Icarus Illumina (E653)

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Have you tried installing Greenify? I installed it recently on my Nexus 7 and the battery lasts MUCH longer now. Apparently all those apps that insist on running in the background were significantly draining the battery.

I'm interested in a T62 as backup for my Sony T1, but I'd prefer something I don't have to recharge every day or two.

I do use Greenify. Right now screen shows as the highest battery use on my T62 and I don't even have that on my Nexus 7. I use very low lighting on both so the T62 battery stats are pretty suspect especially since it shows 99% battery for the screen.

[nightboy]

T62 & T61's battery life would not improve without some tweaks and we are missing the kernel source code to make some big improvements. Overall, the battery life & the power button's location are the only negative points.

[downeaster59]

Has anyone tried that golden oldie, SetCPU? If you're rooted, SetCPU may allow you to do some tweaking - as in changing governors and max/min clock speed. That COULD squeeze out a little more battery life.

[alejoc]

I have installed Setcpu. So far, I have run the reader for 5 days straight with about 2-3hrs daily reading withouth having to recharge. Still have 54% left. Of course, shut wifi down when not using it.

[gpassero]

I finally got my Boyue T62 (it took 3 weeks to ship from China after ordering on Amazon).

It's pretty darn near perfect. The battery does drain faster than I like, but I set the unit to go to deep sleep after 2 hours of being idle... typically I use it on and off, and then and do something else (like go to work). With this on, I'm getting the battery life I wanted -- it's on the shelf, and I hardly ever need to charge it. Sure, I wait 20sec to boot it when I get home from work. But then throughout the evening, it's available for use at the touch a button.

If you want android + eink, this may be what you're looking for.

Gary

[hob]

Has anyone installed Icarus Illumina HD E653 ( =Boyue T61) firmware updates on Boyue T62?

The hardware on these devices is identical as far as I know. The T62 just has 4GB more ram + a headphone jack for audio output + higher battery capacity (3000mAh compared to 2000mAh on T61/E653). So I think it Should be sorta possible!

I'd like to buy a T62 but I also wanna know whether it's possible to install firmware updates on it or not. As I read some users' posts it seems that the Icarus firmware updates improve the user experience a lot; so not being able to have them would be depressing!

Has anyone contacted Boyue about this matter and if probable firmware updates exist for T62? I think the Icarus updates were made by Boyue too, so there may exist some updates for T62 too because the hardware on the 2 devices are almost identical -shouldn't be hard for them.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by hob

Has anyone installed Icarus Illumina HD E653 ( =Boyue T61) firmware updates on Boyue T62?

The hardware on these devices is identical as far as I know. The T62 just has 4GB more ram + a headphone jack for audio output + higher battery capacity (3000mAh compared to 2000mAh on T61/E653). So I think it Should be sorta possible!

I'd like to buy a T62 but I also wanna know whether it's possible to install firmware updates on it or not. As I read some users' posts it seems that the Icarus firmware updates improve the user experience a lot; so not being able to have them would be depressing!

Has anyone contacted Boyue about this matter and if probable firmware updates exist for T62? I think the Icarus updates were made by Boyue too, so there may exist some updates for T62 too because the hardware on the 2 devices are almost identical -shouldn't be hard for them.

I have the E653 firmware on my T62 but haven't updated to the latest yet. You need to be careful about what version of the T62 you have - apparently there are multiple versions. Some are having problems updating to specific T62 firmware. See this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=245888

[downeaster59]

YMMV is a principle to keep in mind. I tried the E653 firmware on my T62. I liked the overall look and feel of it, but it had a couple of annoying glitches (which some users did not experience) which made me reinstall the Boyue firmware. Now my T62 runs quite well. There isn't much you can do with the E653 firmware that you can't do with the Boyue firmware, so you can do well either way. As Purple Lady said, there seem to be several T62 versions out there, each with slightly different firmware. Install the wrong firmware and you may have an unresponsive touchscreen! I have used the Boyue firmware on the OP of this thread. It works well enough, with some tweaks (like installing SetCPU to improve battery life). You can always install a different launcher, like Nova, to get a different look.

I don't know how often Boyue updates their firmware, but if you simply look for an update using the link provided on the firmware you have, you should get an update suited for your T62.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

YMMV is a principle to keep in mind. I tried the E653 firmware on my T62. I liked the overall look and feel of it, but it had a couple of annoying glitches (which some users did not experience) which made me reinstall the Boyue firmware. Now my T62 runs quite well. There isn't much you can do with the E653 firmware that you can't do with the Boyue firmware, so you can do well either way. As Purple Lady said, there seem to be several T62 versions out there, each with slightly different firmware. Install the wrong firmware and you may have an unresponsive touchscreen! I have used the Boyue firmware on the OP of this thread. It works well enough, with some tweaks (like installing SetCPU to improve battery life). You can always install a different launcher, like Nova, to get a different look.

