u/Picard_III

Hey, I'm very new to Essentials and I couldn't find FAQ here on or your website so I'm sorry for asking maybe too obvious things.

1 I have Pixel 7A and Google play store tells me Shizuku was developed for older android version and therefore I cannot install it, do I just need to wait for some time? Also, am I loosing my warranty when using both Essentials and/or Shizuku? I do have some experience with rooting (from 14 years ago lol), but if I understand correctly this is all just grating permission and not rooting per se, right?

2 I like the NFC toggle in the notification bar (seriously I don't get it how pixel UI just doesn't have it), but I would also like to have proper WiFi and data toggles (they're finally there on android 17 but are very broken), is it possible via Essentials, or would it be possible to add it for the future? (just a simple on/off toggle separately for WiFi and for data as we know from other UIs)

3 I'd like to be able to turn off my flashlight with a power button (as we do with Samsung or Xiaomi UIs), but I went through all the settings of Essentials and I couldn't find this there - is it possible to add this maybe for the future? There's remapping the buttons, but mine is a little bit different from that, right?

Hi, I'm interested in LineageOS for an old Xiaomi that is supported (I want to have it as a secondary phone), but I do have some concerns especially about the UI. Right now I'm using Pixel 7A that I bought just for the camera, and I wholeheartedly hate pixel "pure" stock featureless UI. Don't get me wrong, I hate Xiaomi bloatware too, but there are just too many things on Pixels that I miss every single day (I can give you a list, but from top of my head: flashlight doesn't turn off with power button, on notification bar - wifi and data toggles are broken - two months ago it was not even a thing, nfc toggle doesn't even exist at all, there's as much bloatware as on Xiaomi but for some reason no one cares). Is there a way how to customise LineageOS or is it as empty and featureless as Pixel "pure" android?

I'm interested in what I wrote already, but also things like choosing which sim card to be used when writing sms (doesn't exist on pixel), having brightness bar without swiping the notification bar twice...

Am I lost here, or are there things that can be done? Because I don't really care about colour themes, animations and new wallpapers and stuff (what we saw in the last "development" of android latest versions), but I'm for more customisation that we know from Samsung and Xiaomi and basically every other UI except for Pixel and Motorola...things I miss are the things I took for granted and considered part of android until I bought Pixel... But pixel decided to go the iPhone way for some reason and is becoming quite useless for many people

Hi, so first of all I am trying to sell them very cheap, I don't know if a martksplaats URL would get me blocked, so I can maybe put the ads in the comment. I have to get rid of both of them, one is a three seat from IKEA, other one is two seats.

No one is interested, so I am thinking of just dumping them next to the bins (they are fine clean sofas), I checked Geemente website to know how and when I can do that, and I found a list of kringloopwinkels in Den Haag, BUT there's no information about which shop does pick-ups. I would prefer to sell/get rid of them tomorrow Friday 25-6.

Do you please know of someone who could pick them up either for 5-10 euros a piece, or for free completely? I might have a friend who would deliver them within DH with his van, if you are willing to pay him for his time and fuel. I just find it sad to throw away pieces of furniture that are still fine to be used by someone else.

I have Pixel 7a and after updating to Android 17 I noticed some random websites are not displayed correctly - I cannot zoom them out, but the objects and text in them is spread beyond my display in a sense that I'm missing sometimes more than 25% of the website's width.. The only weird solution is to force desktop version. Is someone else struggling with the same bug?

For example if I click on a word that I typed, it doesn't underline the word and offer corrections, but it put the cursor in the middle of my word, that doesn't make any sense, also prediction doesn't show words when I literally clock just one letter wrong, it's not even in the three offered words, but there are made up words that I have never used and that I have deleted already, seems like deleting the suggestions (that are not real words) don't do anything.

So my other question is... Why did they force us to backup via one drive if it apparently didn't copy any of my personal data and words after reinstalling?

On a similar topic of OneDrive: "If you don't have an account to log into, you can create one" ...I'm clicking on creating one aaaand, it is asking me for my existing email address? Man! I want to create your stupid email address so you leave me alone and I can back up and restore my data that you are forcing me to do via your stupid account, and now you don't want me to register at your service because you need my existing email address to give me your new email, WAT? what can I do? should I open Microsoft outlook (or whatever it is called) and create an email account there? or this would also ask for an existing email? LOL

I really don't know what to do, immediately after upgrade to Android 17, only Google Chrome and Brave browser worked with my WiFi...in a day fb messenger and banking apps started to work, the rest did not work - such as Google calendar, Maps, YouTube, or Instagram

I tried so many things from reseting my phone, to restoring default settings in my phone for WiFi (nobody told me it's gonna delete every saved password, so I lost a lot of important things)...WiFi is not a problem as I'm using it on Windows, and two more android devices. Now I tried factory reset on my phone and now more apps are working, but right now Google maps are showing absolutely nothing.

