Icarus Illumina (E653)

[Purple Lady]

This has 4gb internal memory - is the app storage limited to a smaller portion, or is all memory available to install apps? The T68 limits you to 500 mb for installing apps which isn't much.

[Padawan]

Originally Posted by didierm

My Boyue (or Boeye) T61 arrived last Thursday.


The device is rooted (this is on your own risk ; if the following sounds like gibberish, just skip it) by :
- extracting the su binary from the /assets/armeabi/ folder in the com.koushikdutta.superuser_1030.apk file ;
- copying the su to /system/xbin/ via adb remount and adb push ;
- in an adb session, chmod-ing the binary to 6755.
(I repeat : making mistakes here may brick your device, rendering it unusable.)

Root access is now verified by the previously installed 'Root Verifier' app.


HTH,
Didier

Could you do me the favour of elaborating a little here? Perhaps break this process down into more elemental steps for myself and others who are not as familiar with this process but can follow instructions like well trained chimpanzees?

Many thanks (I, too, do not like using unrooted android devices)

[didierm]

Originally Posted by Padawan

Could you do me the favour of elaborating a little here?

This should give you an idea of the process (out of my head, I may have made a slight mistake here or there).
At your own risk (may brick your device) :

$ wget https://f-droid.org/repo/com.koushikdutta.superuser_1030.apk
$ unzip com.koushikdutta.superuser_1030.apk assets/armeabi/su
$ adb remount
$ adb install com.koushikdutta.superuser_1030.apk
$ adb push assets/armeabi/su /system/xbin/su.koushikdutta
$ rm -rf assets/
$ adb root ; adb shell

# cd /system/xbin
# chmod 6755 su.koushikdutta
# mv su su.orig
# cp -a su.koushikdutta su
# cd ../bin
# mv su su.orig
# ln -s ../xbin/su su

Alternatively, there is a root kit floating around on one of the German fora, which may be more suited to point-and-click Windows users.

You will need to repeat this procedure after installing a firmware update (a little script may prove its worth here).

[didierm]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

This has 4gb internal memory - is the app storage limited to a smaller portion, or is all memory available to install apps? The T68 limits you to 500 mb for installing apps which isn't much.

Filesystem layout :

Filesystem Size Used Free Blksize
/system 503.9M 447.4M 56.6M 4096
/data 1007.9M 194.1M 813.8M 4096
/cache 124.0M 16.1M 107.9M 4096
/mnt/sdcard 1.9 G 300.3M 1.6 G 8192


/system hasn't much space left (56M) : you would need to move e.g. fonts (~100 MB) to /data or the SD cards to free up space in order to install system apps.

However, /data has plenty of free space (1000 MB, not taking into account the dalvik-cache) to install lots of user apps on.

No worries here.

[Purple Lady]

Thanks

[Padawan]

Originally Posted by didierm

Alternatively, there is a root kit floating around on one of the German fora, which may be more suited to point-and-click Windows users.

You will need to repeat this procedure after installing a firmware update (a little script may prove its worth here).

Thank you, Didier!

Your disclaimer put me off the manual adb method but your tip for the Deutsche forum paid off in spades. This device is now an a fully fledged e-ink tablet rather than a mere ereader. Great stuff!

One good turn deserves another so to help any other members, here's where you need to go.

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...26channel%3Dsb

Best of luck, everyone!

[rdjack21]

Has any one taken a look the T62 it has the same basic specs as the T61 but more internal storage and it looks like the package is different (different buttons, shaped different). I'm considering getting one in the next few weeks.

Originally Posted by rdjack21

Has any one taken a look the T62 it has the same basic specs as the T61 but more internal storage and it looks like the package is different (different buttons, shaped different). I'm considering getting one in the next few weeks.

heavier and ugly shape

[cnmcleod]

Hi all! I allready have the T61. Did you install the Illumina Firmware over the T61? I've tried but need to be rooted. I've read how to do it more or less but I've not enough skill. I'll wait for it..

[Padawan]

Being the kind of guy that throws caution to the winds, I can confirm that you can install the Illumina firmware on the t61 without rooting. The August firmware is a big step up from what was on the shipped T61 and the Illumina branding is also an improvement. Having said that, rooting is a must for android. If I can't at least firewall the device then I don't want one.

[Purple Lady]

Has anyone tried to install Google play store?

[cnmcleod]

Originally Posted by Padawan

Being the kind of guy that throws caution to the winds, I can confirm that you can install the Illumina firmware on the t61 without rooting. The August firmware is a big step up from what was on the shipped T61 and the Illumina branding is also an improvement. Having said that, rooting is a must for android. If I can't at least firewall the device then I don't want one.

Already installed the Illumina Firmware over de Chinese T61 and all perfect . Installed "Alreader" app; prepared for e-ink readers.

