Time to face facts

[breepgh]

Well, folks, it is time to face the facts. Android 6 is a dinosaur. Ever since the new firmware, several apps were crashing or not working. And then my battery was draining super fast. I thought it was the apps. But then I figured it out -- most of the world no longer supports Android 6. So, any ereader with it is outdated.

When I bought the Max 2 -- I had to scrimp and save. I was so happy to have and use it. But now, it's a nightmare. It is a glorified, expensive boogie board. I spent hours and hours trying to get certain apps to work. uninstall, reinstall. But now, the device also disconnects from wifi sometimes too.

Any device with Android 6; forget it.

[SleepWithMachine]

depends on what you do with it, if you don't want to use your erader for online banking or google apps but only for reading books, Android 6 is absolutely sufficient, actually there are some disadvantages in higher Android versions

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by breepgh

I spent hours and hours trying to get certain apps to work. uninstall, reinstall.

Which apps?

[Question Mark]

My Onyx devices with Android 6 are working quite fine for my limited purposes. I have also been able to install and use most of the apps which I need such as Moon+ Reader Pro. I've even been able to install a good number of apps which I don't need, but which are nice to have.

If you are experiencing difficulty installing and using certain apps, you may wish to look on sites such as F-Droid for earlier versions of those apps which are compatible with earlier versions of Android: https://f-droid.org/

I have done that with a couple of old tablets which are running Android 4 and with my Hisense A5 phone which doesn't have access to Google's Play Store. Very easy to sideload the apps.

[breepgh]

Most everything no longer works. For example, I have Chrome installed. When I got to a site to read something, it sometimes takes forever to load, and by the time it does, the battery drains (from 90% to 1% within a minute).

The two major apps I used were Pocket and Press Reader. Pocket no longer refreshes, and Press Reader gives me all kinds of error messages, and never seems to render correctly. I have uninstalled both.

I have done two factory resets, yet problems persist. It can be used for reading books that I side load in and PDFs. But that's about it. And I get an hour or two of battery on good days.

My network is fine. All my other devices connect and work. Only the Onyx Max2 giving me major headaches.

[SleepWithMachine]

Try older versions of the corresponding app, there are many sites where you can find them. I have e.g. installed an old version of Gmail because the latest one sucks my battery away in one day. Automatic updates must then of course be deactivated

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by breepgh

The two major apps I used were Pocket and Press Reader. Pocket no longer refreshes, and Press Reader gives me all kinds of error messages, and never seems to render correctly. I have uninstalled both.

Press Reader does not work satisfactorily on any of my Android (6-10) devices.
Pocket I donot use.

[underscore]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

Press Reader does not work satisfactorily on any of my Android (6-10) devices.
Pocket I donot use.

I use pressreader on
- an asus zenpad tablet (android 6.01)
- an onyx nova (android 6.01)
- a kingrow k1 eink smartphone (android 8)

On the Nova is slow as hell to start, but once it's started, in a2 mode, with automatic downloads, i found it usable for newspapers.
Not for magazines.

[norweger]

Originally Posted by breepgh

Any device with Android 6; forget it.

There's a firmware update for the Max 2. Not sure if it helps! I also have Android Marshmallow, that's on my productivity device. What I did early on was to disable autoupdate for apps, and I took backups of the apps I used, in case they'd update by mishap. And lets say there's an app I forgot to backup, then it'd just to head to UpToDown.

If your battery is draining that fast, then there's two things you can do:
1) Warranty. Get in touch with the seller. This should be covered by warranty.
2) Uninstall apps. Such battery drainage is usually cased by some app that generally - or in it's current edition - screws with your battery. So you can troubleshoot and find the app.

I had the problem of such battery drainage on my Sony Z4 tablet. In that case it was the app ComiXology which got updated, and within an hour after a recharge it sucked the battery dry.

I guess your original post was partly to fix the problem, and partly a big sigh. And I hear you. I think they should make the ereaders snappy fast, like Dasung and maybe the upcoming e-ink phone e-readers.

[breepgh]

thanks, everyone for your replies. it seems a big issue has to do with the network connection. when connected to my cell phone as a hotspot, i was able to download things and get pocket and press reader to work. alas, the max2 is having some unknown connection issues with my home network (which is unlimited wifi data of course).

for some reason, when connected to the home router, at 2.4GHz (apparently it cannot connect to 5GHz), it just is hit or miss as to whether or not it will decide to work or not.

one thing that seems to work is to connect via the tethered hotspot, and download stuff, then i can disconnect and read for a while. very annoying. i bought ti via amazon in 2018 so the warranty is over. i am looking at the Boyue line of eReaders now. Sorry to say, i may not go back to onyx. three factory resets. wifi issues. battery issues. and this device was not cheap - super expensive for me.

[ottischwenk]

Boyue-likebook has no 13.3 inch device.

[norweger]

Thanks for sharing your experiences, breepgh.

[Pajamaman]

I had issues with onyx devices connecting to WiFi. I changed the router. All okay.

Like yours, they worked on phone WiFi hot-spot. I tested them OK on other networks. So I knew it was the router.

I suggest you test on other networks. If it works, it's very probably the router.

I don't know if in my case I had a glitchy router, or Onyx is a bit weird. I replaced a linksys with a d-link.

As for moving to Boyue, good luck with that. Onyx are for the most part better.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

As for moving to Boyue, good luck with that. Onyx are for the most part better.

It depends very much on the need.
I have Likebook Alita, Likebook Ares and Boox Nova2 and can compare:
I've never missed the stronger Boox processor.
Boox USB OTG is crap. Memory sticks can only be FAT32 formatted.
Likebook can handle 4 TB NTFS hard disks.
In my Likebook Alita or Ares I use 512 GB SD cards - internally formatted.
Boox can only dream of that.
Boxx only has advantages in the note area - you can scribble the ebooks that can be used in the neoreader.
And with the drawings - these can be changed in height, width, and also rotated.
Likewise, Likebook has the pen in the keyboard layout.

[breepgh]

you could be on to something. it may be the router, but, couple things on that. First, it was working fine until the latest firmware. Second, the router was provided by the ISP. I do have an extension device -- I wonder if I connected to that if it might work?

I read somewhere online, that another user had to factory reset his Max2. Then, he unplugged his router for a minute. Then, he went through the process of setting it up again, and for some reason it worked. So, I may have to try this voodoo.

By the way, the "feedback" process on the device itself has been useless. Every time I write my issues, they write back about other things, and never offer any useful information.