Universe or eReader-store (Booxtor) Version ?

[Hesham1216]

Dear all,

The above question has really made a big headache for me! and I need everybody's Help .

First of all I'm a kindle paperwhite 2 owner, to be honest I rarely read, you know the kind of life we are living now is very fast, the person barely do anything but working. Any way I decided to buy an Onyx M96 for my fiance. She is a medical student, she reads a lot of Pdf's and also she uses ms office files (Word, PowerPoint .. etc) as a study material.

I have been reviewing a lot of ereaders for many days now, and finally I came up with onyx being the only big screened ereader with android. I think it is the best device for what I'm looking for.

Just before ordering the Universe version from the polish provider, I saw some other website who sells Onyx but with better (as they claim) specifications!

- Bigger styles + eraser.
- Screen frequency 85Hz. (50Hz in other models as they claim)
- More frequent updates for the firmware.

This looks attractive and forces you to buy from them, right ?

I asked them about the difference in frequency, they said better refresh rate (as far as I know the E Ink screen already limited with the refresh rate, then if they was so fast refreshing wouldn't they be like LCD's ??)

Ok, If the software is good and stable, why does it needs an update almost every month ? (is this an advantage or disadvantage ??)

----

Although of the above ideas I had in mind, I tried to order from the german ereader store more than 15 times, Skrill (website for payment) is not accepting my credit card!

Ereader store is not answering my emails anymore. Skrill never answered any email, and Booxtor was last online here on the forum (January 2015)!!

---

Finally I thought to order the Universe version from amazon. The benefit of that is I can also order a cover, Led light, memory card along with the ereader and it will come in one package.

I'm away of her now, in another country. Rooting the device, installing another software etc will not be easy for her (girls you know ).

I came here just before making the order on amazon, I just want to make the best decision, so I thought to ask some experienced people here.

I wish anybody have any opinion or experience to share here, please don't hesitate to write it here.

[Randy11]

I 've no shares of http://ereader-store.de. I give some known information.

Just before ordering the Universe version from the polish provider, I saw some other website who sells Onyx but with better (as they claim) specifications!

- Bigger styles + eraser.
- Screen frequency 85Hz. (50Hz in other models as they claim)
- More frequent updates for the firmware.

Some weeks ago I found this on http://ereader-store.de/en, I think it's what you find :

The Onyx Boox M96 is the first and only available 9,7" EINK Android 4.0 eBook Reader!
Featuring a faster processor, more intuitive interface and perfect reading applications the M96 is the best 9.7" ebook reader on the market today. Now with a bigger and more convenient stylus with additional "eraser" function" and 85HZ screen.

I asked them about the difference in frequency, they said better refresh rate (as far as I know the E Ink screen already limited with the refresh rate, then if they was so fast refreshing wouldn't they be like LCD's ??)

I don't think it's like a LCD display, but the page turn must be more fluent and I'll like this.

Although of the above ideas I had in mind, I tried to order from the german ereader store more than 15 times, Skrill (website for payment) is not accepting my credit card!

I've used a CB card only when I bouhgt my M92 : Carte bleue/Visa, without problem. You can use a generated number for your card "e-card" maybe.

Ereader store is not answering my emails anymore. Skrill never answered any email, and Booxtor was last online here on the forum (January 2015)!!

To contact http://ereade-store.de, you must use the contact form : https://ereader-store.de/en/contact-us
Booxtor asked to use this way.

About the difference between "M96 Universe" of Artatech/polish and "M96" of Ereader-store, it's your choice. But, you can read this : Move your M96 to Booxtor's firmwares and/or Unbrick and Rooting Method

[Hesham1216]

Thanks for your reply, but unfortunately I still can't decide

I'm even now thinking about buying a tablet (Samsung Tab S 10.5 maybe) instead of E-Ink reader ...

Any Ideas ?

[Randy11]

What is your aim ?

If you want read, for me, it's E-ink. At work, I put my documents in my M92 because it's really better than to read on a LCD moniteur, even with a 21".

If you have some documents with color, could you use it printed in b/w ? If the response is "yes", the E-ink is good.

If you want a battery life, the unique solution is E-Ink.

if you read outdoor with a beautiful sun on the device : E-ink.

If you want an animation or very fast page turn, the tablet is the solution.

[Hesham1216]

Thank you Randy,

Well as I mentioned above, the device basically is not for me. It's a gift for her, and I don't want to tell her because I want it to be a surprise! So I can't just ask her.

Beside that she already have ipad, but I think old one. Ipad doesn't have the "reading mode" which on the samsung new devices like notes and tabs.

