Boyue T63/Shine update (sort of)

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Oddly enough, the tracking number Banggood gave me showed a package being shipped by Seychelles Post last week. I found that odd. The Seychelles?

I quite frequently see stuff (able to be) shipped out of China on Netherlands Post, but Seychelles is a new one on me. Good luck.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

I quite frequently see stuff (able to be) shipped out of China on Netherlands Post, but Seychelles is a new one on me. Good luck.

Thanks. I'm curious to see what the T63 will be like once I really get one. I'll be sure to post my impressions then. You ordered a Kepler Pro, I think. Has it arrived yet? Maybe I should check out the Onyx forum!

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

You ordered a Kepler Pro, I think. Has it arrived yet? Maybe I should check out the Onyx forum!

Yes, you should.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Hrafn

Yes, you should.

LOL! And I did! Congratulations! I hope you enjoy it. From your description, it seems like the K-Pro has a few mildly annoying quirks. But let's hope that its assets outweigh those quirks.

[downeaster59]

Speaking of arrivals... I received a package from the Seychelles today. Yes!!! It is a genuine, honest-to-goodness JDRead T63, with the English interface already set up. I'm charging it now. No Google Play Store, but that's no biggie. I'll give a full report once I've played with it a bit.

[downeaster59]

T63 (Banggood version) first impressions:

1) Apparently, the multi-language firmware is from Boyue - or so it says in the system settings. The T63 came already set on English. There are a couple of submenus (such as font options) that remain in Chinese, but it's English pretty much all the way.
2) The page turn buttons are pretty flush with the bezel, but I can locate them by feel. They are located slightly above center, and at the top of the edge. Ideal, for me.
3) Play Store is not included. However, nightboy's T6X Toolkit easily rooted this device and installed Play Store.
4) I didn't know if I'd like the flush screen/bezel, but now that I have it, I do. It gives the T63 a quality feel.
5) The frontlight appears to be very even, definitely more even than my Onyx C67ML Carta 2. It approaches Kindle/Kobo territory there.
6) Launcher is pretty standard Boyue. If you've seen a T62, you already have a pretty good idea of what this launcher looks like.
7) The T63 seems quicker than my Onyx C67.
8) The 300 dpi screen quality shows. Interestingly, I can read screens in Titanium Backup that are illegible on my Onyx.
9) Standard Boyue reader apps. Moon Reader works well. KOReader also works well.
10) Way too soon to comment on battery life.
11) If you've got several downloads going at once, the touchscreen can be slow to respond. Otherwise, it seems to be pretty responsive overall. There were stutters at first, but the device seems to need a few minutes (at first boot) to settle in. No surprise.
12) Banggood included a case with the T63. Black. Fits well.
13) The microSD card slot, the microUSB port, and the power button are all along the top edge of the device (as you hold it in portrait mode). I'm used to them being on the bottom. No biggie there. I think I like it better this way.
14) Having had a T62+ a while back, I'd call this a definite upgrade - and not just because of the 300 dpi display. The T63 feels slimmer and seems a bit smoother overall.

That's what I've seen so far.

If any of you have questions about it, feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer.

[Hrafn]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

T63 (Banggood version) first impressions:
7) The T63 seems quicker than my Onyx C67.
...
13) The microSD card slot, the microUSB port, and the power button are all along the top edge of the device (as you hold it in portrait mode). I'm used to them being on the bottom. No biggie there. I think I like it better this way.

Comparing your experiences with the T63 with mine of the K-Pro, I find that speed seems to be very reading-app-specific -- Moon+ was very slow (and positively cranky), Alreader, at least initially, seems a lot nippier.

I'm reading with the K-Pro inverted now, and find it more comfortable to do so with power button & slots on the top (especially as I have a magnetic micro-USB dongle permanently inserted in the micro-USB port, which sticks out slightly).

[downeaster59]

Third party reader apps all seem to work well on the T63. I am beginning to encounter glitches in the Boyue firmware. The Boyue file manager will sometimes crash. That's only a problem because that file manager also manages what appears when you touch the Books icon on the home page. I can access my books by starting up any of my reader apps and choosing the book from within the app. The glitches seem to prevent any book from showing up in the Recently Read section of the home page.

As far as file managers go, Root Explorer has no issues at all. That's why I suspect it's the Boyue apps themselves that are glitchy.

