Initial questions/feedback to Boox Note

[ChristianM]

hello to all,

Today, I have received my boox note.

The device looks great and works smoothly, so far. Very good reading and writing experience.

After playing around a little bit, I have some questions to the software.
As the software should be the same for the note and the max2, hopefully someone can provide some answers:

1) how can I set a pin or password to lock the device?
2) how can I enable background grid or lines in the side note feature?
3) I have bought a USB-C to HDMI adapter to try to connect the Note to a screen. Unfortunately, it seems as the USB-C is hardware wise not fully compliment or the software does not provide a video signal. Therefore, it was not possible to use a screen with the note. Has somebody made the same experience?

Thanks and best regards,
Christian

[sogaiu]

Originally Posted by ChristianM

1) how can I set a pin or password to lock the device?

The best I've seen for this is:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=309

[Question Mark]

So far, I am very pleased with this device. It is perhaps the ideal size for a note taking/sketching device. Small and light enough to easily take about in a small shoulder bag, and yet it provides enough screen real estate for sketching and note taking to be comfortable.

It is also a very good size for reading. It may soon become my go to ereading device. Until now, my Kobo Aura One has been that device, except when I wanted to read a full sized PDF in which case I used my Max. I am sure there will still be times when I will want to use the Max for certain PDFs, but the Note should be able to meet most of my daily needs in this regard.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the browser worked for accessing the internet. Previous experiences with eink browsers have not been pleasant. This loaded web pages relatively quickly and I was able to navigate through them without undue difficulty. However, I was mainly just reading news sites, not watching videos. Still, the sometimes flashing ads were not the problem I had worried they might be.

Although I have been able to install free apps from the Play Store without incident, I have not been able to install my already paid apps. It asks me to buy them again. I seem to remember that this was an issue with the Max 2. Not sure if that has been resolved yet, but I hope it is soon as I am currently having to make do with the free version of Moon+ Reader. It seems to be one of the few ereaders capable of properly handling furigana when reading in Japanese.

When I first paired a bluetooth keyboard with the Note, I was a little bit annoyed because the virtual keyboard also popped up robbing me of valuable screen real estate. I have never had that happen before. The bluetooth keyboard worked, but the virtual keyboard was also there. However, when I went into the settings on the virtual keyboard and turned off a few settings related to predictive typing, the virtual keyboard disappeared while the bluetooth keyboard was connected.

Another little peeve is that the regular Android Settings app seems to be hidden. I also seem to remember this being an issue with the Max 2. Again, not sure if this has been resolved with that device. On my Max, I can access the Android Settings from the Apps page. I just find the Android Settings a little more intuitive than the Onyx Settings.

Although I am so far very pleased with the device, I was a little bit disappointed to discover that the Note does not seem to have been enabled with Miracast. I was hoping that I would be able to connect the Note to my projector via a Miracast dongle. That would be enormously useful for work. I hope this is something which can be enabled later through a software update as my tablet running Android 6.0 can support it.

[mdp]

Congratulations for the milestone! It's a bit like marriage, with less legal risk.

Originally Posted by Question Mark

the regular Android Settings app seems to be hidden. I also seem to remember this being an issue with the Max 2

Exactly. I created and posted an app that calls them, would you wish to use it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ip#post3648091

Originally Posted by Question Mark

However, when I went into the settings on the virtual keyboard and turned off a few settings related to predictive typing, the virtual keyboard disappeared while the bluetooth keyboard was connected

This may be a very precious wiki notion, before people start banging heads on the wall.

Originally Posted by Question Mark

Although I am so far very pleased with the device, I was a little bit disappointed to discover that the Note does not seem to have been enabled with Miracast. I was hoping that I would be able to connect the Note to my projector via a Miracast dongle. That would be enormously useful for work. I hope this is something which can be enabled later through a software update as my tablet running Android 6.0 can support it.

Yes, I cannot remember really the point reached but we were discussing it in this thread from franzli ( Screen mirroring on Max2? (And eventually portably Note) ).

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by mdp

Congratulations for the milestone! It's a bit like marriage, with less legal risk.

If I am able to get the same longevity and happiness out of my Note that I have so far gotten out of my marriage, I will consider it a very wise purchase indeed.

Originally Posted by mdp

Exactly. I created and posted an app that calls them, would you wish to use it:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ip#post3648091

My security settings wouldn't let me download the file. Avast apparently detected some kind of threat. Previously, in a similar type situation, it would send the file for testing and then let me install it later, usually about 36 hours later, if it seemed to be harmless. So not sure what has happened here.

