I recently bought an e-book Onyx Boox Faust 2. I have been using it for several weeks now, and I have already made my own conclusions about this device. Therefore, I want to make an overview, as well as speculate about the situation with e-books in general on the market.
I read quite a lot and actively. I love fiction from the genres of science fiction, fantasy, etc. I mostly read either on my phone in the MoonReader program, or on my old JDRead reader.
I already had established criteria for choosing an e-book. Since I had several e-books and knew what I needed. I will share the selection criteria so that you know what to look for when choosing:
Screen size. E-books come in different sizes. I prefer a 6 inch screen. This is enough for reading, but at the same time the book remains compact, and the hand does not get tired of holding it. Some people like screens more, yes they fit more information. But at the same time, ergonomics are already suffering. Such a book is more difficult to carry, and it is heavier.
The presence of illumination. Since I mostly read before bed, backlighting is a must. Well, you understand. I once had a 4th generation Kindle and it wasn’t bad. But without the backlight, it was inconvenient to read it. So I sold it and read it on my phone myself.
e-link screen. Like it or not, an e-ink screen is much better than a tablet or phone screen in terms of reading. Plus, it is more economical and does not eat the battery like TFT and IPS screens. Read more about e-link on wikipedia
The presence of paging buttons. This is a handy feature that just makes the book easier to use. You can, of course, poke your finger into the screen, but to be honest, it’s tiring. I even hung the pages on the phone on the volume buttons. Since it’s more convenient to just put your finger on the button and lightly press it to change the page, instead of poking your finger at the screen every time.
Omnivorous. To be honest, I’m tired of constantly choosing the right format of books for my e-book, which can only open epub and mobi. At the same time, the most popular FB2 had to be converted. Well, it’s not convenient.
As for other features that some manufacturers shove into their books, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, reading books by voice, music player, browser, games and other goodies. I really don’t need all this. Well, simply because I need an e-book to read. And for everything else there is a phone. But the 5 criteria described above are, in my opinion, the most important criteria. (I immediately warn you that this is solely my opinion, formed from personal experience. This opinion should not coincide with yours.)
Initially, of course, I considered options from kindle. I chose between Kindle Voyage and Kindle Oasis. There were two things I didn’t like about these books. First, the price. I didn’t consider the options. Of course, I sometimes buy used gadgets, but not all. And here’s a book — this is what I would not buy. And the second point is omnivorous. To teach kindle readers to read all the necessary formats, you need to jailbreak. Which is not very convenient. And from the factory, Kindles do not read FB2.
And then a variant from Onyx Boox caught my eye. I looked and read the reviews. Compared with competitors. And I realized that the Faust 2 model is quite an interesting option. In addition, it now has a discount on it, with which the price becomes even lower. Well, I thought a little, and bought it.
Features Onyx Boox Faust 2
- Diagonal book screen 6.0 inches
- Features: Screen backlight, Touch screen, Wi-Fi module, Case included
- Screen type: E-ink Carta, 1024*758, 212ppi with Moon Light 2 backlight
- Operating system: Android
- The amount of random access memory (RAM): 0.5GB
- Read-only memory (ROM): 8GB
- Screen resolution: 758 x 1024
- Memory card slot: MicroSD
- Additional Information:
- Supported file formats:
- Book formats: TXT, HTML, RTF, FB2, FB2.zip, FB3, MOBI, CHM, PDB, DOC, DOCX, PRC, EPUB, PDF, DjVu
- Image formats: JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP
- Other formats: CBR, CBZ
- Dimensions: 170 × 117 × 8.7 mm
- Weight: 182g
I ordered from the official online store with delivery. As a result, a week later I received a parcel in the mail, in which there was a box with an e-book Onyx Boox Faust 2.
The box of the book looks quite presentable. It’s not a shame to give such a gift, and it’s nice to receive it yourself:
I open the box, inside there is an e-book in a case:
The whole package consists of an e-book with a case, a charging cable, a warranty card and instructions:
The instruction is in Russian, but it is designed for complete beginners. Although some useful information can be found:
The included microUSB cable is 1 meter long. Average quality. But for infrequent recharging of the book is quite suitable:
Separately, I will show the cover. It is made of leatherette on the outside. Fairly good quality and pleasant to the touch. The front side is embossed with the name of the model:
On the reverse side, just leather, stitched around the perimeter:
Inside is a form for installing the book. The entire inner side is covered with a material similar to soft suede or nubuck. Very pleasant to the touch:
I also want to note that there is a magnet in the case, which activates the book when the case is opened, and puts it into sleep mode when it is closed. It is very convenient. The book in the case is fixed very well and comfortably. The cover is really comfortable and most importantly, it is not heavy and does not thicken the book. It is quite comfortable to hold a book with a cover in your hand, and even several hours of reading do not cause fatigue or discomfort.
