[pricecw]

Hi,

I use my eDGe for most of what you are describing, so hopefully this will help. Number one, I don't use my eDGe for most fiction. I have read recreational books on it, but it was too big for my exercise bike book/magazine holder, and I picked up a Sony PRS-300 for that. As a paperback replacement, I love the Sony, could stand the eDGe but not ideal for that.

There are a couple of things I would change on the eDGe if I had design influence (for example, I find the camera to be worthless as implemented). However, saying that, I would buy it again in a heartbeat. Now, let's see if I can answer your questions.

1. The reading experience is great. I have a number of technical and programming pdfs. I was reading through a book on microcontroller programming at a meeting yesterday, and one of my coworkers was commenting on how good it looked on the e-ink screen. This is what I bought the device for, and I have not been disappointed in it. I have datasheets, processor docs (ARM TRM, arch docs, etc), programming books, and even tech magazines on it. They all work really well on this device. My biggest problem with PDFs so far, and one I hope enTourage will fix, is I have a couple docs from the UEFI group that has a edit password, but not a read password, and they will not open because of it. This is my biggest gripe with pdfs so far.

2. annotating works wonderfully. There are multiple ways to annotate a page, you can fold the corner, highlight, write, sticky note, attach. In the table of contents, these show up, so if you are looking at your table of contents, and made a highlight, you will see that under the section you highlighted in the table of contents. Then with the table of contents, you can filter on any of these types of entries. So if you want to see everywhere you made a highlight, you can turn off the standard table of contents on the pdf, and all the other things (notes, stickies, etc) and you will see a list of highlights. This is very powerful and nice. Click on your text, highlight, etc, and you will be taken to it. When using the table of contents, they are shown on the lcd while the book is on the e-ink.

3. I use mine at work, generally goes most of the day. I did get a second power supply, so I could have it at my desk, but I sometimes work more than an 8hr day.

4. Like I said, have only had problems with one type of pdf, all others I have just dropped on a thumbdrive and added to my library.

5. The LCD, I use mostly for things like the table of contents, using the picture function (this is awesome). This allows me to take a snapshot from a page of a table, a snippet of code, etc and display it on the LCD while continuing to read and turn pages on the e-ink. This allows me to reference the table/diagram/picture while continuing to read the text about it. When trying to read about a code example, this is a very powerful tool.

6. I would buy this again. It isn't perfect, but it is an excellent device for technical docs and reading/reference material. Like I said, the camera could have been designed a lot better, but that wasn't something I was buying this for, so not really a big issue. I don't know the european price difference, but one thing I try and think of, just one of the programming books in this thing is bigger than the device itself. I have a bookshelf of reference material, including processor manuals over 1200 pages, I can't carry this kind of documentation in physical form, so this makes it easier for me to reference and use these docs.

Hope this helps,
--Carl