Yes, I cannot remember really the point reached but we were discussing it in this thread from franzli ( Screen mirroring on Max2? (And eventually portably Note) ).

Yes, that was the thread. I briefly tried Chromecast with a couple of other devices about a week ago. I could stream content from off of the internet without difficulty, but it would not let me mirror the screen on either my phone (yes, I finally got one, but not to be used as a phone) or my tablet.

I didn't spend too long toying with it because it seemed like it wouldn't be possible to connect directly to the projector without going through some kind of internet connected network. All I wanted to do was to be able to mirror my screen. Didn't see why I should need an internet connection for that. When mobile, sometimes one does not have the ability to connect to such a network.

Both my tablet and my phone had no difficulty in connecting to the projector via a Miracast dongle. The phone runs Android 8 and the tablet runs Android 6 so, theoretically, it should be possible to mirror the Note's screen using Miracast. Hopefully, they will enable that in a future update.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by Question Mark

My security settings wouldn't let me download the file. Avast apparently detected some kind of threat. Previously, in a similar type situation, it would send the file for testing and then let me install it later, usually about 36 hours later, if it seemed to be harmless. So not sure what has happened here

Interesting, I checked. I passed the zip file to virustotal, and it is recognized as infected by two antivirus over 59, Avast and AVG (check the attached table).

Of course, the file I posted, code-wise, contains a radically minimal instruction (just, in Android terms, "declare an intent to open the settings and perform it") - the low-level code is again attached -, plus two pieces of the Android code from google that are inserted automatically for compatibility between android versions (android.support.annotation and android.support.v4).

So, the conclusion would be: in an age of information science (of models), antivirus software still can immensely suffer from false positives besides false negatives. Moreover, I will not believe that Avast and AVG found a missing detail when the 57 other software application did not, and I tend to believe that they are simply identifying viruses through hashes that are too subject to collision to be fingerprints.

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by mdp

Interesting, I checked. I passed the zip file to virustotal, and it is recognized as infected by two antivirus over 59, Avast and AVG (check the attached table).

Of course, the file I posted, code-wise, contains a radically minimal instruction (just, in Android terms, "declare an intent to open the settings and perform it") - the low-level code is again attached -, plus two pieces of the Android code from google that are inserted automatically for compatibility between android versions (android.support.annotation and android.support.v4).

So, the conclusion would be: in an age of information science (of models), antivirus software still can immensely suffer from false positives besides false negatives. Moreover, I will not believe that Avast and AVG found a missing detail when the 57 other software application did not, and I tend to believe that they are simply identifying viruses through hashes that are too subject to collision to be fingerprints.

Yeah, weird that. Hadn't known about Total Virus. Hadn't been looking for anti-virus tools in some time. Very useful to know about.

Interestingly, when I unzipped the file and uploaded it to Total Virus to do a check, Avast found no problem with it.

So, thank you for the Android Settings app/file. It is good to have it back. I find it much easier to navigate the various settings than the system Onyx employs. I also sometimes like to see what apps are running in the background when I haven't specifically launched them.

That's what prompted me to switch from the immensely popular ES file explorer app to the FX one a number of years ago. In addition to the bloatware which ES kept pushing, it was always running in the background and would automatically restart again after I performed a "force stop" on it.

And thank you also for alerting me to Total Virus. I will get some use out of that tool.

[Question Mark]

Has anyone been able to figure out how to take a screenshot on the Note yet?

That is a function I would really like to have.

[sogaiu]

Since you mentioned elsewhere how to do it for another device, I guess you've tried:

On the Max device running firmware version 1.8.2, you press and hold both the page forward and the page backward buttons at the same time to trigger a screenshot.

without any success, right?

Edit: LOL, I just realized the Note doesn't have those buttons, right?

[Question Mark]

Originally Posted by sogaiu

Since you mentioned elsewhere how to do it for another device, I guess you've tried:

without any success, right?

Edit: LOL, I just realized the Note doesn't have those buttons, right?

Yup, that's the problem. With only a back button and a power button, there aren't a lot of different combinations to try. However, I have tried a number of things and nothing seems to work.

I'm hoping that they will add the screenshot function to a long press of the power button. A long press of the power button would ideally give one the option to take a screenshot in addition to the current options to power off, reboot or cancel. That's how it works on my phone and on one of my tablets.

[sogaiu]

Originally Posted by sogaiu

The best I've seen for this is:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=309

The following thread might be of interest:

http://bbs.onyx-international.com/t/...asswords/221/5