Can't make any decision yet

[azw409]

Don't know whether you went ahead and bought one or not but I bought a M96C about a month ago.

Overall it is useful for viewing PDF's but it's not plain sailing because there are real annoyances about the device that you have to work around.

The first problem that greets you is the contrast, for some reason when on automatic you just can't read the text in most apps so you need to manually adjust it darker. There's a very fine balance to getting text that you can read and losing all other detail to heavy smudgy looking graphics. I don't understand why this is necessary or such an issue on this device as I've had 2 different Kindles and a Kobo Touch running both the Kobo firmware and android and I've never had this issue. There no method to adjust contrast and it's never been necessary as text is always clear and graphics crisp.

Having got the contrast a bit darker then the next issue you find is that when apps startup they spend at least 10 seconds flashing different size black rectangles all over the screen in an attempt to induce epilepsy in the user. After that any major screen refreshes causes similar behaviour. Interestingly the stock reader doesn't do this so I suspect it's down to Android apps not working well with the eInk screen although my Kobo running Android apps doesn't suffer the same issue.

OK, so you get barely adequate contrast and your viewing PDF's in the stock reader and it's pretty usable as there is a nice zoom mode that cuts the borders and gives you a good view of the page. At this point the low resolution of the screen becomes apparent because smaller text is very blocky and can be difficult to read.

Overall it's usable with effort but it's far from the slick user experience that an Apple or Kindle user will be used to. I certainly wouldn't buy one for my wife even though I use it regularly myself.

Hope that helps.

[azw409]

Sorry I should of mentioned that I'm using the Booxster version and eReader Store were excellent as the device arrived in the UK within 36 hours from Germany ! I expect that the Universe version will suffer the same issues.

[kuskro]

Originally Posted by Hesham1216

Thank you Randy,

Well as I mentioned above, the device basically is not for me. It's a gift for her, and I don't want to tell her because I want it to be a surprise! So I can't just ask her.

Beside that she already have ipad, but I think old one. Ipad doesn't have the "reading mode" which on the samsung new devices like notes and tabs.

Can't make any decision yet

Hi Hesham1216,

The rationale of buying an M96 has to be based on eye-strain problems, I mean, any other android tablet is going to be more workable than an M96. The hardware is rubbish and the software have to be tweaked to get an operational android tablet for the purpose of your girlfriend.

I bought my M96 because I have to read thousand of pdf papers per year, and because before having my M96 I destroyed my eyes with an iPad. So, now I'm glad with my M96 but it has to be tweaked for being operational.

To tweak an M96 is quite easy, it is not necessary to be a skilled person, just follow this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=256283

To convert the M96 in a multi-purpose android tablet you will need this android apps:
- Lightning Launcher version 12.0.1 r2021 (to replace the default one)
- Root Explorer
- Ultimate Rotation Control
- ezPDF (best pdf reader that combined with ColorDict can be very useful).
- Moon+ Reader (best for ePub files)
- Puffin Web Browser (or Lightning+ Browser)
- Kindle
- Assistive Zoom Pro (for zooming on your web browser)
- MyScript Stylus (so impressive for hand-writing)
- Bass Booster Pro.
- Accapela TTS voices (best for M96).
- Swiftkey for recognizing bluetooth external keyboards layouts.
- Documents to Go (most stable office suite for M96).
- No-frills CPU Control (CPU freq: Min. 996 / Max. 996 / Scaling: Performance / I/O Scheduler: noop)
- SystemApp Remover (good for uninstalling or disabling apps)
- Titanium Backup (good for moving apps to SDcard)
- WiFi File Transfer Pro (for moving data via wifi)
- Fast Reboot Pro
- App Cache Cleaner Pro
- Spotify
- Button Savoir Pro (plus Button Savior HD Theme for moving from one opened app to another)
- Gmail (you can find a workable gmail version for us here)


Best.

[chexmix]

I'd mostly agree with what folks have said here. I first decided to get a Boox due to eyestrain ... I'd used a very old Kindle and my eyes said "Yes! More of that! That's okay."

Unfortunately my experience with Boox devices has been pretty bad: I won't recount the saga of me and the M92 because it's become tired; I'm doing my best to get the M96 to a place where I can use it regularly but at the moment trying to use it only makes my blood pressure spike, which is not good for me. Kuskro's posts re: optimization look really good and I'm glad to have been pointed to them -- so I am VERY guardedly optimistic, but have prepared myself to just write the product off as an expensive boondoggle, and myself as a gullible fool.

Caveat emptor.