Augen has an eBook Reader called "The Book"

[rscudder]

Originally Posted by Marcy

It also might only be available in store, not online.

I'm quite interested in this for reading in bed without a light. I'm currently using my iPhone, but the screen is pitifully small and iBooks kind of sucks. A bigger backlit screen would be perfect for me.

-Marcy

Well, I can report it works for reading in bed You can turn the brightness way down and read comfortably. Lying in bed, the gravity detection of orientation was almost too sensitive, however. The joystick was extremely handy for navigation in the dark, as the keyboard is not backlit. Knowing the home button was the top button on the right side and would bring me to the top level memory was also useful.

it also has speakers (POOR) for music. However- and again I would be very receptive to help - when I started a song and then went to the Library to open a book, the music stopped! I know the iPad is a failure at multitasking- but being able to listen to background music while reading has been a feature of inexpensive eBook readers for a while. When Augen opens support up to direct contact during the week, I am going to be bugging them about a bunch of things

Rebecca

[rscudder]

Request for advice- I am posting on this thread partially because I could not figure out how to start a subforum thread under 'other eBooks' forum which was not an already specified ebook or a legacy device.

I'd like to post more on the reader as I lean things- where will be the appropriate place to do this? Shall I add new maqterial to this thread that is not an answer to a question?

Please advise me on the appropriate protocol.
Rebecca

[gintzj]

Originally Posted by rscudder

Well, I impulsively picked up Augen the Book - what a mouthful - at Kmart, for $100. Despite thoughts from others about it being the death of some of the smaller eBook readers, I do not think that will prove true. Compared to my Aluratek, it feels too big- but part of that is the reader is cozily embedded in a padded leather cover. It adds a lot of thickness, and I can't just pick it up and put it in my pocket, like the Aluratek will fit. On the other hand I think it could probably drop from chest high and bounce. I will hold about a normal page worth of text on the screen at once, and goes from portrait to landscape by gravity.

Some quick comments - it does have font choices if you are not looking at a PDF. It comes with Courier, DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Serif, hevetica, and Microsoft YaHei. It also can be set to simplified Chinese as the base language. After picking the font, you have 6 size choices. It shows you smaple text as you choose.

I have not been able to use it on the web- I can not figure out how to let it know what type of security my router is using, and it just keeps telling me it was not the correct passphrase for the security. I've been playing with it in a chair with it charging, so the battery life is still a real life unknown.

It has popup windows that come up sometimes- with the typical little x in the corner to close them- and I cannot figure out how to navigate to the x. Hitting menu does close the popup.

It has a joystick- not even a 1/4 inch high- which I do love. Pushing it acts as enter too.

It is a TFT screen - backlit- with a scrollbar to change the brightness. To read outside when I first got it, I turned the brightness down , and the matte screen did allow reading outside- although not as clearly as the Aluratek.

On the other hand - Augen's site takes you to a page with a picture on it - and that is the full content covering the eBook reader. A search does not give any information about doing anything on the reader- even downloading the manual. It seems like learning to use the Aluratek was much more intuitive for me - so I hope this site has people who pick one up and are better at figuring out some basics than I am.

I loaded books and music on it, and set up a similar file structure to what I had put on the Aluratek - and it doesn't seem to be able to look into lower files. I had to pull all the music out into a single huge list. On the SD card- same 32 GB as the Aluratek - I hope to have more success setting things up the way I find helpful.

It actually does show video- very darkly. And boy does that take up space. I watched part of a Dr. Who episode in .avi and then stopped and deleted the file. There seems to be no controls to affect the video except to start it and change volume- not even pause. I do not think I will use that feature much- but it might come in handy to show a movie to my backseat passengers during a car trip. Although, my netbook probably can hold its charge longer and look better. Video on a 7 inch screen, along with all the other list of features sounds great- but it is going to come down to how well those features really work.

Color sounds good - and seeing a few book covers was nice, but if it turns out I can not comfortably read outside, the trade off is not worth it.

It really does have an impressive list of formats it can read- txt, PDF, html, chm, rtf, fb2, epub, word, tcr, paml, doc, open e-book, open reader and mobi. It reads Adobe Digital DRM - although directions for that were on a yellow slip ticked into the manual.

And, rather nicely of Augen, it came with a mini CD with Calibre for the PC and Mac.

More to follow after I learn more.

Rebecca

hi: what came in the box and what is on the free books that came with it.

I have one on order with Heartland for an 8/7 ship date.

Thank you

Jim

[gintzj]

Originally Posted by rscudder

Lack of technical knowledge?

I had this idea it might function more like the Aluratek screen if it was not acting backlit. However, as I was also wearing sunglasses and suffering from an excess of 95 degree weather, I am not sure I could be considered in my right mind at the time
Rebecca

what came in the box and what is on the free list of books that came with it


Thank you

I have one coming from Heartland


Jim

[jblitereader]

I went to kmart this morning. All were gone. Got a rain check for it for 89.99. I think I'll give it a try.

[Big Shirley]

The closest K is 25 minutes from here and not being able to find any reviews except for the one is making me a little nervous. $90.00 is soso inexpensive. Could this be a real deal or is it an example of 'you get what you pay for'? What do you guys think?

