Icarus Illumina XL 8" Android e-reader with front light (Wi-Fi, touch screen, audio)

I have the older Icarus 8" without Android, I like them both, but have a "little" issue with the Android Icarus:tapping on power button should and does turn it to sleep; BUT, holding power button should make a screen come up with "shut down device? ok / cancel" and this is often NOT the case. Often, it will go to sleep (after holding it longer than 3 sec) and THEN no tapping of power button wakes it up, power button has to be pushed down a long time (often longer than 3 sec) and then device will restart.I tried to get help from Icarus, they helped me install an update etc, which did not help the issue; then they offered me to send it back but to my expense! (Shipping to the Netherlands).USPS won't ship any device with a li-ion battery internationally by individuals (businesses is another thing), and via DHL it would cost at least 60 to 70 $ Shipping without the additional fee for the installed battery.So, for now I refrain from shipping it back....

The size is perfect. Google play works unlike the inkbook. The actual Google app from the play store won't work but downloading an older version works just fine. This is my 5th ereader and by far my favorite.

Amazing but resolution is a bit low

Neat tablet, and awesome seller.

Buyer's remorse. My use case is that I wanted to get an E-ink device for my 84-year old mom. She complains that she has trouble sleeping at night. I know that after her stroke, if she exercises her brain, it will tire her, so if I can have her read, I know this would help get her tired. I wanted an Android tablet to have the flexibility of deciding what apps to load. I wanted an E-ink tablet because blue light would negate the purpose of allowing her to get sleepy. E-ink tablets tend to be 6", but I thought a larger tablet would be more appropriate for my mom. And finally, I wanted something "affordable". This led me to the Icarus Illumina XL 8.I'm a newbie regarding E-ink technology, so I have to take responsibility for making too many (unfounded) assumptions about how well this technology works with Android tablets. However, I put some of the responsibility on Google. For Android to "win", Google needs to support it being ubiquitous. This includes support for E-ink devices. Unfortunately, many Android apps don't care how they look on E-ink displays. Especially for my mom, reading light colored text on a white background will be very difficult for her. The best would obviously be black text on white background. Google should make it easy for Android apps to support this, but alas, they don't. Therefore, the apps which work best on E-ink tablets are the ones which allow some type of customization of how the text appears.First, the design of the tablet. It's very sleek, light weight, and has a nice feel to it. Although the case is black, it is not a fingerprint magnet, so it always looks nice. The styling is part of the bad part, though. The edges are beveled which makes it look nice. However, this means the surface of the ports are actually angled, not square to the port. This makes it more difficult, especially for a micro USB plug to fit squarely into the port. In fact, all of my other micro USB plugs easily come loose and even fall out when plugged into the device. This means the only one which fits firmly enough is the micro USB cable which comes with the device. The length of the micro USB plug is slightly longer than all my other USB plugs which explain why it is able to stay in, but the others are not. To me, this is like having to have a proprietary cable for the device, and I hate devices which require proprietary cables. In addition, to help my mom make it easier to plug in the device, I'll use a micro USB cable with a magnetic tip. Ooops, it won't stay in, so somehow I'll have to work on taping it in the device.The reason I wanted a tablet larger than 8" is to make the text easier for my mom to read. However, even though Android's accessibility settings allow for specification of use of larger text, they have removed larger text option from the Android's settings. Sigh. Fortunately, I was able to root the device and use an app like Big Font to increase the font a bit. It's not ideal, but at least it helps.This likely has to do with my lack of knowledge of E-ink devices but I was surprised to not have any control over contrast. Therefore, apps which use non-black text show up as some light colored gray, making it more difficult to read. (And of course, I'm sure many users have experienced the dreaded white text on white background problem, too.) After I bought this tablet, I've now come to the conclusion that perhaps only an E-ink tablet with E-ink Carta HD would come close to a good user experience with minimal compromise for an E-ink device. The way the Icarus Illumina XL 8 refreshes and lack of good resolution is distracting.Also, my lack of knowledge about ereaders didn't recognize that probably most of them do not come with audio speakers. Therefore, only way to listen to something is through headphones. There's not even bluetooth to be able to set up sound to a bluetooth speaker. It would make the tablet much more usable to have some speaker options available.FYI, AnTuTu Benchmark for this device is 11247. For comparison, my Xperia Z2 tablet has a benchmark of over 40000 and Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a benchmark over 66000. When downloading apps from Google Play Store, I experienced slow download times. I thought download overall was slow, but when I was Internet Speed Test, it showed transmission speeds of 15.41 Mbps, but downloading a 32MB app from Google Play Store took almost 5 minutes.In summary, the good:* The design, weight, feel... (except for the beveled edge where the ports are)* Supports Google Play Store (although I did have to let it update itself before it could recognize my previously purchased apps)* It could be rootedThe bad:* Missing Android accessibility large text option* Apps which do not use dark colored text, so they appear as light gray text on E-ink devices (Google's responsibility to support app developers)* Insufficient contrast, resolution (300 dpi minimum) for better quality display (likely true for most E-ink devices except those with latest E-ink technology)* Lack of speakers or speaker options (probably true for most ereaders anyway)* Overall performance and storage is lacking, although it does support use of an external micro SD cardThe best app I could find for my mom's usage is Pocket. After her stroke, only text which are not too long can hold her attention,so entire books are likely out of the question. With Pocket, I can save Internet articles for her to read, and they provide flexibility in how to display the text on the article and even support paging. Unfortunately, something like Flipboard was pretty much useless and it ignored ability to override the text color and size, making articles for her more difficult to read.I'm sure many E-ink tablet buyers are not buying it for the same reason as me and would not be as picky. I just had too high expectations on how well an E-ink tablet would work. The tablet itself is not bad, so I wish the company success, but the two stars represents that I would not buy it again if I had the choice. As mentioned, I put some of the responsibility on Google to provide better app support for E-ink devices.