Now about the book itself. It is made of high quality plastic. On the front side there is a 6-inch display, on the sides there are two paging buttons, under the display there is a central button responsible for accessing the main screen or the “back” function:
On the reverse side of the book, there are no controls, there is only information about the device:
On the bottom are the microUSB port and microSD card slot. As well as a rubber plug (there are analogue models for other markets, they have a 3.5mm port, but it is not implemented here):
At the top of the book is the power button:
Side faces are empty:
Book dimensions 12*17cm:
The dimensions of the screen itself are 12.2*9cm:
In the hands of the book lies just fine:
The overall build quality of the book is excellent. All edges are smooth. Plastic quality. No cracks or gaps. No foreign smell.
Now let’s move on to the software of the book. Press the power button, wait for the book to turn on. The book turns on by the way quite slowly. About 40-50 seconds. In this case, an animated element with a pen first appears on the screen, then the name of the manufacturer:
The main menu of the book looks like this:
The core library is shown here. You can search by authors, title, series, etc. Also, the last opened book will always be displayed here later. This is how it looks like:
If you go to the «File Manager» tab, then here you can see all the files in the memory of the book or on the flash drive (if installed):
The Applications tab contains additional features that, in my personal opinion, are not really needed. Here is a browser, calculator, download menu, clock, dictionary:
The «Settings» item allows you to customize the book for yourself. Although to be honest with the settings here is not very dense. But the minimum set is:
Also in the book there is wi-fi with which you can connect to the Internet and view various non-heavy pages in the browser (or download books online):
Also, there are always icons on the top of the screen, this is the home and back button, charge display, wi-fi status, current time, backlight and switching between running applications. Of the necessary things that I use, these are the home and back buttons and backlight adjustment.
About the backlight. The book features Moonlight backlighting technology.
This is not shown in the photo, but if you turn the book at an angle in the dark, you can see 5 LEDs located under the case on the bottom side of the book.
The backlight can be adjusted not only by the degree of brightness, but also by temperature. True, I like it when the backlight has a cold tint. But for those who like it, you can put it warm.
This is how the brightness and temperature adjustment menu looks like:
There are three preset options. But you can customize for yourself.
This is what the backlight looks like in the dark:
Well, now the most important thing. Books.
From the factory, the book contains about a dozen books from Soviet classics. But I don’t read those books. So I abandoned my library.
Although the photo still shows those books that were in the device’s memory. This is what the cover looks like:
That’s the text. The font itself, text, size, etc. can be changed according to your needs.
By the way, this is how the E-ink Carta screen looks like compared to the screen of JDRead1, where E-ink Carta is also located:
By the way, what I don’t like about my old JDRead1 reader is that it has no mechanical page switching buttons and no FB2 support. Tired of using converters.
Well, the most important test of the book. Format support.
For this purpose, I specifically downloaded P. Kornev’s book «Damned Metal» in several formats: FB2, EPUB, Mobi, TXT, and FB2 in a zip archive:
Well, through the file manager I try to open in turn:
It’s not clear from the photo, of course. But all 5 formats opened without problems.
Well, one more test for PDF support (although to be honest, I don’t read PDF readers, since it’s better to read them on a PC screen) I downloaded several issues of the Vokrug sveta magazine:
Documents also open without problems. Scaling works. You can read the document quite comfortably, except that looking at a colorful magazine with photos on a non-color screen is not a very easy task:
As for the battery life of this reader, at the moment I’m still doing the calibration. I charged the book to 100% and wait for it to sit down to 0%. The third week, daily reading for 1-4 hours. There is still 45% charge. Which is very good. You can safely count on 3-4 weeks of normal use.
Conclusion:
What can I say about this Onyx Boox Faust 2 e-book. I am more than satisfied with it. Great uptime. Backlight. Omnivorous. Adequate (for e-books) price. Convenient physical paging buttons. Living battery. Android functions (which, to be honest, I don’t need), but here you can even install your programs through apk files. For example, another program for reading. Or other necessary software. But the most important thing in an e-book is the reading function. It is for her that the book is bought. And here everything is very good.
Summing up, I can say that Onyx Boox Faust 2 is a safe buy. This is a great value for money option that would make a great gift or purchase for any book lover.
By the way, for those who want to buy the Onyx Boox Faust 2 book, you can apply a promo code faust10, which will give an additional 10% discount in the manufacturer’s official store.