Quote:
Originally Posted by mark.r
Having done a lot of messing with the PE for the last two weeks I have found several flaws that probably contributed to the early demise of the PE and probably the biggun, too.
1) lack of app support- though the apps in the entourage store were OK, they weren't what people were used to on their Android phones. Lack of access to the Google apps market was a big problem. I suspect the reason that Google didn't let Entourage get in there (assuming it was Google's decision) was because many apps would not have worked due to the differences in the Entourage hardware. Nonworking apps might be blamed on the apps, not the hardware, so to prevent such confusion, don't let the "offending" hardware access the app market. I have found a few ways to get around this limitation, but it requires far more messing around than most people are willing to do. I am a geek and I am not sure I want to mess around that much considering the alternatives that are available.
2) OS not fully developed- Android 1.6 was too far behind and Android 2.2 beta still has too many kinks. My device frequently thinks it is connected to USB even after disconnecting it. It won't hibernate unless I use the power switch to force it. These little annoyances add up to a less than stellar user experience.
3) The documentation is really weak. The user guide tells you how to connect to a computer via USB but not what to do after you have connected. It looks like the Library app allows you to add to the device's library, but there is no apparent way to remove stuff from the library if you don't want it on the device any longer. There is nothing in the user guide (that I have been able to find) that tells you where to put files that you will want added to the library or how to remove them from the library once you have. Playing with the library app doesn't yield any clues either- removing items from the library seems to have been forgotten in the programming.
4) The response to pen input on the e-ink screen is just a little too slow. It captures all hand written/drawn stuff just fine, but the display responds too slowly- It gives you the impression that the thing is running a old, memory starved processor even though the Android side is very snappy. The ruler and shape recognition modes are fantastic, but just a little too slow to be useful. The annotation features are useful for the education crowd but for everyone else, not so much.
5) The mechanical design is great but the device is just a little too thick and heavy. It looks nice and has a tremendous amount of functionality but once you pick it up it feels like you're lugging a laptop.
These are the main issues I have found. There are a ton of things that make it a great device, but unfortunately you really have to be a geek to get the most out of this thing.
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1) Lack of Apps? There are many excellent Apps that work with the PE (
http://www.entourageedge.com/forums/...et-Edge-Owners) and plenty of off market sites (Amazon, SlideMe, Handango, Freeware Lovers just to name a few).
2) While I agree that 1.6 is antiquated, the 2.2 beta on the PE is HIGHLY polished. I own a PE and my son owns one and we have not experienced hibernation problems and never heard of the USB problem you describe until mentioned on this thread. If there is one thing Entourage could have added to the beta it should be Flash support. Plus, the ability to store Apps on the SD Card would be a huge plus. On the e-ink side the ability to view documents in landscape is good but incomplete. One of my biggest complaints with this is that when you scroll to the bottom of a page and then turn the page you are at the bottom of the next page and have to manually go back to the top. This is a little annoying. Better zooming on PDFs would also be a nice feature. Right now some PDFs are just unreadable on the e-ink unless you are Superman. Other than that, the 2.2 beta on the PE is almost ready for prime time.
3) In my opinion there is plenty of information on page 48 of the User Guide that tells you exactly how to connect the PE to a computer. Page 49 (Deleting Content from your Library) of the User Guide tells you how to delete a file from the library.
4) I agree that the the e-ink journal is a tad slow but not so bad that it is unusable. I think this is in part due to the stock stylus. When using a full sized stylus like the Motion Computing LE1600 the Journal App is actually pretty impressive. A bigger complaint would be the screen size. It's too small for the average person. For people my son, who write small, it's not a problem. I can actually write on it quite well but I get less characters per page because my handwriting is big.
5) I think the size is OK but you are right, it is nothing to brag about. That's the price you pay for two screens.
You are dead on when you say that the Edge is not geared towards the casual user. It takes some time and work to get the most out of it. Unfortunately, this does not appeal to the casual user who want things to work as advertised when they buy the. Who can blame them? I think a bigger problem is the way Entourage marketed (or didn't market) the Edge. Two months ago I never heard of the Edge. I stumbled upon it on Amazon. Plus the competition is fierce: iPad, Kindle, Nook etc. While these can't quite match what the Edge does, each does what it does and does it well. In other words, maybe Entourage should have concentrated on a single device (an e-reader with all the capabilities it has now plus Internet access, 3G etc. and skipped the tablet).