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Old 10-25-2014, 05:40 PM   #1
Purple Lady
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Posts: 5,698
Karma: 16542228
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Pennsylvania
Device: Huawei MediaPad M5, LG V30, Boyue T80S, Nexus 7 LTE, K3 3G, Fire HD8
Boyue T61/T62 / Icarus Illumina E653 review and Onyx T68 comparison

I had an Onyx Boox T68 and I returned it because it had too many defects. I have none of the problems with my T62 that I had with my T68 except battery life does kinda suck.

Screen accuracy on the T62 is incredible and the T68 was poor even after a firmware upgrade. The T62 has 1 GB to store apps - I have more apps installed than on my T68 and plenty of space left, and only Tapatalk is installed on the SD card. The T62 has much less of the white on white problem than the T68. It also is much better with motion on the screen than the T68 - you don't have to choose a different display mode, it does this automatically. Scrolling thru your book list in Calibre Companion works very well and book readers that can't turn off page animation look ok too. The fonts on the T62 are much darker in my installed reader apps than on the T68. Some people are using bold fonts using Moon+ on the T68, but you don't need to on the T62. One thing better on the T68 is the larger screen size, but for most everything else, the T62 wins hands down.

There is a great rooting and Google Play installation guide by nightboy on this MobileRead thread - https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=245888 .

The one issue in multiple apps is a problem where text doesn't show up on some menus - a sort of white text on white background, but usually in areas you won't need often like settings menus.

If you want to use the page turn buttons in most apps, you can on the E653 firmware, but not the T62 - just set the buttons to be used for volume buttons in settings. I think that's in User Defined Settings, but I'm currently on the T62 firmware so I'm not sure exactly where the setting is, but it works in apps that you can set to use the volume buttons as page turn buttons like in the Kindle app.

I had to set a static IP address in order to connect to my home wifi. Wifi does work in other locations.

You can have full screen anywhere if you set Statusbar to hide in Display Settings or in user defined settings for the E653. Use Button Savior to get back, home, recent apps, and menu buttons and more.

Button Savior swipe from bottom does not seem to work if status bar is not hidden, so I use Swapps to create a shortcut to turn the status bar on and off. It takes a bit to get used to swipe from the bottom, but I also use this on my Nexus 7. It helps if you start the swipe with your thumb on the edge of the bezel and swipe at an angle instead of straight up.


Reader apps

Moon+ is my favorite on my Nexus 7, and it works quite well here too. Just make sure you use the outdoor theme to get a white background and black text. The latest version now has all menus visible - it used to have the white on white problem.

Moon+ uses Color Dict dictionary and that works well. You need to install your preferred dictionary, the ones you need are on the app install page. There are English and other languages available.

Mantano, Nook, Google Play Books, and FBReader work well.

Calibre Companion works very well, I have 800+ books on my T62 now. If you use Calibre, Calibre Companion is a must have for organizing your books on your device.

I also installed InoReader rss reader and it works very well. IIRC it's a pain to set up so I restored the version that's on my Nexus 7 using Titanium Backup. Yes, Titanium Backup works if you're rooted, but the text is not visible in a number of places.

Kindle works much better on the T62 - the page turn animation is less noticeable and the Kindle store works.

Kobo thinks I have a larger page size so text is cutoff on the right and you can't change margins because all controls are displayed on the right side where you can't see them.

Overdrive flashes black for every page turn. The page size is slightly off so when you get further into a book the page shifts so that it falls off the left side and you can see part of the next page on the right. But if you go ahead using the toc it's ok. If you set a book mark the page is still offset so that won't help.


Other apps

Nova launcher works great and you don't need to be rooted to use it. I use a launcher app on all my Android devices.

Tapatalk installs and works too using the light theme, but quoted text can be hard to see.

ES File Explorer and Root Explorer are good file managers.

Swapps is good since there isn't a recent apps button. You can set favorite apps and widgets, recent apps, and all apps to come up with a swipe from any app.

Titanium Backup works much better on the T62 because there's less of the white on white problem.

AnyCut is useful to get shortcuts to the Brightness app and the Boyue launcher. This allows you to set Nova as your permanent home but still access the Boyue launcher home page.

I had trouble with Opera mini - I couldn't make the fonts big enough very easily. You can't install Dolphin mini through the Play Store, but I installed it on my Nexus 7 and restored it using Titanium Backup to the T62 and it's working better than Opera Mini.

Amazon appstore, Dropbox, Gsam battery monitor, and Hackers Keyboard all work. I still have lots of space to install more apps!

Last edited by Purple Lady; 12-29-2014 at 04:12 PM.
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