I read somewhere that some microSD cards can give a Boyue device a case of "indigestion". I only have one spare sd card now, so I can't test this hypothesis and see if another card helps.

With Moon Reader, I have to push the page turn button twice to get the first page turn to happen. After that, each push turns the page. That's the only glitch I've seen in that app thus far. KOReader seems pretty smooth. I haven't tried AlReader yet.

Edit: I've dome some customization. I replaced the Books icon with Calibre Companion. I can use that as my library. I've replaced the Filemanager icon with Root Explorer. Filemanager is pretty useless anyway. The glitches are minor thus far, and do not affect the functioning of the device in general. Calibre Companion works well as my library app. I can select any book there and get a pop-up window listing all my reader apps, and then choose the one I want and/or select one app as my default reader.

[Tikker]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Calibre Companion works well as my library app. I can select any book there and get a pop-up window listing all my reader apps, and then choose the one I want and/or select one app as my default reader.

haha omg, this is the first time someone has explained CC this way, and now I get it

(for some reason I'd always envisioned CC as just a way of managing your books. It never dawned on me, and no one every explained it in this way as treating it as the actual book repository, and launching an external reader from CC. )

dumb request!

any way you could post a quick video of your new reader in action, from power on, to selecting a book within CC, and a couple page turns in moon reader?

I've always found e-ink to be too slow page turning, but it's been a while since i've really looked at one in action

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Tikker

haha omg, this is the first time someone has explained CC this way, and now I get it

(for some reason I'd always envisioned CC as just a way of managing your books. It never dawned on me, and no one every explained it in this way as treating it as the actual book repository, and launching an external reader from CC. )

dumb request!

any way you could post a quick video of your new reader in action, from power on, to selecting a book within CC, and a couple page turns in moon reader?

I've always found e-ink to be too slow page turning, but it's been a while since i've really looked at one in action

Not a dumb request at all! As far as the video goes, I can't promise anything right now, but I'll see what I can do. Most e-ink devices will be slower booting up and starting apps than a more conventional Android tablet. But my T63 does reasonably well with page turns.

I hadn't though of using CC as my book repository, either, until I started seeing glitches with the Books "app" in the Boyue firmware. I started looking for an alternative, and CC does just fine in that role. Better than the Books "app" even if it worked properly all the time.

Edit: The problem with doing a video is that I have an iPhone that uses mov format, and I see no way of converting to one of the supported formats here without buying a converter that I wouldn't otherwise use. Sure, they offer free trials, but then you only get to convert a fraction of what already is a short video, from what I see. Unless someone has a suggestion, I'm afraid I can't help there.

[mkeles84]

Is there any official .img file of new multilanguage t63 firmware. I have this device but only language is chineese. I do not know chineese. Please help me.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by mkeles84

Is there any official .img file of new multilanguage t63 firmware. I have this device but only language is chineese. I do not know chineese. Please help me.

I also would love to know if there is an official .img for this firmware. The build number for my firmware is listed as Boyue-Ereader-V1.0.0- 2016102517. The language setting shows many languages, including Afrikaans, Danish, German, Spanish, English, Filipino, French, Italian, Latvian, Magyar, Dutch, Norwegian, Polish, Rumanian, Vietnamese, Russian, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, as well as Chinese and some others whose script I can't make out.

It might be possible to produce a system.img if the Rockchip tools work on the T63. When I have a chance, I'll try it out.

[Tikker]

Originally Posted by downeaster59

Edit: The problem with doing a video is that I have an iPhone that uses mov format, and I see no way of converting to one of the supported formats here .

just leave it in .mov and host it on dropbox or similar

I can just grab it, and transcode it myself if need be

[Purple Lady]

@downeaster59

The T62+ could do everything below - can the T63 do the same things?

Set the volume buttons to be page turn buttons.
Make the screen full screen always. I have button savior installed instead.
Is there a page refresh button?

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by Tikker

just leave it in .mov and host it on dropbox or similar

I can just grab it, and transcode it myself if need be

I'll upload it to Dropbox and post a link soon.

Edit: Okay, here is the link. A short video, with me opening up CC and then a book in CC with Moon Reader. I then turn a few pages in Moon Reader with the page turn buttons. When I start reading, the first click never works. But it works from the second click on out.