Icarus 8

Breaking away from the standard 6-inch format, the Icarus8 impresses with its large screen size and excellent contrast.

At a Glance

The Icarus 8 is one of the few eBook readers on the market that offers a large screen area—going beyond the standard 6-inch format. While its pixel density of 160 ppi is lower than that of current 6-inch book readers, the contrast ratio of 12:1 is fully convincing.

The Icarus 8 is operated exclusively via hardware buttons, as the device does not have a touchscreen.

The software features are primarily focused on pure reading, meaning you’ll have to do without advanced functions like note-taking or dictionaries. In return, the operation is kept relatively simple and, after a short adjustment period, should be easy for even non-tech-savvy users to handle.

There’s also an audio function that allows you to listen to audiobooks or music (even while reading) through headphones or speakers. WLAN lets you access the internet and buy eBooks directly on the device. However, due to the lack of a touchscreen, this is rather fiddly, so it’s generally easier to load eBooks onto the device from your PC.

As a special bonus for tinkerers and modders, it’s worth mentioning that you can install Android apps.

All in all, the Icarus 8 is a great choice for anyone who wants a larger screen format and just wants to read—without notes, dictionaries, etc.

Icarus 8: Full Review

It took a little longer than originally planned, but the 8-inch eBook reader from Icarus is finally available. The device is called the Icarus 8 and, with its unusual screen size, it breaks out of the usual 6-inch e-reader rut.

On top of that, the Icarus 8 offers audio and Wi‑Fi, giving it a bit more to work with than the TrekStor Pyrus Maxi, which is made by the same manufacturer. The display technology comes from OED, known here primarily from TrekStor devices. That’s fine, because in the past this tech surprised with contrast similar to E Ink Pearl.

Whether the Icarus 8 can impress as well and what you can expect from the Dutch company’s new 8-inch eBook reader, you’ll find out in the following review.

Unboxing

You can tell from the packaging alone that this isn’t your typical 6-inch eBook reader. The box is noticeably larger due to the device’s form factor. Open it up and you’re greeted by the unusual reader and its large e‑paper display. The device’s unfamiliar proportions immediately catch the eye and make for a welcome change from the usual 6-inch readers.

Two eBook readers in completely different formats; Sony PRS‑T3 (left) vs. Icarus 8 (right)

The box contents are unsurprisingly simple: besides the Icarus 8, you only get a micro‑USB cable and a quick‑start guide—exactly what you’d expect from other eBook readers as well.

Build quality

As mentioned, the Icarus 8 makes an impression even before you turn it on, thanks to its unusual proportions. eBook readers outside the 6-inch class that are still on sale can be counted on one hand, so your first time handling the Icarus 8 feels a bit special.

The device uses a soft‑touch finish that feels pleasant in the hand, though—as with the eBook Reader 4Ink or TrekStor Pyrus—it’s a bit more susceptible to greasy fingerprints. Tactilely there’s nothing to complain about, and in terms of minimizing reflections there’s hardly anything better than this deep black surface material. Even in bright light, the housing doesn’t reflect at all.

On the front you’ll find eight buttons and a 5‑way navigation pad. Four of the eight are page‑turn keys on either side of the screen, making the device equally comfortable for right‑ and left‑handed use.

Well-placed buttons with crisp actuation

Below the display sit the Home, Menu, Back, and Keyboard/Search keys, along with the navigation pad including an OK button. The button layout is reminiscent of other devices without touchscreens, such as the Amazon Kindle NT or the TrekStor Pyrus. All buttons have a very good, crisp click, so operation poses no problems whatsoever. Quite the contrary: the page‑turn keys in particular are a pleasant change from other devices. They’re not flush with the edge but set slightly inward, which makes handling very easy and comfortable. If you happen to hold the device in a way that makes the page keys hard to reach, you can also use the navigation pad to turn pages.

The sides of the Icarus 8, as well as the top edge, are free of buttons or ports. On the bottom edge you’ll find the slide switch to turn the eBook reader on and off, plus the microSD card slot, micro‑USB port, and 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The Icarus 8 weighs 300 grams, which is perfectly reasonable given the 8‑inch screen. It sits well in the hand without feeling heavy (relative to its screen size). The dimensions are 212 x 152 x 9.5 mm. The bezels are large enough to handle the Icarus 8 comfortably. Despite its slim profile, it feels robust in daily use. The build quality is impeccable—nothing creaks, squeaks, or wobbles.