Now let's see about the battery, i'm afraid it will last very few.

Thank you.

[crt]

Hi everybody. I received my T61 yesterday and immediately played with it taking into consideration "didierm"'s excellent instructions. I noted that T61 looks identical to Icarus Illumina. So, I am informing you all, that I took the plunge and downloaded the most recent firmware update from Icarus's site (a simple 'update.zip' file) and risked bricking the device. Result: The little thing now reports that it is a 'Icarus Illumina' and seems to work fine.
I am attaching a relevant pic (the dark round spots are because of my failed attempt to place the screen protector). Attempt it at your own risk.

First impressions:
1. The overall feeling about the font used is not as good as on the Kindle Keyboard (here they are more dim). On the other hand, I presume that one can install additional fonts to improve things (haven't tried it yet).
2. There is some variation in terms of the light at the bottom, but not annoying (I do not used normally, since I have a proper external light source)
3. The touch responsiveness is occasionally not precise and the reader seems to lag for some reason. Not very frequent, but can become annoying occasionally.
4. I installed Google Play, but running it did not produce anything useful, so I removed it. I used "didierm's" instructions, plus I installed F-Droid which does work straight from it and used it to install FBReader and MuPDF.
5. The s/w still is not as good as Duokan in the Kindle for reading - especially PDFs. Also, the Dictionary is problematic and does not seem to work often. The Icarus manual states that one has to place all stardict-type dictionaries in /mnt/sdcard/Dict, but even after that the results are not as good. Furthermore, it states that the dictionary is integrated for epubs only when using FBReader (not pdfs).
6. I find it annoying having to adjust (manually) the page-text so that it appears large enough on the display. For example, I would expect a proper auto-crop available for page-width adjustment.
7. For this reason I installed Adobe Reader. The latter does have a very good PDF text re-flow function (but not dictionary integration), although Duokan's (in Kindle) is unparalleled. I also installed an old version of Duokan for Android I found (don't know Chinese), but the results are not what I want.
8. The left and right physical arrow keys ('>' '<') are an excellent idea, but do not seem to work for most of the readers, even when setting them not to be used as volume +/-, which is their android meant purpose.

I think the firmware should have complete Dictionary integration and easier settings for system font selection as well as for keyboard layout (I use 2 languages and shifting from one keyboard to the other is a bit of a pain), plus a Task Manager to switch among processes as well as to easily see and kill unnecessary running ones.

[rdjack21]

Originally Posted by rdjack21

Has any one taken a look the T62 it has the same basic specs as the T61 but more internal storage and it looks like the package is different (different buttons, shaped different). I'm considering getting one in the next few weeks.

Originally Posted by DrPrince

heavier and ugly shape

Hmm... Lets assume you are right because I don't see a weight spec for either device. But what I do see are these differences which would make the T62 heaver

Battery T61 : 2000mAh lithium battery, T62 : 3000mAh lithium battery
Memory T61 : 4Gb, T62 8Gb
Audio T61 : Not supported , T62 : Supported headphone jack but not sure if it has a speaker.
Dimensions T61 : 159 x 112 x 8.5 mm, T62 : 160 x 123 x 8.5 mm -- Seeing that the battery has to go somewhere I assume they made it slightly wider for the bigger battery instead of thicker.

Other than that internally they are the same. Now the case is different to me it looks a little more rounded. I'm willing to put up with a little heaver to get better battery life. As far as looks go all I really care about is that it does not look like crap and its not that bad and I think I like the buttons a little better on the T62 (see attached picture). And to top it off the T62 is slightly cheaper but it does not come with a case like the T61 does.

To be honest I'm tempted to get them both the only problem is I can't return the one I don't want so in the end I think I'm going to get the T62 primarily for the bigger battery and more internal memory (more space for apps).

[didierm]

Originally Posted by crt

5. The s/w still is not as good as Duokan in the Kindle for reading - especially PDFs. Also, the Dictionary is problematic and does not seem to work often. The Icarus manual states that one has to place all stardict-type dictionaries in /mnt/sdcard/Dict, but even after that the results are not as good. Furthermore, it states that the dictionary is integrated for epubs only when using FBReader (not pdfs).
...
8. The left and right physical arrow keys ('>' '<') are an excellent idea, but do not seem to work for most of the readers, even when setting them not to be used as volume +/-, which is their android meant purpose.

- Both FBReader and CoolReader support the Aard dictionary app (see F-Droid), which works very well : I have installed dictionaries & some wiki's. I guess the latter ones emulate the functionality of Amazon Kindle's X-RAY : it's very nice to have an instant encyclopedia lookup function by e.g. double-tapping a word while reading.

- It appears FBreader does not, but al least CoolReader supports the previous/next hardware keys.