My Entourage Edge Review

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by pricecw

Hopefully it will be solved soon, but I am feeling good about the response I am getting.

--Carl

Good to hear that they're making an effort to help. I hope they can get it sorted speedily without too much inconvenience to you.

Good support seems to be quite an important issue now. I've been assembling my own computers for many years now, so moving into the world of sealed iMacs, iTouches, and e-readers feels a bit odd. I'm used to being able to pull things apart and troubleshoot/fix/replace to a much greater degree. Fortunately, I've had a reasonable run so far, but it certainly makes me wary of buying anything online unless there's a well established local support and service network.

I was tempted recently by another reader that seems popular at this site, but when I looked into it, their so-called Australian website was just a portal directing traffic to the US and they had no real presence here at all. They also had a 'bid your own price', ask for a discount, system on the site that they wouldn't honour when I got in touch to find out why it hadn't responded at all to a bid that was close to the listed price. They told me they had no discounts available at all, and that the bid mechanism must be a "bug"! Yeah, right.... No sale to me there.

It sounds like you're at least getting some genuine assistance. It would be good to know how far they go and how well they fix it. Good luck with it.

Cheers,

Chris

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by Dellaster

I, too, considered the eDGe an oddity, suitable for (perhaps) only a specialized audience like academics. Then something clicked and I saw how it would work for me.

That "something clicked" factor always seems to be hard to define, yet it's so important when buying many things. I probably couldn't give a convincing technical explanation for half the things I own, other than "I just fell for it when I saw it" and then came up with the excuses later...

It certainly does look rather intriguing, and now that I know a little more about it.... I shall have to make sure I avoid retail outlets that stock them!!....

[pricecw]

Another update, entourage is still working on the issue I am seeing, but they haven't seen this before, and can't re-produce it. They asked if I would be willing to RMA the unit so they can see and hopefully fix this problem.

So, the shipping box showed today, and I am boxing up my unit and sending it off. So far, the support staff gets a thumbs up. They are doing very well with this, and although I will miss my eDGe for the time (has become a daily carry item), I also understand debugging this corner cases (kind of wish I wasn't that case though ).

Anyway, I will try and keep things updated as they go, but so far, issue is outstanding, but the staff at entourage are doing a great job.

--Carl

[whitepaper]

I have some questions:
1. Can the e-ink screen show any content that is showing on LCD? That means is the e-ink is a mirror to LCD? I see the article says the e-ink can only be used for e-book reading.
2. Can I install new software?

Thanks.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by whitepaper

I have some questions:
1. Can the e-ink screen show any content that is showing on LCD? That means is the e-ink is a mirror to LCD? I see the article says the e-ink can only be used for e-book reading.
2. Can I install new software?

Thanks.

1. The E-ink screen can only display ebooks and the Journal

2. I answered it over here:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...-for-the-edge/

[whitepaper]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

1. The E-ink screen can only display ebooks and the Journal

2. I answered it over here:
http://www.the-digital-reader.com/20...-for-the-edge/

Thank you very much.

This make me feel a little disappointed, so it means even user can install a new reading app, he still have to use LCD showing content? In my imagination, it's a computer, but it has an e-ink screen, so that user can install his favorite app rather to wait firmware update from vendor, and user can choose to use lcd or e-ink doing long time reading. Otherwise I don't know why people need to choose a simply combination of original e-ink and lcd computer while both working in their original limited way.

[Dellaster]

These videos from enTourage explain and demonstrate most of the features unique to the eDGe. They're very well done.

[Nate the great]

I posted the last 2 sections of the review yesterday.

pt 2
pt 3

[Gunnerp245]

Originally Posted by whitepaper

This make me feel a little disappointed,

The developer SDK has not yet been released. When it is most anything is possible.

Might also ask on the eDGe's forum; http://www.entourageedge.com/forums/content.php

Gunner...

[pricecw]

OK, should be the final update. Got my eDGe back from enTourage, and they got the problem solved. They did this very quickly, I shipped it to them Fri, had it back Tues.

From communication with them, they found an issue they didn't know, and have a solution for it. I think this is a corner case, but it sounds like they have plans to check for this in future releases, and keep it from happening to others, so over all, a very good ending.

The good news is, I have my eDGe back, and can go on using it as I have grown accustomed to!!

--Carl

[Gunnerp245]

Originally Posted by pricecw

they found an issue they didn't know, and have a solution for it. --Carl

Did they give an explanation?

[pricecw]

Yep, it was a file system issue. They fixed this and had it back to me very fast. I am very happy with the support I received. From the e-mail I got from entourage support:

We received your enTourage eDGe on April 23 and were able to take a look at it immediately. My engineer was able to tell me there was a file system issue with setting a read write flag properly. He was able to correct for it in this case and in the future we will be including a file system check when the eDGe starts up that will resolve this issue.

We were able to ship the unit out on the same day and I expect it to reach you sometime today.

Thank you,
Tech Support

--Carl

[Dellaster]

Originally Posted by pricecw

We received your enTourage eDGe on April 23 and were able to take a look at it immediately. My engineer was able to tell me there was a file system issue with setting a read write flag properly. He was able to correct for it in this case and in the future we will be including a file system check when the eDGe starts up that will resolve this issue.l

Ah, so that's why the file system check on boot-up was included in last weekend's patch. Sorry you had to go through all this trouble, pricecw, and thank you for doing it. Because of you there's one less potential bug waiting to bite someone else.

[Gunnerp245]

Originally Posted by pricecw

Yep, it was a file system issue. They fixed this and had it back to me very fast. I am very happy with the support I received. From the e-mail I got from entourage support--Carl

Excellent.

[pricecw]

I didn't notice the update. Guess I should check a little more often

Yeah, I always think the thing that makes a good company is how they treat users when things go a little wrong, enTourage did a good job here.

--Carl