So what they're probably doing is scaling the scribbles to match the resolution of the template image, storing the line segments that way, and then rescaling back to screen resolution to show each update. That will definitely be slower than not having to scale at all (i.e. using a template of the correct screen dimensions). It does look like their scaling algorithm is off, judging by the breaks in the lines, but I wouldn't call them stupid over that. It would be interesting to see if the saved image has those line breaks or not. Then we'd know if the problem is in scaling the line segments to the template when storing them, or in resizing the segments back to screen dimensions when showing them.

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