Boyue T61/T62 / Icarus Illumina E653 review and Onyx T68 comparison

[blue_skies]

My battery has been stuck at 100% since the last recharge also. I hope it starts working correctly after I recharge it. It would be nice to know how much charge is really left.

My T62 has been going to sleep and shutting down properly since the last recharge, at least. Except for last night when it only went to sleep but never shut down. Better than it was, though.

Maybe with a future firmware it will operate more consistently. (And correctly!)

[diegoocampo]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

My battery has been stuck at 100% since the last recharge also. I hope it starts working correctly after I recharge it. It would be nice to know how much charge is really left.

My T62 has been going to sleep and shutting down properly since the last recharge, at least. Except for last night when it only went to sleep but never shut down. Better than it was, though.

Maybe with a future firmware it will operate more consistently. (And correctly!)

Please let us know if your device is still behaving properly. I have been having issues with battery use since the first day with my T62+. Sometimes it seems to work as it should: if I stop using it, even if it is for hours, when i use it again the battery is almost at the same level..
But most of times the battery will keep draining and it won't last more than 20 hours even if I don't use it at all.

There are times where I left the screen locked and when I take it again I find the screen is not locked anymore.

It would be helpful if you can confirm this: even if your device is correctly sleeping, any battery usage app will show screen was on all this time.

In the pictures you can see the behaviour in my device (with the screenshot option you get them in color, its not that my eReader has evolved ). Battery usage is always 95-99% because of screen and just 1-5% by any other processes (this might be normal in a eInk device, I don't know).

In the second picture you can see the typical behaviour of my battery. I was using it last night just from 1:30 - 2:00 and then, the rest of the night the device was (or should be) sleeping... but the battery was draining in linearly and constantly until I found it at the morning with sixty something percent...

[Confringo]

I would like to report the same 'battery not displaying correct level' issue. I got mine yesterday, it arrived at 100 percent level. Since then I have updated and rooted it aside from reading for a while, it is still showing 100 percent. I would like to see the correct number, would any of the battery management apps help?

[hob]

Disable/uninstall useless apps or force-stop those that you don't need/use at the moment but they keep running in the background.

I did root mine a while ago and soon found out that Google Play Store was wasting too much battery even when the device was sleep, so I had to disable it!

I use ES Task Manager and the System menu's own Apps section to stop the apps running in the background that I'm not gonna use; even the system apps such as the "System Update" one (I've already disabled or uninstalled all the system apps that the OS allowed me to)! I personally found apps like Greenify to be useless because they mostly don't offer any "magical tricks" more than what you yourself can do on Android's Apps management section!

I currently use this device at least 5 or 6 hours a day and mainly read books and magazines on it using mostly Moon+ Reader Premium and Repligo Reader + a little bit of surfing the web on Opera and Firefox browsers, and I also might play some card games or sudoku sometimes! I rarely use the front-light and whenever I do turn it on, I'd just set it to the lowest level possible.

Also I suggest you guys turn off Wi-Fi whenever you're on the move or are not using the device to access networks (or at least disable "keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" or change its state to "Only when plugged in"). Forcing the device into connecting to the wireless networks that are far from you and/or their signal strengths are low will cause the hardware wireless module on any device to use more power and ultimately results in a faster battery drainage rate! This applies to cellphones too.

With this kind of usage and the considerations that I mentioned above, my device's battery level gets to as low as maybe ~30-60% after a week or even more (depends on how many hours and for what purpose I've used the device over the said 'week'; reading books certainly doesn't use much battery)! From my experience, when you're using phones/tablets that are running on batteries, only connect to the Wi-Fi networks that are close to you and/or have a high signal strength. I bet this device would get to 0% battery-level in a few days if I were to try for many hours every day to stay connected to our university's crappy wireless network which has a low signal strength over most of the parts inside the buildings!

BTW, mine is a T62+ (T62D) and is using the latest software update available at this moment.

[diegoocampo]

Originally Posted by hob

Disable/uninstall useless apps or force-stop those that you don't need/use at the moment but they keep running in the background.

I did root mine a while ago and soon found out that Google Play Store was wasting too much battery even when the device was sleep, so I had to disable it!

I use ES Process Explorer and the System menu's own Apps section to stop the apps running in the background that I'm not gonna use; even the system apps such as the "System Update" one (I've already disabled or uninstalled all the system apps that the OS allowed me to)! I personally found apps like Greenify to be useless because they mostly don't offer any "magical tricks" more than what you yourself can do on Android's Apps management section!

