Onyx Boox Note 10.3 is available Now

[DuckieTigger]

@cityrader: Interesting pictures. In A2 it almost looks better when zoomed, probably because it is dithered. Normal mode could probably look a lot better if they used not 16 shades of grey, but used them to dither as well.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Normal mode could probably look a lot better if they used not 16 shades of grey, but used them to dither as well.

Yes, of course. I requested the feature at the BBS weeks ago.

Incidentally: you want the option. GU nearest, GU dithered, A2 nearest, A2 dithered.

The problem with dithering is that the current algorithm makes placement random. So, dynamically, in A2 if you change a minor part of the screen (e.g. cursor, UI, control anim etc.) you change most of the dots, heavily on the battery but easy on the eyes... In GU you would flash most of the screen!
So, you may also want a smarter (stateful) dithering algorithm.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by mdp

Yes, of course. I requested the feature at the BBS weeks ago.

Incidentally: you want the option. GU nearest, GU dithered, A2 nearest, A2 dithered.

The problem with dithering is that the current algorithm makes placement random. So, dynamically, in A2 if you change a minor part of the screen (e.g. cursor, UI, control anim etc.) you change most of the dots, heavily on the battery but easy on the eyes... In GU you would flash most of the screen!
So, you may also want a smarter (stateful) dithering algorithm.

Smart and dithering doesn't always go hand in hand. A choice would be good, but no one algorithm can do it all. Randomizing the dither and you got movement in static part. Detecting whether something is movement or panning is near impossible, at least I imagine so. Loose randomness in the dither and you create noticeable patterns by random chance (pun intended) - think Moiré patterns just less predictable.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Detecting whether something is movement or panning is near impossible, at least I imagine so

You could either just do your changes only in the changed region - when in GU, you do not flash the full display because you changed an area, it's local, there is a mechanism to check - or, as I wrote, keep a state of the previous frame, buffered, and compute the change with respect to the next frame (read the whole vectors and compare).
Instead of rendering a dithered full screen, apply a dithered differential, the "changed area", to the formerly computed dithered rendering.

It depends on where the dithering is applied/applicable, and where the awareness of the graphics as differential is applicable.

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by sogaiu

Thanks for this link -- Magisk looks very interesting. Now if it could work for the Max 2...

To root with Magisk, you need either (a) a custom recovery or (b) a stock boot image dump, and the ability to install a patched boot image via fastboot or ODIN.

https://forum.xda-developers.com/app...mless-t3473445

(a) No custom recovery exists (yet) for the Note.

(b) Need to get fastboot working with the Note first. Isn't ODIN designed for Samsung devices?

This is why I didn't go that route. Maybe someone else can figure out how to install Magisk on the Note.

[mikij1]

Then... 10,3" is enough to read .pdf? advisable?

[downeaster59]

Originally Posted by mikij1

Then... 10,3" is enough to read .pdf? advisable?

For me, it's enough. Some people may recommend the Max 2, but I find that the Note does fine with pdfs.

[citytrader]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

@cityrader: Interesting pictures. In A2 it almost looks better when zoomed, probably because it is dithered. Normal mode could probably look a lot better if they used not 16 shades of grey, but used them to dither as well.

I could post more pictures if you like, in A2 all look much worse because it looks like they are less point. In non A2 the characters are sharper.
The difference is in scrolling, in A2 is mostly smooth and in normal is not and the response of the screen to touch is much better in A2.

[citytrader]

Originally Posted by mikij1

Then... 10,3" is enough to read .pdf? advisable?

For me, reading PDF/EPUBS is better with 10" than 13 (this is personal), 13" is too big for me.
For example, in a normal book that has 256 pages, on the note I can adjust the size of characters to get 243 pages and that size is a big bigger than a normal book. Something not possible in my Aura One for example because I get on the same size 357 (not counting how bad is scrolling in the Aura One)

Here is a screenshot I did to have a better idea, Aura One - Note - normal book. (Aura One has better contrast than the Note)



FULL

[mikij1]

Thank you downeaster59 and citytrader for your opinion... and the photos. Thank you very much.
I like this ereader but I think light is important.
Eink should improve the contrast. Background is still very dark. I suppose there are technical difficulties.

[citytrader]

Originally Posted by mikij1

Eink should improve the contrast. Background is still very dark. I suppose there are technical difficulties.

I agree with you but is still miles a way better than normal tablets for reading, I have Amoled and had IPS in the past and with all I get eye strain, something I don't have with the Aura and Note when reading book or even browsing the news on the web, for multimedia this device are useless.

I recommend buying the Note and I recommend buying from eReader Store too.

[flibber]

Hi,
After following the Boox note on here, I decided to buy one off Amazon and I thought I would give my specific feedback here.