I don't know how often Boyue updates their firmware, but if you simply look for an update using the link provided on the firmware you have, you should get an update suited for your T62.

One thing you can do is set the page turn buttons to be volume buttons. That means I can navigate thru articles in Inoreader using the page turn buttons. You can also use the page turn buttons in all the reading apps I've used as well - most allow you to use volume buttons to turn pages. I usually use a tap on the screen to turn pages, but it is nice to use the buttons sometimes.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

One thing you can do is set the page turn buttons to be volume buttons. That means I can navigate thru articles in Inoreader using the page turn buttons. You can also use the page turn buttons in all the reading apps I've used as well - most allow you to use volume buttons to turn pages. I usually use a tap on the screen to turn pages, but it is nice to use the buttons sometimes.

I tried that feature. It is a nice feature, but a weird thing happened to me. Some of my apps that already worked with the page turn buttons no longer did so, and the one app that I hoped would work with the page turn buttons still didn't. So, although it proved to be a nice gain for you, it didn't help me much. In fact, with my apps, I actually lost some ground! Again, it's YMMV. Find the settings that work best for what you want to do with your device. Fortunately, there are a number of capable people on these boards who are more than willing to help.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

I tried that feature. It is a nice feature, but a weird thing happened to me. Some of my apps that already worked with the page turn buttons no longer did so, and the one app that I hoped would work with the page turn buttons still didn't. So, although it proved to be a nice gain for you, it didn't help me much. In fact, with my apps, I actually lost some ground! Again, it's YMMV. Find the settings that work best for what you want to do with your device. Fortunately, there are a number of capable people on these boards who are more than willing to help.

Did you have the apps set up to use the volume button? It's a setting in a lot of apps.

[dnastase]

The Boyue T62 has a setting in the User Defined about the "Volume keys". In the old firmware it used to choose between enabled/disabled (I think) and now it chooses between close/open. Whatever that means. I didn't experiment with them a lot, but I couldn't figure out what they do.
The apps that I use seem to work with the page up/down keys anyway...

[hob]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

I have the E653 firmware on my T62 but haven't updated to the latest yet. You need to be careful about what version of the T62 you have - apparently there are multiple versions. Some are having problems updating to specific T62 firmware. See this thread: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=245888

Originally Posted by downeaster59

YMMV is a principle to keep in mind. I tried the E653 firmware on my T62. I liked the overall look and feel of it, but it had a couple of annoying glitches (which some users did not experience) which made me reinstall the Boyue firmware. Now my T62 runs quite well. There isn't much you can do with the E653 firmware that you can't do with the Boyue firmware, so you can do well either way. As Purple Lady said, there seem to be several T62 versions out there, each with slightly different firmware. Install the wrong firmware and you may have an unresponsive touchscreen! I have used the Boyue firmware on the OP of this thread. It works well enough, with some tweaks (like installing SetCPU to improve battery life). You can always install a different launcher, like Nova, to get a different look.

I don't know how often Boyue updates their firmware, but if you simply look for an update using the link provided on the firmware you have, you should get an update suited for your T62.

Thank you both for the info.

Does the audio output work after installing the E653 firmware (because the T61/E653 device doesn't have audio/headphone output); also does the E653 firmware recognize the whole 8GB of ram on T62 (the T61/Icarus only have 4GB of internal memory)?


Has there been any firmware updates downloaded from Boyue to your devices? I mean are they even releasing updates to fix the possible bugs in the OF?

[dnastase]

Originally Posted by hob

Has there been any firmware updates downloaded from Boyue to your devices? I mean are they even releasing updates to fix the possible bugs in the OF?

Yes, Boyue seems to have updates every couple of months.
Last is 2014112713 (ie from Nov 2014).

However it's not obvious to me what they fixed/changed/improved ...

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Did you have the apps set up to use the volume button? It's a setting in a lot of apps.

Kindle had that feature, I think. Unfortunately, the other apps I use don't have that feature, and all but one work with the page/page down buttons anyway.

Originally Posted by dnastase

The Boyue T62 has a setting in the User Defined about the "Volume keys". In the old firmware it used to choose between enabled/disabled (I think) and now it chooses between close/open. Whatever that means. I didn't experiment with them a lot, but I couldn't figure out what they do.
The apps that I use seem to work with the page up/down keys anyway...

My version of the T62 firmware doesn't have that "volume keys" setting. I'm on the firmware version in nightboy's post, which works well. With all the problems some users have had with upgrades, I've been reluctant to spin the wheel and try another T62 firmware. Besides, when I click the "check update version" button, it tells me "no update found".