Is the manufacturer still in business?

[PF4Mobile]

Hi guys

I see that their site looks like closed although WallMart is still selling these, or at least their site says so.

What is the situation with these devices, they seem to be really good but... why is the company out of business (it seems so)?

thanks
PF

[Filark]

Hi PF!

Your question is one that has been debated and discussed throughout this forum and the (archived above) old enTourage forum. They are out of business, although they still maintain the Home page and Knowledge Base page at www.entourageedge.com, and registration facilities.

Is Walmart really selling the eDGe, or do they show it as out of stock or discontinued?

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Filark

Hi PF!

Your question is one that has been debated and discussed throughout this forum and the (archived above) old enTourage forum. They are out of business, although they still maintain the Home page and Knowledge Base page at www.entourageedge.com, and registration facilities.

Is Walmart really selling the eDGe, or do they show it as out of stock or discontinued?

Hi Filark

I am in Canada, the US site was displaying this as for sale, I did not pay attention if it was in stock. No it is not.

The support site is up because after they sold a good number of these devices they have the obligation to maintain support... that goes for many bankrupt companies I beleive..

Should I still buy one of these? I am thinking about the 10' one

[Filark]

I got my EE (9.7" e-ink, 10.1" Android) for $249, which to my mind is a good bargain. If you want an up-to-the-minute Android tablet you can do better. If you want a large ereader with pdf annotation abilities connected to an Android tablet I doubt you can beat it. I really like having the 2 screens. My husband says it weighs too much for what he would use it for (ereading only).

Do you already have an ereader or anything Android? If you do the eDGe will be easier to learn.

How much will it bother you that the latest OS is technically a beta version?

If you've been reading the forums you know there are a lot of people who really like their eDGes, and some who didn't. There are people who have had or are having problems large and small with these machines. Buying now you take more of a risk than when the company was running strong, but there are worse risks you can take with your money.

It depends on what you want it for and how high your expectations are as to whether you'll be happy if you buy.

[PF4Mobile]

These are all questions that matter for me, I asked about them looking for Onyx M90
If I could buy it for the same price I would probably consider it too.
What is Android 2.2 (froyo) now will be Android 3.1 tomorrow: i.e OLD OS
I am thinking about paying 400$ for a Transformer, although that is not e-ink
I don't knowmuch about Onyx M90 and I do not have much time, I need to buy an ereader soon, for reading and reviewing PDFs...e ink is important but mostly the 10" and the ability to work quick, I need fluidity and compatibility on the desktop side (i.e to export comments and annotations)....

So here are my questions

Has anybody tested the Highlighter in PDF mode?
Can you export what you highlighted?
What is the procedure for doing that?
What is the format for the exported notes or text selections via the highlighter?
Has the slowness when browsing PDFs been confirmed? I am asking about that other users notice in the video mentioned above.
How is the Internet browsing with this device?
How about the wireless performance?
Is it easy to pick up signal from near by Access Points or you have to be in the very proximity of such an AP?
How do you load the ebooks on it?
Does Calibre see it you you simply put the "boox" on the SD card?
How mature is the firmware?
Does it use the same firmware like the smaller models? I know that there will be some common functions between the smaller ones and this model and I expect no problems with these common functions/fucntionality..
How is the handwriting, especially when you comment on PDFs?
Does the writing follow the stylus promptly?
Can you see the comments, the highlighting, the handwriting on the desktop after you export them?



thanks a lot, I know that I am asking for a lot of your time but I believe that this will benefit all the other readers of this thread.
PF

[Filark]

I don't do a lot with pdfs, so can't answer most of your questions. Here is a link to the User Guide and videos that should tell you what you want to know: http://entourageedge.com/support/

Calibre works fine with the eDGe. Books can be loaded through USB cable connection with a PC, wirelessly from email or Dropbox or over your LAN, or direct from the internet.

Compared to the Onyx Boox M9 series the eDGe is heavier (3 lbs) and does not have the Pearl e-ink screen.

Wireless performance is very good, IMHO. Internet browsing is also very good, although my big eDGe has the browser-crashing issue that some have. Annoying, but I keep getting back on that horse! If you stick with the earlier OS (Dingo, Android 1.6) you can probably avoid the browser crashes.

The writing works fine for me, but I don't know whether it would please you. It's too bad you can't try it somewhere.


P.S. You do know, I hope, that the eDGe does not have access to the Google Market (unless you root it, etc.), which makes finding all the apps you might want more challenging.