Obwohl ich Android-Fan bin: Nie wieder einen Android Reader nach dieser Erfahrung!Das Ding funktioniert einfach nur schlecht. Lässt sich nicht anständig konfigurieren (e.g andere Android Version aufspielen, anderen Reader per default nutzen, ...) Dazu hab ich regelmäßig Abstürze/Reboots, äußerst unerfreulich.Der Touchscreen funktioniert die halbe Zeit nicht, das kann aber auch daran liegen, daß das Gerät in dem Moment gerade "hängt" - keine Seltenheit. Der Screen und das gesamte look&feel ist äußerst lahm. Hardwaretasten wären vielleicht ein erster Schritt, reichlich Platz dafür wäre ja.Ich bin komplett durch und durch ganz fürchterlich unzufrieden mit dem Gerät. Selbst der Ur-Kindle, den ich mal hatte, war um Welten besser. Aber ich wollte mir ja was gutes gönnen, selbst schuld.Einen Stern gibt's trotzdem: WENN das Gerät mal "tut", dann liest es einigermaßen ziemlich gut darauf. Qualität und Beleuchtung würden mir völlig reichen, wenn die sonstigen Probleme nicht wären.

The fact that they have removed it from the market should say it all and I don't even know if it makes sense to write a review at this point.Anyway I bought this device in Feb. 2016 and the problems with the software were various; browsing would often jump by pages instead of one, sometimes I had to tap multiple times to get to the next page, pinch to zoom worked very inconsistently.I put it down for 3 months and then I saw that a firmware update was available which solved a few of the issues. Pinch to zoom was not working anymore (probably removed), browsing was better but often I had to tap multiple times to get to the next page. Then an annoying popup saying 'no client found' would appear often but still I could live with that.Then after a year and after reading only 5 books the screen crystals gave up without any evident reason and 3/4 of the screen was unusable; it showed only the black painting-like background of when the device is turned off. The customer care told me that this problem was probably caused from heavy shock or fall (which was not the case) and was out of warranty.I checked a few reviews on amazon.it and a couple of user having the same issue with the 6 inch version so my guess is it is a common problem.I liked the 8 inch screen though and even given the software limitations I was ok and could do my reading but when it comes to hardware problems like this is a NO NO.

Supongo que si el ebook hubiera funcionado, estaria contento con él, sobre todo por el tamaño de su pantalla. Pero desgraciadamente mi experiencia fue malisima. Desde el primer dia, el ebook se bloqueaba al cierto tiempo de su funcionamiento. Tube que enviar lo para su reparación y este fue devuelto reseteado pero con el mismo problema. Mala cominicación con el fabricante que no respondia adecuadamente a mis explicaciones. Experiencia FATAL.

È un lettore da 8 pollici con l'illuminazione (non tutti i grandi formati hanno questa spec). Mi sembra versatile. Impostate sulle preferenze utente il lettore fb2 come lettore di epub e siete a cavallo (ha anche un timer che cambia le pagine da solo), basta toccare la voce.

Parecía un buen producto, pero después de un tiempo de uso empezó a fallar el firmware y la empresa no trabaja ta, por lo que no se puede actualizar.