I won't repeat all the info and good features of the Note previously given on this forum, instead I will just concentraite on some of the things that haven't been mentioned. To that end, I am affraid that most of the below will sound somewhat negitive.

The first thing I would say is that "out of the box" the Note really peforms badly. It was bad enough for me to think I had a faulty unit. However, a quick dig around in the settings I found that there is a firmware update. Strangely, the "auto update" is switched off by default, so you will never get an update unless you go looking. Thankfully after the update (dated late March) the Note was much better.

Onto the play store. I installed my Outlook email, word, excel, powerpoint, onedrive and they all worked great... thumbs up. As mentioned before, sadly MS onenote doesn't work... in fact its pretty much unusable. However, although the othr MS products worked fine they did highlight some issues which are big problems for on the go daily use.

Problem one) Security. When you apply a O365 account to a device, it forces you to set a password (on all devices). The same happened with the note and I set the Pin. However, for the next 3 days when the note went to sleep or was restarted or was cold started, it didn't once ask me for the pin number. I even checked the settings... yup pin set but never asked the user for it. At the time anyone could have looked at my email as there was nothing to stop them.

Problem two) I have sympathy for the screen tecnology however the update lag really does mean that pinch zoom and page scrolling becomes a quessing game. You simply don't know how much to scroll or zoom because while in the process of movement the screen is a blur so you just have to guess when to stop.

Problem 3) Battery life and/or network connection. While using the device you have the option for the wifi to "timeout" after a set time. I didn't do loads of experimentation on this but I found quickly that if you picked up and started using the note after the network had timed out, it wouldn't kick back in again until you clicked on the wifi??? So after this annoyance I set the wifi to "never timeout". This it seems was a big mistake. After a full charged, I used the note lightly for an hour or two and had about 80% battery left when I clicked to standby. The next morning the battry was flat. Now you may think I have hundreds of emails or loads of onedrive documents. I don't during the time the battery flattened itself, I had 4 emails and no onedrive documents updated. I wasn't impressed to say the least.

The final killer was the boox "Note" taking app. When it worked it was really good, and it really feels and looks like writing on paper. Before the firmware update the lag was terrible. After the update it had no lag.... most of the time but again and again I would randomly have issues where you would start writting and nothing would happen for a few seconds. 80% it was fine but each time I picked it up and used it I had no confidence that it would work flawlessly. This was the end for me. I can appriciate the technology and the expence of the screen but at the end of the day its a lot of money and the minimum I expect is that the native note taking app should work flawlessly. It didn't. I purchased the Note to mainly keep an eye on the odd email and take the odd note. However, there is no way I could take this into a meeting not confident if I would have problems or not. So it went back to Amazon.

It is a shame, it could be a great device... it is so light it would could be brilliant as a exec device. However, at this price I expect premium performance, not lag and buggy issues like a cheap tablet.

On last point is with the pen. The pen works great and the writting experince feels just like pen on paper. However the pen itself looks and feels (to hold) like very cheap plastic pen. I also don't doubt that it has 4000 levels of pressure but in reality I found in practice this only really equated to 3... light, medium and heavy. You really need a magnigying glass to notice any other pressure levels than that.

I hope this helps some

[citytrader]

Originally Posted by flibber

Hi,
After following the Boox note on here, I decided to buy one off Amazon and I thought I would give my specific feedback here.

I didn't see the Note in Amazon yet...

I don't believe Note is a device for using Office, besides that I don't even use Microsoft Office on Android because is crap, instead I use WPS Office, for email Outlook for Android is even more crap.

Problem 2: the refresh rate of eink devices is an issue and I think the Android apps are not optimized for that, the screen has visible retention that could be disgusting at times.
The Scroll in A2 mode works just fine with much less retention.

Problem 3: I don't have your battery life problems, I left without changing my configuration (wifi is Android default) on the night and I didn't see a change, I will check again this night, but I don't remember if there was any visible % lost.

I don't believe this tablet is good for taking notes for the lag I experienced when using the pen on PDF's, but I use it for reading books and the web only.

The biggest problem in Android and eink devices is that the apps are not optimized for eink devices, for that I see screen retention in most of them.

[orebmur]

Originally Posted by flibber

It is a shame, it could be a great device...

It supposedly already is - if you were only using it for what it is designed for.

It definitely is a specialized e-reader and not the all purpose computing device everybody appears to be confusing it with.

Apparently, people here are mainly looking for an all purpose tablet without the eye strain, but not for an e-reader.
These expectations are quite a bit out of sync with what an e-reader actually provides.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by citytrader

for multimedia this device are useless

Er, no, not really. You can use them for multimedia. Just don't expect Imax.