Another Dual-screen Android e-Book reader: eDGe
It seems the race is on to produce e-book readers based on the Android platform that have two screens. The enTourage eDGe has a novel book form with a 9.7-inch e-Ink screen on the left (Wacom PenEnabled) for reading e-books and a 10.1-inch color LCD touchscreen on the right. The eDGe has a special hinge in the “spine” of the book that allows the reader to be used laying flat, held like a book or even standing free. It can even be configured as a laptop.
The enTourage folks aren’t skirting around the desire users have for using such a reader for web work, and as such have chosen Android. They are touting the ability of the eDGe to surf the web, work with email, play MP3s and even check Facebook. Connectivity is done over Wi-Fi or optional EVDO/HSPA 3G. That big, color touchscreen with resistive digitizer would be nice for web work, but is likely hard on battery life. The eDGe looks a lot like that mythical Courier device on which Microsoft is reportedly working.
The eDGe will ship in February 2010, but you can pre-order one now. If you can get past that $490 price tag, that is.
I have asked them if they have any plan for non US countries and they politely answered
“When we decided to announce the product, we only considered it for the US, but the response from oversees has been fantastic. Our restriction is based on the availability of book supply agreements that allow us to sell books outside the US, not in the device. That being said, we would be interested in finding partners in Italy that can help us with 3G access, distribution and localization (i.e. Italian)where necessary.”
And now I’m pretty sad about that, because I love the concept. Anyway, I’m more interested in the endless notebook-mid-media player-google apps features than in ebooks.
Ok, I’m totally putting aside $1K for my next laptop/portable ereader device thing. Whatever it is, it better hold all my music, have some method of adding a keyboard, and it better be in my budget.
Reading ebooks on my iPod Touch is nice, but I do wish for a slightly larger screen.
This is the most compelling mid-range device I’ve seen lately. I had been “waiting for Apple” to announce theirs, but now Apple will have to really wow me to distract me from this one.
The only thing that could have made this one better is probably if either the e-ink screen is finger friendly (so you can configure it to be a keyboard) or if they had used pixelqi hybrid LCD/E-ink displays for both screens (and both were stylus+finger friendly).
I also want to know if the hinge supports folding a full 360 degrees (so that the two segments are back to back).
Anyway … I have my hopes up for this one. The Nook and the Alex are too small, and don’t give me hope that I can use them as general purpose tablets. This one, though, looks like it might be the best of all worlds (for a mid-range device).
The picture gallery on their website (which has been intermittently down over the past couple of days, I’ve noticed) shows the device folding all the way back, so you can use it as a one-handed (although a little thick) tablet. I agree, finger-friendly e-ink for keyboarding would have been awesome; as it is, the stylus is still a long step up on the other annotating interfaces I’ve seen for current readers.
It must have been down when I looked before. I see that one now.
Perfect. Now if only they’d tell me it has VGA or DVI-I out, so I can hook it up to my KVM (like I do with my existing netbook).
Wow, this is the most interesting one I’ve seen so far…but at the same time those bezels are huge, and it seems really thick.
It’s a little over twice as thick as a Kindle DX, which seems reasonable to me given that it’s got two screens. The huge bezel is less attractive, but provides an easier grip if you’re using it in the tablet configuration – and it’s got hardware buttons for both screens, so the space isn’t completely wasted.
It doesn’t look like it will work in landscape mode based on the online demos. I don’t know how comfortable it would be to type on the LCD and look at the e-ink screen for output.
The gallery shows the LCD in landscape mode (there’s a nice shot where the e-ink is face down on the “table”, and the LCD is angled up like a monitor). So at least that one will work that way.
But, I don’t know if you can do the e-ink in landscape (like you can with a kindle dx). That’d be a shame if you can’t.
I would want the e-ink in landscape for at least the note-taking feature, so that I could watch a video in landscape and write notes at the same time. I’m not so sure I’d read books in landscape, although other people might have a use for that. I’ve also been wondering if you can rotate through all four orientations, in case you find it more convenient to have the e-ink on the right.
I’ve wondered about full 360 degree rotation as well. I know that my G1 only supports 2 angles (buttons down, buttons at the right … not buttons at the top, nor buttons on the left).
Current info page says that the device supports 90 and 180 degree rotation. So you can’t use the touchscreen as a keyboard with the e-ink in landscape, but you can have a netbook left/e-ink right configuration, which I think I might prefer. And they have a no-charge option for black now. =) I’m definitely getting one of these!
This will be interesting to watch… I’d like to hear a review in real life before handing over my $500
I’ve been told I’ll have one by the end of the year.
I REALLY look forward to reading your hands-on review.
Surprisingly enough, the current orientation would be easier to use for left handed folks like me, inking on the left screen and watching content on the right one. Looking at the HW buttons positioning that could be easily switched, given a multiple screen orientation option.
Landscape inking would be just great, since on my tablet pc I use to take notes while watching lectures.
I can’t wait till it’s in your hands, James. I hope you’ll review it considering different points of view, e.g. a student, or a healthcare professional – who I happen to be both
.
we’re getting closer and closer to the dream. well, the small dream. we’re still far away from THE dream, whatever that is.
The other issue is I wonder if you’ll be able to use the pen for annotation in all formats or only in one format. From what I understand, the Iliad readers only allow inking on top of PDF, and not any other formats.
Very interesting. If the interface/GUI is similar to the mockup of the Courier, this could be very cool. I’m not too sure about wanting to fold it 360deg — I’d hate to run the risk of scratching either screen on the bottom. The price looks pretty darned reasonable, especially when you take into account the two different screens — that’s a lot of usable & useful screen real estate.
Ok, it would help if I actually tried the demo before I commented!
Anyway … very, VERY interesting. However, some of the things I liked about the mockup of the Courier was how you could grab images, notate them, call up addresses & maps, handle contacts, etc. I wonder if this will device will allow for future software updates to incorporate new features — it’ll depend on how its OS is stored, I’m sure. Still something I’m seriously interested in!
As it runs on the Android operating system (I have a HTC magic phone with the OS on it) which now has several hundred free applications for download on the android marketplace and just as many paid applications, I’m sure that we soon enough will see custom made applications for this nifty device, who knows, you might even get skype to run on it, so you can use it as a video phone over the 3G network
I would however love to know if you can turn of the LCD display when reading books – that would save a huge amount of energy if you plan to use it primarily as a book reader with the ability to surf occasionally.
Looking forward to your review James.
According to the current info page, you can increase battery life to around 16 hrs by using just the e-ink screen, or get up to 6 hours with the LCD.