Also when I did the factory reset, and connected to my WiFi, it took 5 minutes and error messages to allow me to sign up for my account, it eventually did, but I already suspect a problem there. I had no problems whatsoever before the update

When both are on:

1 you hold your finger on one of the two toggles, both open the same "internet" pop-up the same as before the update

2 you tap the data toggle - it turns itself off, great, well done. Now tap it again, and for soem reason it asks you if you want to turn it on - huh? I just tapped to turn it on, why the redundant question?

3a if you tap the WiFi toggle, it will DISCONNECT you from your saved WiFi network, but it will keep it on, 50% of the time within 30 seconds it connects you back to your WiFi network and changes your icon back to blue - what the actual f***?!?! This is the worst April's fool I have ever seen  what on earth is that? And 

3b when it doesn't reconnect it to your saved WiFi network, then it keeps the WiFi on, but you don't have Internet connection of course - proof: hold the finger on data or WiFi icon ("funny" that it doesn't even matter) and you'll see wifi still on

4 to turn off your WiFi you now MUST hold your finger on one of the toggles, "Internet" card pops up and only there you can turn off your WiFi - wtf?

And then you see the difference in the icon design:

a) gray - disconnected but on 

b) blue - connected

c) strikethrough gray - WiFi is off

Sooo, we got extra steps instead of shortcuts, right? Am I missing something here?

So many times I noticed the same assortment, same brands, now I noticed exactly same price for some goods... Which one do you prefer and why? ​ I always thought I could compare the prices and go to the cheaper one, but sometimes I feel like it's the same shop just with different logo and name

Edit: thank you all for your answers, I forgot to mention that also book recommendations is not something I'm interested in. I think I'll stick with Goodreads for now or then I'll do good old ​spreadsheets!

Hello, I am kind of new to ebooks and ereaders, I registered at Goodreads just few minutes ago, I am fed up with every service trying to be a social network (I can write my reasons and examples in the comment if someone is interested). I would like to have a full list of my own collection of books I already finished, those that I am interested in, and those that I am reading, just to keep track for myself - a spreadsheet would suffice BUT with Goodreads I like that I can quickly search for books, it adds more info about them for me, review etc, and it looks quite neat.

Everything on top of that I really hate and don't want. So, is there any other good online solution for me? For now I tried to turn off absolutely everything there: no friends, followers, empty feed (for now, but I guess that's gonna be tricky?), and I also added "goodreads.com/review/list/my profile number" as a bookmark, so I can always directly open it when I want to add a book.

Thank you so much for your input!

Seriously, I watched an official YT video, where a woman did it without any effort, everyone in the comments ​​is saying it was very difficult. I have dedicated 10 minutes to it, have some dents in the back panel, strip is still on and when I finally felt like I'm doing some tens of millimetres of progress I heard the sound of ripping the glue... Is this a joke?! I have a new Era Lite, with a case that I cannot use and very soon with a lot of dents and scratches from my attempts... What is going on

Thank you all for your input, I learned a lot through your answers and I can relate to many reasons you gave me (especially the size of text and eyes problems). 

At the end I traced the outlines of my Kindle Touch on the paper, then I drew Pocketbook verse and Era by it's dimensions in cm, then A5 format on the same piece of paper. Now I see Verse is too small so I'm definitely buying Era, and for travelling I can always use my Kindle Touch.

Tldr - skip to question in bold

I like my phone to be small (currently 6.1"), I like and need my tablet big (I have Lenovo with 12.7"). I use Kindle Touch which is super old (2012) but works just fine... Until recently I was sure I'm gonna buy Pocketbook Era (probably Lite), but I went to a shop where I found only Kobo Libra (so with buttons which I like) and I found it too big, I compared it with smaller kobo and with my Kindle Touch and the actual difference of the display between kobo 7" and 6" is miniscule, but difference between devices is huge (I'm not a fan of having thick plastic frame with no usage). Recently many people have been posting Xteink minimalistic devices here and I kinda like them. Someone just showed a photo that proved that xteink in landscape shows exact amount of words as a regular ereaders.

Reading books and looking at videos are two VERY different things, we don't need to see so much text with our eyes because we cannot read so many words in the same time as we can see objects on a video. I'm not saying we should read from "pricetag" eink displays (as some ppl here are advocating) , but why do anyone want to have an ereader device bigger? I'm not reading comics or manga or pdfs (as I would definitely use tablet for those). Could you please give me your reasons why 7"+ device is better for you? I'm really curious what is the value of it.

