I'm sure there are a lot of these, potential user

Hi all, this is my first post here, I've been lurking unregistered for a few days, and am very intrigued by the concept of the eDGe.

However, after reading a lot of reviews that give it a 3/5 stars, and reading through a bunch of the forums, I have a few questions:

1. How much interaction is there between screens? That is, can I move my reading from one screen to another (in the case of comic books where the color screen would be more useful than the e-ink)
2. How "hackable" is the android side? Has anyone looked into rooting it?
3. Is the on screen keyboard 10-finger-typable? I know external keyboards can be used, but I could see wanting to use the OSK in android as a "netbook", without needing to chicken-peck with the stylus.
4. Is there any software that does citation management? I'm intrigued by the concept of using the e-ink display as my primary reading device for academic papers, but I do need to cite those papers at times.
5. How would you guys rate overall usability? The sense I've gotten is that the usability is a little rough around the edges, when compared to a more traditional netbook.

I really don't want an iPad, and I could see the "tablet" form factor being useful in some cases, but the package overall needs to be to a degree where it can be used. (Note: that's not a "I'm getting an iPad if this doesn't work" threat, just a statement of my sentiments towards the iPad. If the eDGe ends up not being what I want/need, I'll likely wait until something that is becomes available).

2. Yes, it can be rooted, but no one release root (debugging) pass, and there's no rooted firmware (but you can do it by yourself if you good in linux administration).
1. No much, as I want it to be. E-ink only work with PDF and EPUB, so you can't transfer anything else to e-ink currently (hope next release will give us more features). But you can transfer anything from e-ink to LCD display.
3. No, there's no multutach.
4. Don't need this, so someone else answer this
5. In current state I'll give device 3 of 5, but when there will be more programmers\linux\c geeks (or at list when SDK will be released) it will allow full interaction between displays, and I'll give it 5 of 5.

The multi-touch thing may not necessarily preclude 10-finger typing, if the typing were slow enough, but i'm sure that would be a hindrance.

Is there any timeframe at all on the SDK? Has anyone tried installing a different OS instead of Android? There are ARM distributions of linux that might be more "full" feeling.

I'd be interested to hear other people's use-cases, and what they think the pros and cons are of this device.

3) you can use lcd screen to run docs to go for notes and citations on books

robot, how can alex reader extends the lcd screen to eink to with a single button touch?!!! It can be done but the eDGe guys did not find how yet?

What's the software availability for the edge like? I noticed there's no market access... Does anyone know the reasoning for not having things that feel like they should be available? I recognize that this product has only been shipping for 2 months.

While I recognize there's a little bit of a bias asking this question this way, given that most users on this forum do have one of these, but would you buy one again? Has it been a useful tool for most people? What are the shortcomings that you see in it? Are there plans for any of them to be fixed that the community is aware of? (I did notice the software update feature list).

To go back to the original list of questions, #4, there is no citation management software available as far as I know.

Overall usability is pretty good. As the owner of several tablets as well as an iPad, a Kindle and two eDGe units, I can tell you that the eDGe is great for certain things, like reading and annotating books and pdf files. For me, the ability to mark up a pdf is what really makes it useful. Of course, if you bought a Windows Tablet PC, and install Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can do the same thing, but that will cost about $3500. The iPad is great for consuming media (if you accept the whole iTunes thing) but it isnt great for creating anything, and marking up a pdf can be done but only with software acrobatics.

I would also add that having used the eDGe now for almost 2 months, it is very easy to get used to reading a book on the eInk side and then having an LCD screen right there for web-surfing or checking email. The two screen arrangement is very cool, and I like it very much, although I admit that the interaction between the 2 sides is not yet ideal.

I would definitely buy it again. I find it much more useful (especially for "doing work") than my iPad.

Software is available, but we do need better access. There is actually quite a bit of software that we can download, but we dont have access to the Google Android store, unfortunately.

As for the future, I am hopeful that we will get Android 2.2 in a reasonable period of time. I am also anxiously awaiting Kindle for android so I can access all my Kindle books.

The eDGe is a little bit big and heavy, but acceptable. The size / weight makes curling up with it to read a book rather difficult (for me anyway). The iPad isnt much better. The Kindle is the only one that shines as something to curl up with, since it weighs just 10 oz.

Originally Posted by summatusmentis

Has anyone tried installing a different OS instead of Android? There are ARM distributions of linux that might be more "full" feeling.

I'd be interested to hear other people's use-cases, and what they think the pros and cons are of this device.

There's no problem to install other ARM based linux version but, you will need to compile drivers for EE hardware (there's several other devices on ARM with e-ink, but I didn't find drivers sources). Also I'm not sure if you will be able to reinstall EE firmware after installing another OS.
P.S. there's a full image of EE android distributive were released, so you can download, and try to make your own firware version (like dided for NooK, Alex, Kindle and so on).

