Quote:
Originally Posted by Jmirko
I was also surprised to find this function missing on the M96. The lack of a gyroscope (hardware) is understandable for cost reduction reasons. However, the lack of a software function to turn the screen manually is not. Fortunately, this being open Android, this is easy to fix. I use the free app "Set Orientation" by The Eyes-Free Project, available on the Play Store. This allows you to change the orientation manually, conveniently from the top bar of the screen.
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Thank you Jmirko! Although that app in particular was unresponsive when I tried to run it, your post led me to find another app that worked--there are quite a few options on the play store. Actually, "Set Orientation" doesn't open at all--it presents a notification that says, "Disabled", with the option to tap "OK". Right now I'm trying out "Rotate Screen Orientation", and it works.
I'm also testing out multi-tasking apps, since there does not appear to be any simple way to switch between apps (someone please let me know if there is a way after all!). You have to tap the "Home" icon in the top left of the screen, then tap the "Application" icon, then scroll through your apps to locate the one you want. I thought multi-tasking and app-switching with hardware buttons was a core feature of Android. If so, they have disabled it far as I can tell. So far I have had luck with an app called "Side Apps Bar". It has alot of customization settings. Limiting animation settings helps. For the "Opening of the Bar" setting, I'm using the "Arrow" setting, rather than "Tab".
I think one of the biggest errors of the N96 ML (not the capacitive touch model) hardware is the lack of a five-way navigation key, like the one on the M96. If you loose your stylus and don't have a bluetooth mouse or trackpad, you are SOL for even the most basic functions, like going to the home screen, navigating menus, selecting/tapping an icon, etc. Someone correct me if I'm missing some hardware button key-combinations or something.
Aside from that, the light of the N96 ML is plenty bright. There don't appear to be any dark spots--its nice, even light, even though I wish they used a warmer LED. It looks too blue for my taste, but I'm finicky about that. You can turn the light on/off by long-pressing the hardware "back" button. To adjust brightness, you have to go to "home" again, unless the app you're using has a dimmer function. The dimmer has a broad range and the 10 levels of brightness make for fine adjustment.
I bought this bluetooth keyboard with trackpad. It works great, 95% of the time. A few times I experienced latency and missed keystrokes when typing at my full speed (I'm a moderate, not fast typer). The trackpad also has minor latency, and of course with the e-ink screen there is some delay. But overall the keyboard experience has been good, and its almost exactly the same dimensions of the tablet, super light, and fits in the same case.
With the screen in "Reverse Landscape" setting, and the tablet propped up, I can use the thing like a netbook in my case. Look for Kindle DX cases, since its very close to the same size. Many word processors don't work, but so far, Textmaker Mobile has been working well--and it links up with Dropbox (and other cloud services, like Evernote, Google drive, OneDrive, etc). This is the app where I experienced the missing keystrokes though. But I just tested it again, and it worked, so maybe that issue was caused by interference--I was in a public place with lots of network activity.
Gmail works fine, although with some display glitches. I'm always able to read & send emails, though sometimes I long-press the hardware "Menu" button to refresh the screen. My calendar syncs up fine with Google Calendar.
So overall, I'm able to work on Word files synced up with dropbox. But one remaining issue for me is annotating .pdf files. So far the experience is not so great. Not very high fidelity. I don't see the pressure sensitivity working all that well. Sometimes the calibration feels off--and I have tried recalibrating a number of times in the Settings menu. It is good enough that I think I will continue to try reading and annotating this way. Xodo syncs up annotations with dropbox, which is very helpful. The Onyx Neo Reader has a much more optimized reading interface. In particular, I appreciate the zoom and navigation functions, which are necessary for some scanned documents--especially where two pages have been scanned as one. However the Neo Reader doesn't sync up with any cloud service, and it doesn't seem to allow a simple way to make ongoing annotations over multiple sessions, since you can only "export", not "save". There may be a simple method to make this manageable, but I don't know it.