I currently use this device at least 5 or 6 hours a day and mainly read books and magazines on it using mostly Moon+ Reader Premium and Repligo Reader + a little bit of surfing the web on Opera and Firefox browsers, and I also might play some card games or sudoku sometimes! I rarely use the front-light and whenever I do turn it on, I'd just set it to the lowest level possible.

Also I suggest you guys turn off Wi-Fi whenever you're on the move or are not using the device to access networks (or at least disable "keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" or change its state to "Only when plugged in"). Forcing the device into connecting to the wireless networks that are far from you and/or their signal strengths are low will cause the hardware wireless module on any device to use more power and ultimately results in a faster battery drainage rate! This applies to cellphones too.

With this kind of usage and the considerations that I mentioned above, my device's battery level gets to as low as maybe ~30-60% after a week or even more (depends on how many hours and for what purpose I've used the device over the said 'week'; reading books certainly doesn't use much battery)! From my experience, when you're using phones/tablets that are running on batteries, only connect to the Wi-Fi networks that are close to you and/or have a high signal strength. I bet this device would get to 0% battery-level in a few days if I were to try for many hours every day to stay connected to our university's crappy wireless network which has a low signal strength over most of the parts inside the buildings!

BTW, mine is a T62+ (T62D) and is using the latest software update available at this moment.

Thanks for all the info. I think 30-60% after a week is amazing, i wish I can acomplish that. Could you please take a look to the pictures above and tell me if your device show a similar behavior with battery usage. In my case, even if the device is sleeping during hours when I look at battery usage it says that 95%-99% of the battery usage was for the screen. I dont know if this is the expected behavior in a eInk device.

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by hob

I use ES Process Explorer and the System menu's own Apps section to stop the apps running in the background that I'm not gonna use; even the system apps such as the "System Update" one (I've already disabled or uninstalled all the system apps that the OS allowed me to)!

I keep the WiFi off, but I would really like to uninstall some apps... but I can't find any options to uninstall. (Or would it say "delete"?) I'm not sure how android works.

I even had ES File Explorer for a while, but didn't seen uninstall options with that. I ended up getting rid of that program because it didn't seem to offer me any thing more that the built in File Manager. I am guessing I just wasn't using it correctly.

Do I need to long press something or do something else to bring up the uninstall option? Or is there some other trick I'm missing?

I've stopped "running" Apps before, but since I have been shutting down to spare the battery as much as possible, everything restarts when the device restarts.

[hob]

Originally Posted by diegoocampo

Thanks for all the info. I think 30-60% after a week is amazing, i wish I can acomplish that. Could you please take a look to the pictures above and tell me if your device show a similar behavior with battery usage. In my case, even if the device is sleeping during hours when I look at battery usage it says that 95%-99% of the battery usage was for the screen. I don't know if this is the expected behavior in a eInk device.

I don't know how to access that information because this device doesn't have a "Battery" section in "About device" page. It probably exists but they haven't created a link to it like many other options (like setting the default TTS engine which I could access with the help of Moon+ Reader)!

E-Ink panels should not use that much power while the device is not being used and the screen is not receiving new data to show. This may be caused by some background processes which may be trying to turn the screen on or show notifications idk!

In my experience, Wi-Fi drains the battery fast (especially if you're not near the wireless router you're connecting to) and if I use the device a lot for the purpose of using the Internet and having the Wi-Fi on for most of the time, I then would need to recharge it sooner and the device wouldn't last even 4-5 days! But as I mentioned, I mostly just read books/magazines on my T62+ which isn't a very power-consuming usage!

Also I've noticed a higher battery usage rate while the device is not active after the recent firmware updates, too! They've fixed a lot of bugs but it seems like something is consuming more power than it used to.

Originally Posted by blue_skies

I keep the WiFi off, but I would really like to uninstall some apps... but I can't find any options to uninstall. (Or would it say "delete"?) I'm not sure how android works.

I even had ES File Explorer for a while, but didn't seen uninstall options with that. I ended up getting rid of that program because it didn't seem to offer me any thing more that the built in File Manager. I am guessing I just wasn't using it correctly.

Do I need to long press something or do something else to bring up the uninstall option? Or is there some other trick I'm missing?

I've stopped "running" Apps before, but since I have been shutting down to spare the battery as much as possible, everything restarts when the device restarts.

The easiest way to uninstall the apps that show in the Apps menu is to Long Press on the app and wait for the pop-up that shows 2 options which are "Manage" and "Uninstall".

You can also go to "Settings -> Apps" to see installed apps (slide the page with your finger to the right or left to move between subsections).