It would be a gift - I have a Kindle 2

[jblitereader]

Originally Posted by Big Shirley

The closest K is 25 minutes from here and not being able to find any reviews except for the one is making me a little nervous. $90.00 is soso inexpensive. Could this be a real deal or is it an example of 'you get what you pay for'? What do you guys think?

It would be a gift - I have a Kindle 2

The kmart I was at had one on display for you to try. I played with it for like 10 minutes. I was quite impressed. Since I got the rain check, I will go back in a week to get it. I really do think I will give it a try.

[kilohertz53]

I bought the single available Augen "The Book" at my local K-Mart this morning. I haven't had enough time to thoroughly test it yet, but my first impressions are kind of mixed.

First, the "G-Sensor" that changes the page orientation of the current book is a bit too sensitive. Even a small tilt causes it to go from portrait to landscape.

The "Notes" function worked, and I was able to type and save a file to a 2Gb SD card. The user manual claims that it can take up to a 32Gb card.

Calibre recognized the Augen without difficulty, and I was able to transfer and read both Epub and .prc (mobi) files. I'll try some other formats later. (It claims to support txt, pdf, html, chm, rtf, fb2, epub, word, tcr, palm doc, open e-book, open reader, and mobi.)

The Augen comes pre-loaded with a bunch of Project Gutenburg public domain files in epub format.

I was able to authorize the Augen for Adobe Digital Editions, but a drm'ed epub from the public library did not display correctly because of those annoying embedded page numbers. There were unexpected jumps and the menu didn't seem to offer any way to correct it. I haven't tried drm'ed Adobe e-book format yet. (This shortcoming could be a dealbreaker for me.)

I was able to connect to my wireless network (wpa2) on the second try and use the Augen's (slow) built-in browser.

I haven't tried any music or video files yet. (According to the user manual it supports mp3 and wma music files and avi and mpeg-4 video. The screen resolution is 800 x 480 pixels.)

I'll post again after I've played with it a little more.

[mshiscool]

To add to Kilohertz53, Rebecca, and others,

I just purchased at KMart in Central Florida $89.00. It was the only one and was the display model, but bought it anyway, just to play with. I was told KMart's return policy is 90 days, with a receipt, so lots of time to see how it goes.

Other reviewers indicated they had issues with wifi, so started playing with it immediately, at the store, but could not connect Wifi to my Verizon Mifi (Kmart clerk was also interested to see if that would work). It recognized the network, but wouldn't connect. Then tried public network at Panera Bread also not successful. Was finally able to connect at Barnes and Noble public wifi. ??? go figure??

Browser was incredibly S-L-O-O-W... (worse than the Pandigital Novel, which was almost a record setter!). Didn't have a great deal of time, so tried to navigate to yahoo to check my mail. Size of screen prevented me from seeing full page and turning sidewise did not seem to work to change orientation, so had to use the joystick to navigate to the scroll bar on the bottom of the screen... and, like I said, so s-l-o-o-w, I finally had to give up and shut down, as I had other places to go.

When not online looked quickly at other features. Speakers not great, but I could hear the text to speech rendition of one of the pre-loaded ebooks pretty well. No music/pictures/video pre-loaded so will need to check that later.

Keyboard stiff to type on, joystick seemed very sensitive to me.

"Leather" case very nice, considering it is included.

This will not be a threat to the iPad, but for the price, it might have potential, once it is in the hands of many users who can figure out the kinks... Augen technical support and/or hackers who can get it up to speed.

[mshiscool]

To those that asked, what came with: Mine, in the box, included a wall charger, USB cable, user manual which included a CD containing calibre, and the unit itself which was in the leather case. I can't tell you all the books, but they are Project Gutenberg titles, the usual suspects.

[Big Shirley]

Slow browser sounds bad. As does the library book issue. I may still go and check it out. Pardon my serious lack of knowledge about this, but could you read manga on this? My son reads it on his zune hd. Thank you all for the great info!

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by rscudder

I live in Schenectady, NY. It had come in, according to the clerk there, the day before- I was their first buyer. However, if what is noted above is correct about a sale today (Sunday as first day of sale) I wonder if they'd give me a partial refund!

I think it is worth getting as an experiment at this price- but I surely hope there will be some more info available soon, and some possible firmware updates!
Rebecca

Thanks Rebecca! I'm going to run off to Kmart now.

My college roommate was from Clifton Park. My brother went to SUNY-Albany.

-Marcy

[jblitereader]

Here is about a 10 minute vid review of this device.

[Highroller]

Yeah the browser is slow but it works. Connected to my router and remembered the passcode. I find it quite usable as an ereader. Nice selection of fonts and sizes. The reorientation is a little touchy but I have little problem with it. Its not perfect but is a LOT better than the openbook (lol). Being able to set my margins and line spacing is nice. The horrible line spacing on the jbl has been driving me crazy. Would be a plus if it recognized cbr format for comics but thats a possible change that could be done with firmware I expect. Its the first reader I have seen that uses a whole line and then injects a - to continue a word on next line. You change to landscape and it changes the dashes to the new line length. Plays music without headphones but not that well but its kinda nice to play music as background while I read.

[jdr37]

I am an absolute newby to ereaders, but think , from all I have seen and read, both good and bad, that Augen's The Reader will do what I want at a very good price. I do have one question: can the battery be changed by the user??
Thanks,
jdr37