MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - DO NOT BUY ONYX BOOX! Terrible device, terrible customer service!

alain_desilets · 04-10-2015, 10:04 AM

Just wanted to share my horrible experience with the Onyx Boox. I know some folks rave about it, but it has not been my experience at all.

SHORT STORY

I bought this device because I wanted an e-ink reader with Text-to-Speech (TTS), that could double up as an easy-on-the-eyes Android tablet for browsing the web and reading email.

The device was sort of OK as a vanilla book reader but it failed miserably at all other tasks I had bought it for. Even worse, it stopped working after 3 days, and Onyx refused to refund me in spite of much negotiations and their supposedly “no-questions-asked” refund policy.

LONG STORY

The Onyx Boox Universe was sort of OK as a vanilla book reader but failed miserably at everything else (which makes it kind of pointless to buy this instead of say, a Kobo or Kindle, which are better optimized for book reading).

The TTS feature didn’t work. It only read the first sentence of each page, then stopped.

The web browser took forever to display most pages (like… 30 seconds per new page), and very often, it would not properly refresh pages when paging up or down. For example, I was unable to use it to post to the MobileRead forum, because I would be typing a forum post in a text box, then scroll down the page, and when I came back to the top of the page, the submit button had disappeared (and all form buttons for that matter) . This meant that I could not submit my post. Pressing the refresh button didn’t help. I literally had to leave the page, come back to it, and restart the process, this time, making sure I didn’t scroll down or up before posting. This kind of major annoyances happened regularly, I’d say about once every 30 mins at least.

Also, in order to use this device to answer email, I had to get a Bluetooth keyboard, because otherwise, you have to type with a “single finger” (the screen only works with the stylus) and that’s way too slow for my taste. I didn’t mind buying the keyboard but the problem was that every time I put down the tablet for say, 30 mins, it would loose the bluetooth connection. I would then have to go into settings and reconnect the tablet to my keyboard, which took about 1-2 mins each time. This is a real pain if you are using the tablet for short burst interspersed with long pauses as I do.

At that point, I was starting to think that I would ask for a refund, as per their “no questions asked” refund policy which is described at the bottom of this page:

https://onyx-boox.com/support/shipment-and-returns/

The final straw happened when the device stopped working altogether after I installed an app to change the orientation to landscape. This is a standard feature of all android devices, but I was surprised to find that it’s not standard on the Onyx Boox. So I downloaded and installed an app called Set Orientation. It worked fine for 2 days, until I ran the Onyx pen calibration routine. At that point, the device became completely unusable, because there is a bug in Onyx’s calibration routine (it does not take current orientation into account). This bug caused it to learn a screen mapping that is completely warped. As a result, most of the icons that I see on the screen, including the very important Apps and Settings icons, have become “unclickable”. Clicking on those icons does nothing, or ends up clicking on a different icon, and there are no locations anywhere on the screen that end up clicking on those two icons. I can’t even reset the device to factory settings, because you can’t do that using only physical buttons on the device.

At that point, I asked for a refund and after much back and forth with the company, they ultimately refused, claiming that they do not support landscape mode. I tried to argue that if it’s the case that changing orientation renders the device unusable, then it’s THEIR RESPONSABILITY to make sure that no application can ever do that. Or at the very least it’s THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that you can reset the device to factory settings using physical buttons only, so that if an app does mess up the screen mapping, you can still get back on your feet. But they still refused to refund me.

I conclusion, I would strongly advise anyone against buying this device, nor any device manufactured by Onyx.

04-10-2015, 10:04 AM	#1
alain_desilets Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Mar 2015 Device: Onyx Boox Universe	DO NOT BUY ONYX BOOX! Terrible device, terrible customer service! Just wanted to share my horrible experience with the Onyx Boox. I know some folks rave about it, but it has not been my experience at all. SHORT STORY I bought this device because I wanted an e-ink reader with Text-to-Speech (TTS), that could double up as an easy-on-the-eyes Android tablet for browsing the web and reading email. The device was sort of OK as a vanilla book reader but it failed miserably at all other tasks I had bought it for. Even worse, it stopped working after 3 days, and Onyx refused to refund me in spite of much negotiations and their supposedly “no-questions-asked” refund policy. LONG STORY The Onyx Boox Universe was sort of OK as a vanilla book reader but failed miserably at everything else (which makes it kind of pointless to buy this instead of say, a Kobo or Kindle, which are better optimized for book reading). The TTS feature didn’t work. It only read the first sentence of each page, then stopped. The web browser took forever to display most pages (like… 30 seconds per new page), and very often, it would not properly refresh pages when paging up or down. For example, I was unable to use it to post to the MobileRead forum, because I would be typing a forum post in a text box, then scroll down the page, and when I came back to the top of the page, the submit button had disappeared (and all form buttons for that matter) . This meant that I could not submit my post. Pressing the refresh button didn’t help. I literally had to leave the page, come back to it, and restart the process, this time, making sure I didn’t scroll down or up before posting. This kind of major annoyances happened regularly, I’d say about once every 30 mins at least. Also, in order to use this device to answer email, I had to get a Bluetooth keyboard, because otherwise, you have to type with a “single finger” (the screen only works with the stylus) and that’s way too slow for my taste. I didn’t mind buying the keyboard but the problem was that every time I put down the tablet for say, 30 mins, it would loose the bluetooth connection. I would then have to go into settings and reconnect the tablet to my keyboard, which took about 1-2 mins each time. This is a real pain if you are using the tablet for short burst interspersed with long pauses as I do. At that point, I was starting to think that I would ask for a refund, as per their “no questions asked” refund policy which is described at the bottom of this page: https://onyx-boox.com/support/shipment-and-returns/ The final straw happened when the device stopped working altogether after I installed an app to change the orientation to landscape. This is a standard feature of all android devices, but I was surprised to find that it’s not standard on the Onyx Boox. So I downloaded and installed an app called Set Orientation. It worked fine for 2 days, until I ran the Onyx pen calibration routine. At that point, the device became completely unusable, because there is a bug in Onyx’s calibration routine (it does not take current orientation into account). This bug caused it to learn a screen mapping that is completely warped. As a result, most of the icons that I see on the screen, including the very important Apps and Settings icons, have become “unclickable”. Clicking on those icons does nothing, or ends up clicking on a different icon, and there are no locations anywhere on the screen that end up clicking on those two icons. I can’t even reset the device to factory settings, because you can’t do that using only physical buttons on the device. At that point, I asked for a refund and after much back and forth with the company, they ultimately refused, claiming that they do not support landscape mode. I tried to argue that if it’s the case that changing orientation renders the device unusable, then it’s THEIR RESPONSABILITY to make sure that no application can ever do that. Or at the very least it’s THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that you can reset the device to factory settings using physical buttons only, so that if an app does mess up the screen mapping, you can still get back on your feet. But they still refused to refund me. I conclusion, I would strongly advise anyone against buying this device, nor any device manufactured by Onyx.