Like all Icarus eBook readers: the Icarus 8 is impeccably built as well

Features

The 8‑inch eBook reader comes with what is now an upper‑midrange standard 4 GB of internal storage, of which 2.56 GB are available to the user. As mentioned, you can also expand the storage with a microSD card by up to 32 GB, so you’re unlikely to face storage constraints any time soon.

Also mentioned is the 3.5 mm jack, which lets you use the Icarus 8’s audio feature via headphones or speakers. Wi‑Fi is available for wireless connectivity. The Icarus 8 does not have a touchscreen.

It runs Android as its operating system, and app sideloading is possible. More details on this can be found in the “Reading & ease of use” section.

Display

The display has a resolution of 1,024 x 768 pixels and, at 160 ppi, offers a pixel density similar to 6‑inch devices with 800 x 600 pixels (167 ppi).

The screen uses OED ePaper. It’s made by Guangzhou OED Technologies Co., Ltd in China and is also found in most TrekStor devices. Back in the test of the TrekStor Pyrus/eBook Reader 4Ink, OED’s tech surprised with good contrast.

Good readability thanks to excellent contrast

While we didn’t measure contrast on the TrekStor back then and relied only on our subjective impression, today is a different story. The Icarus 8 goes under the microscope—and with a contrast ratio of 12:1 it’s definitely convincing.

• Sony PRS-T2 13:1
• Kindle Paperwhite 2 12:1
• PocketBook Touch Lux 12:1
• Sony PRS-T3 12:1
• Icarus 8 12:1
• Tolino Shine 11:1
• Kobo Aura 10.5:1
• Kobo Glo 10:1

This puts the Icarus 8 in the ever‑growing list of eBook readers with this contrast ratio. Note, however, that despite identical ratios the actual rendering can look quite different. For example, the Icarus 8’s background is slightly brighter than the Sony PRS‑T3’s. The same applies to the black level, so despite visibly different screens the end result is the same measured contrast.

Under the microscope: Sony PRS‑T3 (left) vs. Icarus 8 (right)

It’s also noticeable that the OED display in the Icarus 8 is grainier than comparable E Ink screens. To the naked eye, though, you can’t see the difference.

What you can see is ghosting if you don’t perform a full page refresh on every page. Set the refresh to “every 5 pages” and ghosting becomes so pronounced that even people who aren’t sensitive to it will notice. This is down to OED’s display tech and has so far appeared on all eBook readers that use it.

In my view, ghosting remains just about acceptable if you refresh every second page. But even here the effect is stronger than on current E Ink Pearl devices. The best, completely ghosting‑free result comes with a full refresh on every page turn.

All in all, the Icarus 8’s screen convinces with its bright background and good contrast, but it also reveals the (already known) weaknesses of OED’s display tech when it comes to ghosting. Fortunately, you can eliminate the problem entirely by enabling full page refresh.

Reading & ease of use

Initial setup of the Icarus 8 is quick and straightforward. There’s no registration and no additional software required. Power it on for the first time and you land directly on the home screen—in English. A few clicks later you can switch it to German.

TrekStor users will find the home screen and the rest of the system immediately familiar. That’s because the Icarus 8 is made by the same manufacturer as the TrekStor devices and thus uses the same interface. The system is controlled exclusively with the buttons described above—the Icarus 8 has no touchscreen. The Home button always takes you back to the home screen and the Menu button opens the options menu on the left edge of the screen. The Back button confirms a selection or moves back up one level, and the Keyboard button opens search or brings up the keyboard.

Home screen

The home screen is functional and free of surprises. It’s divided into five tiles of varying sizes. The top two show the last book you read, plus date, time, battery, and Wi‑Fi status. Below that you see another previously opened book and the two most recently added eBooks.

It’s worth noting the partly subpar localization. In a few places (two or three) there are small errors that don’t hinder operation but are a bit unsightly. In the image above, for example, you can see that instead of “Weiterlesen” the incorrect “Weiter lessen” appears in the first tile.

Along the bottom is the main menu, which consists of:

• Library
• Bookmarks
• Music
• Images
• Extras
• Settings

Library

The Library shows all eBooks on the device and memory card in a list view or, optionally, a cover view. You can sort by Title, Author, Recently Read, and Newly Added. There are no collections or shelves in this view.