And when it comes to what I'm gonna do now, I think I'll buy Pocketbook Verse Pro, as it has buttons and (night)light which is all I care for.

Around two weeks ago I noticed my Google Chrome (on Windows) open every Google search on a new tab. I'm not using computer on daily basis so I didn't care much. Then I found a video bout how to turn it off, only to find out that the setting is indeed turned off and yet it opens it in a new tab everytime. Someone in the comments of that YT video said that turning the feature on and off will solve this. (which is already weird of course). So I did and it was solved. It took less than 5 days to get back into opening things in new tabs again.

Now when writing this post I noticed my android tablet started doing the same with the chrome app (my phone doesnt).

I'm really trying not to be paranoid, but is this not a bug but a purpose by Google to force us stay on their sites for longer (same as opening YouTube app always triggers annoying Shorts without possibility to turn it off)? Because if that's the case then I'll start thinking of a different browser for sure

There's a mouse wheel click for opening URLs on a new tab since I downloaded chrome in 2010, and then there's a left mouse button action for just opening the url directly. I know what I want to do and when, so why would chrome force me different action for what I always do everywhere in the same way... It makes no sense

Hi, I was few clicks away from buying just Era (bw) and now they announced Lite version, that some people already have. I see it's just splashproof (totally not important for me), that it doesn't have speakers (I don't think that's important for me either), nad then some people mention something about the top glass? This one I don't get

Anyway, there are many eshops in EU where I can get just Era (bw) for 180-220€ or I can soon get Era Lite for 199€+

Now I have no idea which one to choose, it's a piece of technology so I feel weird about buying 4 years old model (new from an eshop) on the other hand the new model Lite has basically nothing new about it, right?

(I'm a very easygoing person with ereaders as my current device is ​Kindle Touch 2012 that I don't use much)

TLDR: will it work fine if I want to download/sideload my own books there either via USB cable, or via Calibre software? Can I download some official offline dictionary for different languages?

Hi, I asked here for an ereader with physical button recently, thank you all for your comments! Basically I found out I have three options with 7" Display: Kobo Libra (Colour), Pocketbook Era (colour) or Kindle Oasis 10th gen. All of them should be also with a warm light setting, which is the second (and only) important feature for me.

Kobo and Pocketbook I can buy new, for around 230€, unfortunately the colour feature is not something of any importance for me, so it's just adding on the price in my case. I tried kobo libra in the shop yesterday and everything felt very good, the only missing feature is an option to disable touch screen when reading, as I want to use just the buttons, and maybe I'll highlight or translate a word every 5 or 10 pages. I really liked the setting for having portrait mode locked and then it flips the text 180° when upside down.

Pocketbook looks also very good but I cannot find a shop where I could check it.

Now I watched some videos about Kindle Oasis, I don't use amazon shop for books so that's not something of any importance for me. Battery is suppose to be good for 6 weeks, so microUSB port is also not the worst thing in the world. I could maybe buy it for half of the price of Kobo or Pocketbook (second hand of course), it also flips 180° with mirrored buttons which is great. And I heard that one can somehow disable the touchscreen when reading there. When it comes to sideloading/downloading, I heard it is no longer possible via USB cable, is it true? 8GB memory is also not a problem, I'm quite a slow reader, I don't need to have hundreds of books there in the same time and in my eyes 8GB is a lot.

Right now I have Kindle Touch from 2012 that I will keep and use occasionally or will give it to someone - which sadly doesn't have any light (I'll keep my account there, and wifi is already turned off), so anything newer than this is gonna feel like an upgrade. Also there are two things I don't find important: what type of book store it has, and if one device will flip the page 0,05 seconds faster or slower.

Hi, I'm quite new here, I have a very old Kindle, now without support soon. I haven't used it much (I read maybe 5 books on it), yesterday I was at the beach reading, there was wind, so flies and sand were getting on my "display" quite often, but everytime I touched it to clean it, I naturally turned a page or a chapter. I find it very annoying.

I know that ages ago there were ereaders with buttons. Now everything is a touchscreen which doesn't always make sense (take new cars for example, it's making it worse than oldschool knobs and physical buttons). So I was thinking, do you know a device of any brand that would use for example volume buttons to turn the page? and single short touch/swipe would be not registered as anything on the device, and only longer touch would be for highlighting, or for dictionary?

It would help me a lot, I consider e-ink paper display as a "paper" so I want to grab my ereader as I would grab my book, from a random angle, on a display, I want to clear it, swipe, touch, without doing any action. Is there something for me or am I the only one seeing not real meaning in swiping and touching? also quite often I touched "next page" a little bit too vaguely and it was registered as a swipe up -> getting me to the end of an chapter. I find it very distracting and annoying.