[lorenzoens]

Has anybody tested the Highlighter in PDF mode? Quite everyday
Can you export what you highlighted? Yes
What is the procedure for doing that? Save as PDF
What is the format for the exported notes or text selections via the highlighter? Didnt ever try to export notes separated from original text
Has the slowness when browsing PDFs been confirmed? I am asking about that other users notice in the video mentioned above. >No particular slowness, unless you're talking about a 250 pages book with almost every page annotated. Then you will experience some slowing down.
How is the Internet browsing with this device? Nice
How about the wireless performance? very nice
Is it easy to pick up signal from near by Access Points or you have to be in the very proximity of such an AP? very easy
How do you load the ebooks on it? SD card or USB drive
Does Calibre see it you you simply put the "boox" on the SD card? I dont like Calibre
How mature is the firmware? 2.2 is 97% ready for me, no issues but the green cam
Does it use the same firmware like the smaller models? I know that there will be some common functions between the smaller ones and this model and I expect no problems with these common functions/fucntionality.. Yes but it's not the same hardware and software
How is the handwriting, especially when you comment on PDFs? The best available out there until now*, use it everyday. I slows down a bit only when you have 4/5 annotations per page on a 250 page pdf
Does the writing follow the stylus promptly? Sure it does on 2.2
Can you see the comments, the highlighting, the handwriting on the desktop after you export them? In pdf yup

*I didnt ever try the new Boox M90

[PF4Mobile]

thanks a lot
My vote is now leaning toward Asus ea 800
I still need to clarify how you can export the annotations and the handwriting, it seems that it is not quite standard. I am going to open a new thread here on the forum after I search the archive tose eif anybody else asked/answered this question

The price seems to be prohibitive for this device and the lack of future is worrying me

thanks for the above answers

[sarah11918]

Originally Posted by PF4Mobile

thanks a lot
My vote is now leaning toward Asus ea 800
I still need to clarify how you can export the annotations and the handwriting, it seems that it is not quite standard.

I can see you've posted in the M90 thread, too. It seems more people there are concerned with reading, not writing functions, which is making me lean more towards the Eee Note EA 800 over the M90.

The EE is superior to the Asus EEE Note (from reading extensively about the EEE Note on tabletPCreview) in terms of how it handles pdfs. But, the EE is no longer supported, is big and a tad bulky (10" version, which is the only one I'd recommend if pdfs are your main concern).

The Journal software is very similar to the linux program Xournal (built off it, we suspect, though not immediately compatible with it). This software allows you to import a pdf as a static background and write on top of it. On the EE, this is done through the reader (not the journal) but the idea is the same.

One limitation of the EE's pdf reading, though, is that annotations are only visible at the zoom level at which they were created. (They can be exported as pdfs, annotations intact, but you can't just zoom in, scribble something, then zoom out again and see it right on the screen.) I don't do a lot of zooming so it's never really bothered me. But the Xournal program does support this feature, so it's kind of annoying when I compare it to my N810 where I can zoom in to fill out forms then zoom back out and make sure it all worked before exporting to pdf. Note that this limitation appears to exist on the Asus EEE note, too.

Another limitation is that while you can now read pdfs in landscape with the newest software upgrade, you can't annotate in this position. On the 10" EE, that's not a huge problem. On the smaller PE, it's unfortunate because the screen is pretty small for viewing pdfs as is.

One advantage to the EE over the Eee Note is the export to pdf function. It works very smoothly. The Eee Note (which I don't own, but will probably get this summer) exports as a graphic file. Although, there is apparently Evernote compatibility built in. (Not a way to access Evernote, but a "send to Evernote, one-way feature.) This may be good enough for some. The crew at TabletPCReview are already working on software to better improve the exporting (link is mentioned earlier in this thread somewhere) and I assume the functionality will get better thanks to the community.

The EE is not likely to gain much functionality, but what it has is pretty good re: pdfs. The EE is a superior pdf manipulator right now, and does the other basic functions of the EEE Note better (web, email, twitter) thanks to the tablet side. The EE can also make use of existing android apps, and there are lots to choose from. If you were only to buy one machine, and you were basing it on function alone, the EE is the clear winner.

But, the lack of future development, the bulk/weight (now that I have a Macbook Air, the EE is heavier than my laptop, making the decision to carry it around tough every time) and the lack of support (in addition to still mostly prohibitive prices, especially for an end-of-life device) may be reasons to choose the Asus instead.

But the EE is clearly the better device for working with pdfs.

[PF4Mobile]

Hi Sarah

Thanks for the reply. I looked at EE too but an obsolete OS, bigger weight, no future support and on top of that not many for sale on the market, all these together made me look somewhere else.

as for the PDF annotation ...I asked here if this is possible, I have no answer yet but I am thinking about trimming the PDF a little bit before working with it ...

Exporting to MS Word, resizing the margins and exporting back to PDF might do the trick :-)

[Qwill]

A nice trick I use is to format the pages of the text files I want to read on the PE to be 8.5 x 5.5 inches (half letter). When printed to pdf and sent to the PE, they are displayed with nice and big readable fonts.

[PF4Mobile]

Originally Posted by Qwill

A nice trick I use is to format the pages of the text files I want to read on the PE to be 8.5 x 5.5 inches (half letter). When printed to pdf and sent to the PE, they are displayed with nice and big readable fonts.

PE is 5-6" right?
that means the results can be even better on EE or any 8-9-10" ereder

thanks
PF