PLEASE CHECK FOR UPDATES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST
Hello everyone.
I can see some people are curious about the device, and since I actually bought it, I thought I'd give a simple review here myself.
So I ordered the device from Onyx website. It arrived in about 4 days which is quite fast, but delivery was 25euro.
The shipping package was good and well protected.
DISCLAIMER: This is my first ereader! I don't have a standard for comparison so I cannot offer an opinion on whether it's better than other ereaders.
You can see the box itself in the images in my Dropbox gallery:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nd4puwwc2...rE7QSLQYa?dl=0
In the box you will find the device, the manuals and the USB cable. That's it.
BODY
The device itself is a nice shade of blue and the body is a rubbery plastic that is matt-looking and very soft to the touch. You almost feel like it's made of rubber but it's plastic. It does tend to collect a bit of fingerprints but it doesn't make it look bad at all. I actually love the body, it feels like a very friendly device.
The screen itself is matt and disperses reflections quite well.
The bottom of the device houses (from left to right) the microSD slot, microUSB, a small hole I don't understand what it's for, another small hole that is probably the reset button and the power button. There aren't any other features on the rest of the sides of the device.
The power button placement feels quite awkward, since you can press it to force the device in to standby and to wake it up so you'd think they would put it somewhere very accessible. Instead, the bottom placement makes it hard to press with ease.
HOME SCREEN
The home screen hosts 4 buttons on the bottom along with the apps buttons in the middle. There's the Recently Read and Recently Added menus. Haven't bothered with these at all as I don't plan in using their ebook ecosystem.
STATUS BAR
The status bar is present in the bottom of the screen. It's actually a blend between the android status bar and the nav bar. The buttons (left to right): home, back, brightness, wifi status, battery and time.
Hitting the brightness button gives you a universal popup slider to set the brightness.
SETTINGS
The only customization options you actually get are:
User defined
Language & input
Other system settings are there but customization options are removed (like accessibility, which I will get to later on).
In
User defined you can set the brightness (same as status bar button), Sleep time, Shutdown time, Fullscreen flush times, EPUB book reader, Statusbar (show/hide), Volume keys setting (WHY?!!?!!), Daydream and customizing the 4 homescreen buttons.
SCREEN
Having not had used any ereaders in the past, I cant give much opinion on the screen quality. These are some issues I noticed however:
- The screen gets lots of ghosting in 2-3 changes. The menus and stock ereader are OK since they automatically refresh the entire screen but Moon+ reader never refreshes the entire screen, forcing you to do it manually.
- If you use your ereader % brightness setting, the lower levels will cause the brightness to flickr. You don't get this with the stock brightness slider since it has fewer levels.
- My screen is tilted. YES I MEAN TILTED. The right side of the screen seems to be around 1 milimetre higher than the left side essentially making my screen permanently (slightly) rotated. It's not that bad in epubs (you can't notice it) but it's VERY annoying altogether, thinking of returning my device. --
UPDATED
- The contrast doesn't seem that great. I (maybe falsely) expected the screen to behave like a piece of paper when it comes to outside lighting but it's darker than paper, which forces you to use more light than you'd probably use for reading a physical book.
OPERATION AND PROBLEMS
Now, keep in mind that the only reason I wanted an Android ereader was to not be tied down to any ecosystem and additionally, use alternative apps. This device lets you download apps from the Midiapolis store OR Aptoide store. Both work just fine.
My goal was to use Moon+reader which I have purchased for my phone and is great both in EPUBs and PDF and I can connect it to my dropbox account. There is only one problem.
No 3rd party apps recognize the status/nav bar at ALL! That means when the Moon+ reader goes fullscreen (immersive mode), the status bar blacks out but does not disappear, still taking up the bottom space of the screen!!!
Note that in the native app, the status bar disappears correctly, and the brightness button is transferred to the top of the screen, in what I assume is an in-app button.
The only solution to this problem is to hide the status bar entirely, and lose all soft buttons, as well as time/battery/wifi indicators!
Which brings me to my next issue...settings. The above problem COULD be solved by installing hover buttons. Example, "BUTTON SAVIOR" is great and even has an eink theme. It doesn't require root, but it requires access to the accessibility settings...which are REMOVED. Sorta. They're still there but not present in the settings app. The Button savior app accesses them directly, which means they are present so you can just access them like that and when you try to change any setting....THEY CRASH.
CONCLUSION
Right about now you're probably wondering why I'm so picky and keep discussing things like 3rd party apps. Well, for me, the entire point of getting an Android ereader was to be able to use 3rd party apps. What's the point of having an "open OS" if everything breaks when installing 3rd party apps?! Why not get a kindle!?
All in all, the inkBOOK Onyx isn't a bad device. Apart from the screen tilt issue, hardware wise the device is pretty good and actually quite good looking. But the software issues are very annoying.
Why ONYX decided to break protocol and create a navbar/status bar combination that doesn't respect immersive mode is BEYOND me.
I would definitely consider this a great purchase if one of the below happened:
1. The device was rooted. If it's rooted I can then either force immersive mode with a hover button or activate Button Savior to create very good looking hover buttons that give the same functionality as the status bar. Problem solved!
2. Accessibility settings are fixed. Button Savior works that way too.
3. Navbar/status bar respects immersive mode.
4. ONYX adds the option for hover buttons themselves.
UPDATE1: I mentioned mistakenly that the status bar doesn't respect immersive mode. I think immersive mode isn't actually available in Android JB.
UPDATE2:
It should be possible but I don't have an adaptor to test this...sorry! @Fabyk
I tried Alreader but the status bar / nav bar still doesn't minimize. The device runs Android 4.2.2 @Rizla
There is no google play @trocchietto
I've already sent a support email to Onyx for the problem with the tilted screen and I was told to return the device via DHL...which would cost me around 25Euro which I think it quite unfair. I am awaiting for an answer.
UPDATE3:
I've sent Onyx the photos I've taken of my device screen and they seem to think that nothing is wrong with it. I beg to differ.
Have a look for yourselves:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/evxoh6210...nqJVy26Na?dl=0
UPDATE4 (FINAL?):
After a discussion with Onyx, they had kindly offered to pick up the device themselves. It was pickup up from my location and they sent me another device in a timely manner.
The new device doesn't have the screen issue or any other apparent issue at that. I'm happy with the final outcome with the fault on the device.
For the rest of my comments, please see the review above. Please note that I have given the device away and got a Kobo Aura H2O. I'm very happy with it hardware wise, but software wise I think it's much less capable than Inkbook.