Originally Posted by vicinc

robot, how can alex reader extends the lcd screen to eink to with a single button touch?!!! It can be done but the eDGe guys did not find how yet?

I don't have AlexReader at hand, so I can't to say exactly how it work, BUT... there's Alex firmware released which anyone can download and examine. So I suggest EE tech to do so Also I'd like to suggest them to download open sourced project OPENINK -- which contains absolutly best firmware and drivers for use with e-ink displays.
But in genereal, as I understand instead of converting docs before sending them to e-ink sofware (which after this send renderend picture to e-ink) like EE do, Alex send content from virtual frameboofer directly to e-ink, you can think of it as a virtual "print screen button" or better like "virtual printer".

Originally Posted by borisb

Google continues to refuse to allow non-cell phone devices to access the Android Marketplace. enTourage has promised to launch its own app market.

Meanwhile, from reading the "Android Apps" forum, I get the impression that people are finding all the software they really need already, despite Google. Is there a specific type or piece of software you need? Post a question in "Android Apps" and perhaps someone has already found it.

I'm not sure of anything I _need_ exactly, I'm mostly curious, I feel like one of the primary "uses" of android is it's app market. I know you can "side-load" apps, but the centralization is nice.

Does enTourage ever give a timeframe for the things they say they're going to do? This sounds super skeptical, but companies say they'll do a lot of things, and then never follow through. Maybe I'm just jaded.

Originally Posted by alefor

To go back to the original list of questions, #4, there is no citation management software available as far as I know.

Overall usability is pretty good. As the owner of several tablets as well as an iPad, a Kindle and two eDGe units, I can tell you that the eDGe is great for certain things, like reading and annotating books and pdf files. For me, the ability to mark up a pdf is what really makes it useful. Of course, if you bought a Windows Tablet PC, and install Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can do the same thing, but that will cost about $3500. The iPad is great for consuming media (if you accept the whole iTunes thing) but it isnt great for creating anything, and marking up a pdf can be done but only with software acrobatics.

How do the annotations get saved? Are they embedded in the PDF/EPUB? Or is it an "image file" at that point?

I would also add that having used the eDGe now for almost 2 months, it is very easy to get used to reading a book on the eInk side and then having an LCD screen right there for web-surfing or checking email. The two screen arrangement is very cool, and I like it very much, although I admit that the interaction between the 2 sides is not yet ideal.

Does the community know of plans for the interaction between the two sides to get better? As a an undergrad, I like to know what I'm getting into when I spend money on things

I would definitely buy it again. I find it much more useful (especially for "doing work") than my iPad.

Software is available, but we do need better access. There is actually quite a bit of software that we can download, but we dont have access to the Google Android store, unfortunately.

As for the future, I am hopeful that we will get Android 2.2 in a reasonable period of time. I am also anxiously awaiting Kindle for android so I can access all my Kindle books.

So would you say if someone were looking for a more polished product, they ought to wait and see where the eDGe goes?

Originally Posted by robot

There's no problem to install other ARM based linux version but, you will need to compile drivers for EE hardware (there's several other devices on ARM with e-ink, but I didn't find drivers sources). Also I'm not sure if you will be able to reinstall EE firmware after installing another OS.
P.S. there's a full image of EE android distributive were released, so you can download, and try to make your own firware version (like dided for NooK, Alex, Kindle and so on).

Part of what intrigues me about this devices it the potential hackability of it. I came from a netbook, and after the screen broke, I'm looking for a replacement. The eDGe seems like it could be a decent replacement, except that I was used to full linux on my netbook. If the eDGe could get close to that, I could see myself using the eDGe pretty regularly.

Originally Posted by summatusmentis

Part of what intrigues me about this devices it the potential hackability of it. I came from a netbook, and after the screen broke, I'm looking for a replacement. The eDGe seems like it could be a decent replacement, except that I was used to full linux on my netbook. If the eDGe could get close to that, I could see myself using the eDGe pretty regularly.

If you're really good in limux, probably you can make a "double system" on EE and choose to load "linux" or eDGe's "android" on booting. I'm not so good in advanced linux hacking, so I know that it's possible, but don't know how to do this exactly right on EE. Also there's 3 USB ports, so you can connect mouse, keyboard e.t.c. and use it as general netbook

As for SDK... I talked with tech support and they claimed that future SDK will support operation with e-ink from android (full interaction between screens), but they didn't say when it will be awailable. Also currently I didn't get any info about how to use e-ink on eDGe, but support promise to send me info on this topic.

In #13 above, regarding the idea of waiting for a "more polished product", I think it's a very personal decision. You have to decide if you need it now. It seems that with hi-tech you can always wait for the next upgrade. Depends if you want to wait. I think the eDGe is pretty good as it is, and I am productive with it. Things can always be better. Nice thing about the eDGe is that many of the things to come (I hope) represent software upgrades rather than new hardware. We do need better access to apps, and I hope the textbook store will be available soon. But it's a great product as it already is.