Tapping on each app gives you the option to Uninstall or Disable it, an option to Force-Stop it if it's running, another option to Move its contents to the SD Card (which means moving it from the first 0.8GB/0.98GB to the other 4.6GB/5.55GB of the internal memory available for the apps), and an option to clear its cache/data. Some of these parts may be unavailable due to different reasons such as the App being a system app which you can't uninstall, or the app not having the ability to work from SD card, or whatever! Tapping on the apps shown in the "Running" subsection allows you to stop them and their related services.

ES File Explorer is a great app that has lots of features and also an App manager section that allows you to uninstall apps by long pressing on them (but I don't think it gives you any more access than the system's default App manager under the Settings menu).

By "ES Process Explorer" I meant "ES Task Manager" which is a different app from the same developers that helps to easily kill all the useless background processes fast + some other options to optimize other stuff and do other things.

[diegoocampo]

Originally Posted by hob

I don't know how to access that information because this device doesn't have a "Battery" section in "About device" page. It probably exists but they haven't created a link to it like many other options (like setting the default TTS engine which I could access with the help of Moon+ Reader)!

Sorry, you are right, I accessed this info (both pictures) using GSam Battery Monitor app. The first picture is from the in-app chart, and the other, the system's battery section I also accessed through this app, if you to menu -> More -> Battery Use - Built In.

Also sorry for the spanish in the pictures.. pantalla = screen.

[Confringo]

What would be a good app for disabling or freezing other apps? Those I am familiar with all have dark background which make them unusable here.

Also, does anyone else find the lowest brightness level a tad too bright in complete darkness? I am wondering if it could be further reduced with any app.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Confringo

What would be a good app for disabling or freezing other apps? Those I am familiar with all have dark background which make them unusable here.

Also, does anyone else find the lowest brightness level a tad too bright in complete darkness? I am wondering if it could be further reduced with any app.

Titanium Backup works well for disabling/freezing/uninstalling apps. You do need to be rooted to use it. Its color scheme isn't the best for eInk, but for the purposes of freezing apps, it's usable.

I also find the lowest brightness level way too bright. Apparently, it was Boyue's attempt to "fix" the flickering problem at low light levels - just turn up the brightness! I am using Brightness Control, and it does the job. You don't need root for this app to work. You can pre-set four brightness levels, and you can set a level that is dimmer than the lowest level currently on the T62+ controls. (It's only the later versions of the firmware that have this brightness issue, though.)

[blue_skies]

Originally Posted by hob

The easiest way to uninstall the apps that show in the Apps menu is to Long Press on the app and wait for the pop-up that shows 2 options which are "Manage" and "Uninstall".

You can also go to "Settings -> Apps" to see installed apps (slide the page with your finger to the right or left to move between subsections).

Tapping on each app gives you the option to Uninstall or Disable it, an option to Force-Stop it if it's running, another option to Move its contents to the SD Card (which means moving it from the first 0.8GB/0.98GB to the other 4.6GB/5.55GB of the internal memory available for the apps), and an option to clear its cache/data. Some of these parts may be unavailable due to different reasons such as the App being a system app which you can't uninstall, or the app not having the ability to work from SD card, or whatever! Tapping on the apps shown in the "Running" subsection allows you to stop them and their related services.

Thank you so much for your explanation! I can see now why I seem to be alone in my frustration about uninstalling apps. When I long press an app, the only option I get is "Manage". Nothing else. No "Disable" option either. The only thing I've been able to do with any of the apps is to get to the "running" screen and do a force stop on any of the running apps. But no option to uninstall anywhere.

It was the same thing when I had ES File Explorer.

Does anyone else lack the "Uninstall" option when long-pressing apps?

[CharlieBird]

Originally Posted by blue_skies

Thank you so much for your explanation! I can see now why I seem to be alone in my frustration about uninstalling apps. When I long press an app, the only option I get is "Manage". Nothing else. No "Disable" option either. The only thing I've been able to do with any of the apps is to get to the "running" screen and do a force stop on any of the running apps. But no option to uninstall anywhere.

It was the same thing when I had ES File Explorer.

Does anyone else lack the "Uninstall" option when long-pressing apps?

I'm rooted and none of the Boyue installed apps have the "Uninstall" option; a few have the "Disable" option, but not all of pre-installed. Maybe I should mentioned I'm rooted.

[NimS]

well after 3 days... down by 7%! that's more like it...

[DarKHawK]

How did you manage that NimS?

[dnastase]

Indeed, after the last firmware upgrade, my Boyue T62's batterly doesn't last two days (