If you want to manage lots of eBooks on the device, you can also use the built‑in file explorer. It lets you access all folders and files on the device so you can keep things organized. However, it doesn’t offer the sorting or filtering options of the Library. Instead, all files are ordered alphabetically.

Library in list view

You can search in both cases. A keyboard appears at the bottom of the screen, with letters arranged alphabetically, i.e., in ABC order, not in a QWERTZ layout.

Once you’ve found the book you’re looking for, open it with the 5‑way pad.

Book options

When a book is open, you can turn pages forward and back with the four page keys alongside the screen, or with the navigation pad below it. Page turns are slightly slower than on current E Ink Pearl devices, but still fast enough not to be annoying.

A status bar at the top shows the book title, page number, time, and battery level, as well as a bookmark indicator. The bar cannot be hidden.

Options menu

In the reading menu you can perform various actions:

• Add bookmark
• Bookmarks (open)
• Table of contents
• Go to page
• Search
• Font size
• Margins
• Rotate screen
• Automatic page‑turn
• Page refresh
• Add to favorites
• Mark as read
• Book information

The typography options are the same as on TrekStor and thus differ from other Icarus eBook readers (Pocket, Illumina HD). On the Icarus 8 you can set font size in six steps, with the smallest roughly matching a paperback. That turns out to be a sensible minimum, because otherwise the resolution would push the display to its limits and readability would suffer from a fuzzy typeface. The increments are evenly spaced, giving you a good spread from smallest to largest.

Even so, larger font options would be welcome, because for people with impaired vision even the largest setting might still be a bit small. The Icarus 8 isn’t alone here; in recent years the maximum font settings have shrunk with almost every manufacturer.

Margins can be set in three steps. There are no other options for adjusting typography.

Font size adjustment

On the other hand, you do get an automatic page‑turn option. Here you can trigger a page turn every 30 to 150 seconds in 30‑second increments. It works reliably.

You can open search either via the menu or by pressing the Keyboard key below the display. Enter the word using the virtual ABC keyboard and the navigation pad. As on most other devices, search jumps from one hit to the next.

Unfortunately, there’s no dictionary or notes feature. The lack of notes is bearable since text entry with the navigation pad is cumbersome anyway. A dictionary, however, would be quite usable even without a touchscreen.

PDF display

The Icarus 8’s PDF rendering can be genuinely useful in some scenarios—thanks mainly to the large screen. There are six zoom levels to enlarge the page. With multi‑column text this works surprisingly well. Once you’ve chosen the right zoom level, you move the viewport with the navigation pad. Each press nudges it in small steps, or with a long press it pans to the edge of the page. In this zoomed view, page turns are done exclusively with the page keys, so you don’t accidentally land on the next page when you only wanted to pan.

Frequent panning can make the ghosting effect distracting, but pressing the Menu button twice fortunately forces a full refresh, which clears it quickly and easily.

The PDF view is quite practical—shown here with a two‑column document

You can also switch to landscape mode for a better overview, though this view mainly serves orientation. Annoyingly, on portrait‑oriented A4 documents the maximum zoom level in landscape is smaller. In the end, readability isn’t quite as good as in portrait.

Beyond that there’s a usable text reflow function that works quickly and reliably. With reflow enabled you can set margins just as you would with ePub files. What’s impractical is that font size in reflow is often far too small. You usually need to switch to the largest setting, which then only corresponds to the smallest size in an ePub book. That should be improved, because otherwise the feature is quite practical.

Music

As one of the few devices on the market, the Icarus 8 also includes a music player. It’s accessible from the main menu and can keep playing in the background while you read. Audio output is via headphones or speakers connected to the 3.5 mm jack.

Less conveniently, outside the music player there’s no indication anywhere that the device is playing music (if you don’t have headphones or speakers connected). That also means you always have to switch from the home screen to the player to control playback.

Fortunately, that’s the only real drawback, because otherwise the music player is perfectly serviceable. Sound quality is surprisingly good and loud enough. You can adjust volume in 15 steps with the navigation pad, and you can also skip between tracks. Once you copy music to the Icarus 8’s storage, it’s found automatically and is available immediately.

