New 6.8 inch eReader from Onyx now available in the US

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've tested the four built-in apps with my ePub edition of "Pride and Prejudice" from the MR library. The results are:

AIReader:

Centred text is not centred. Ignores hard page breaks. Ignores font size changes. Ignores italics. Very bad.

FBReader:

Respects hard page breaks, centred text, font changes, etc, but (a killer) ignores first-line text indents .

OnyxReader:

The best of the bunch. Respects all formatting, but pictures blow up with font size and overflow the page.

Cool Reader:

Centred text is not centred. Italics are ignored. Page breaks are shown properly.

The only half-way decent reader among them is OnyxReader, to my mind.

How about giving Koreader a try, it is working great on my Android tablet and on my AuraHD, but it is not working well for some Android users. One thing though, much of what you mention can be adjusted and impacted by various rendering and zoom settings within Koreader.

Download
Luck;
Ken

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've tested the four built-in apps with my ePub edition of "Pride and Prejudice" from the MR library. The results are:

AIReader:

Centred text is not centred. Ignores hard page breaks. Ignores font size changes. Ignores italics. Very bad.

FBReader:

Respects hard page breaks, centred text, font changes, etc, but (a killer) ignores first-line text indents .

OnyxReader:

The best of the bunch. Respects all formatting, but pictures blow up with font size and overflow the page.

Cool Reader:

Centred text is not centred. Italics are ignored. Page breaks are shown properly.

The only half-way decent reader among them is OnyxReader, to my mind.

I wonder if it's there version of Alreader - I've just started using it, but most things seem to work. Problem is that you can't install the Google play version of any of their installed reader apps without rooting.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I wonder if it's there version of Alreader - I've just started using it, but most things seem to work. Problem is that you can't install the Google play version of any of their installed reader apps without rooting.

Why not? Their versions are on the system partition. At worst, you could have a double program installed; having the program name show up twice in the reader selection list, making it hard to choose the Google Play version... but it should work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Why not? Their versions are on the system partition. At worst, you could have a double program installed; having the program name show up twice in the reader selection list, making it hard to choose the Google Play version... but it should work.

Because it won't let you install an app that's already installed, and you can't delete the built-in apps.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because it won't let you install an app that's already installed, and you can't delete the built-in apps.

That's not a good design then. In that case, you'll have to root and remove the app first as Purple Lady says. I had a tablet in the past that had some pre-installed apps that could not be removed, but you could actually update them (not double-installing) using the Google Market version.

Cool Reader is open source, and because of this design decision, you can never install any of the regular updates.

If the reader hadn't had any touch buttons and had a smaller bezel on the bottom (more like the Kindle), I'd probably have ordered it already. I'd root it and install one of the professional apps such as Moon+, Mantano or Aldiko. Now, I probably won't, because the more I look at the design, the less I like it.

[HarryT]

I quite like the design. The wide bottom bezel makes it very comfortable to hold.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've tested the four built-in apps with my ePub edition of "Pride and Prejudice" from the MR library. The results are:

Thanks for performing these tests. It is very informative.

Based on your posts over the years, I'm guessing you have no interest in the buttons, but would you consider testing the response of each reading application to the page turn buttons and editing the results into your post? Also whether the page can be turned using the O ring in each of the applications.

(Or in a new post, whatever you prefer.)

[din155]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've received my T68. An interesting device, with obvious strengths and weaknesses. The Kindle App works pretty well on it; the built-in reading apps are, to my mind, rather poor. This is assuredly not a "switch it on and use it" device, but I think it has great potential. It'll be interesting to find out over the coming weeks what it can do.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've tested the four built-in apps with my ePub edition of "Pride and Prejudice" from the MR library. The results are:
AIReader:

Centred text is not centred. Italics are ignored. Page breaks are shown properly.
The only half-way decent reader among them is OnyxReader, to my mind.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because it won't let you install an app that's already installed, and you can't delete the built-in apps.

Thanks for your reviews Harry. This looks promising but not enough for me to buy one yet.

[HarryT]

The page turn buttons work in all four apps. The O-ring does different things in different apps (eg up/down increases and decreases font size in AIReader and OnyxReader, but scrolls up and down by a line in Cool Reader). For some reason, FBReader now simply crashes when I try to open that book. No great loss.

The O-ring is awkward to use. You really wouldn't want to use it to turn pages.

[latepaul]

People interested in this device should definitely check out Nathan from theebookreader.com's videos:

This is a general review and shows the four built-in apps.

This is a series of videos looking at individual 3rd party apps such as Kindle, Kobo, Feedly and Comixology

Definitely looks interesting but lot of the apps you aren't getting the absolute best experience because they're simply not written with an eInk display in mind. So I'm still thinking about the balance between the compromises on that front and the flexibility of having access to lots of apps.

Still very tempted though.

[Katsunami]

I wonder why people keep testing the limited apps such as the Kindle and Kobo ones and nobody's seems to be looking at the big e-reader apps. Is it because they don't support DRM-ed books or something?

If this reader only becomes even a modest success, I'm sure the big apps such as Moon+ will get support for the reader's buttons, and get options to turn off colors and animations to work better on an e-reader / e-ink tablet.

Because, face it, this is not a dedicated e-reader; this is an Android e-ink tablet, with pre-installed reading apps. Basically, it's exactly what I've ever wanted, but it seems to be a bit rough around the edges.

[HarryT]

I plan to test out Moon+ tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Katsunami]

Thanks I'm (still) interested in the big e-reading apps, mainly Moon+, Mantano and Aldiko. I'll take a look at them on my 10.1" tablet; if I like them *and* they work well on the T68, I might just order one at some point despite the fact that I don't care for the buttons

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The page turn buttons work in all four apps...

You mean the pre-installed ones?
Yesterday I couldn't make them work in the Kindle app on my friends reader. Do they work for you?

[Barty]

@Harry: how do screen contrast and text rendering compare to the PW2? Also, is the lighting as even, and is it warmer or cooler?

I would also be interested in hearing how Mantano run and whether Ivona TTS works (Ivona was still free last I checked)

Much thanks.