You can sort tracks by album, artist, genre, and playlists, and you can create playlists directly on the device. That’s especially handy for audiobooks if you don’t want them mixed in with your other music. All in all, the music player works well and clearly adds to the feature set.

Browser and Android app sideloading

Thanks to the Android operating system, the Icarus 8 also has a usable web browser. It works like on other Android E Ink devices, with the difference that here by necessity you operate it via the hardware buttons. Usability does suffer a bit as a result, but overall the browser still works quite well. Especially if you use bookmarks to jump from one site to the next, you save yourself some fiddly typing.

Good browser, thanks to Android

Another plus is the app sideloading function. The Icarus 8 runs, as mentioned, on Android. It’s relatively open here and allows you to copy applications to the device’s storage and then install them with the file explorer.

App sideloading as a bonus, not a core feature; shown here: Big Launcher

This isn’t a heavily promoted feature and should therefore be seen as a nice extra, not a core function. The reason is quickly apparent: due to the lack of a touchscreen, many applications don’t work properly. Some Android apps require a touchscreen to start at all. Others do launch without a touchscreen, but then can’t be operated with the hardware buttons (e.g., Cool Reader). So tinkerers will have to try out what works and what doesn’t.

Compatibility

One advantage of the Icarus 8 is its broad format compatibility. It supports essentially all common eBook formats, as well as image and audio formats: TXT, PDF, EPUB, PDF, FB2, HTML, RTF, MOBI, DJVU, CHM, IRC, MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, OGG, FLAC, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG.

Battery life

There’s nothing to complain about when it comes to the Icarus 8’s battery life. OED ePaper tech apparently offers similarly low power consumption to E Ink’s. Over the two‑week test period the Icarus 8 didn’t need charging once, despite extensive testing with app sideloading, web browsing, and music playback.

However, it should still be noted that heavy use of audio or the browser can significantly shorten battery life. If you’re only reading, you’ll easily get several weeks on a charge.

Buying eBooks

As mentioned, the Icarus 8 has Wi‑Fi and a built‑in browser. So it’s only natural to integrate an eBook store—and that’s been done. However, convenience leaves something to be desired due to the lack of a touchscreen and the lack of optimization.

The store comes from eBook.de, which does offer a wide selection of eBooks, but its operation has a clear shortcoming: the currently selected element isn’t visually highlighted. In other words, when you navigate the store with the d‑pad, you don’t actually know which element is selected. Only when you open another store (e.g., from Thalia) in the browser can you reasonably shop directly on the device.

Unfortunately, the linked eBook.de store is not particularly well optimized for navigation

In general, it’s best to buy eBooks on your PC and then copy them to the Icarus 8 via USB. Text entry on the device is simply too fiddly, which can make it quite tedious to enter a username and password and then search for the desired title. That’s not Icarus’s fault, but a general problem with eBook readers without touchscreens. Only the Amazon Kindle NT is halfway convincing here, which is solely thanks to its excellent integration into Amazon’s ecosystem.

The Icarus 8 is recognized by Adobe Digital Editions without issue, so you can manage books that way. If desired, you can also complete Adobe DRM authorization directly on the device. Calibre (1.7.0), on the other hand, does not (yet) recognize the Icarus 8.

Conclusion

The Icarus 8’s unique selling point impresses in our test: the device’s 8‑inch screen offers readability, thanks to very good contrast, that is hardly inferior to E Ink Pearl readers. Only with the relatively strong ghosting does the Icarus 8 fall behind. That was to be expected given the OED technology and is not a surprise. Fortunately, enabling full page refresh eliminates the issue completely.

In terms of functionality, however, you have to accept some compromises, because the Icarus 8 is made first and foremost for reading and offers few additional features. Notes, dictionaries, or extensive library management are missing, as are advanced typography options. Especially in the latter point, the 8‑inch reader differs from other Icarus devices, which usually offer significantly more customization.

The 8‑inch display convinces

At least the browser, the music function, and the ability to install Android apps make up a little for the otherwise sparse software feature set. The hardware also delights with excellent build quality and practical page‑turn buttons.

All told, the Icarus 8 earns a good 2.3 rating and is primarily a practical device for pure reading, standing apart from the 6‑inch monotony.

Icarus 8: Technical Specifications

All information provided without guarantee.