Notion Ink's Adam on Pre-Order!

[Avarwen]

I really do want this device but I'm waiting till I get some reviews and proof that's it's not another Plastic Logic Que. So till then I'll just wait and if this is indeed a scam I'll just wait till the tablet I really want comes out.

[etienne66]

I took a leap of faith and pre-ordered the Pixel Qi 3G version. I'll either be out about $600 ($50 shipping) or I'll be extremely happy. I mostly want it to read PDF files, but I would use it for web surfing and email as well.

I was rather surprised to see they are now out of stock of all of the Adams with Pixel Qi. I wonder how many they had ordered from their manufacturer.

The FCC certification worries me a bit. I'm fairly confident that was the start of what sunk the Irex DR800SG. The other being the lack of a dictionary.

Etienne66

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Richey79

You may well laugh.

A friend of mine who's a teacher had a young lady in her sixth form class (17 y/o) who had killed her pet hamster because it was shivering from the cold, so she put it in the microwave for a couple of minutes.

But... But... That's not supposed to have happened! We use that example to show the willingness of Americans to go to court for the most ridiculous reasons! (it never said in the manual I couldn't put my dog in it!)

[Mastiff]

I couldn't fit my dog in a micro wave oven without making her into liquid, so mastiffs are safe in that area...

Avarwen, Plastic Logic Que wasn't a scam. It died because of the most contagious virus in the IT world. And it's not Sutxnet. It's called the "iPanic". If you have a good idea and suddenly something that starts with a small i and is remotely similar to what you've got comes out, this virus makes you think that everybody will buy that instead. In the case of the Que I think it would have been OK because the market was so different.

etienne66, I can't really see anybody being out $600, since VISA should cover the amount if something happens. That's the beauty with plastic instead of wire transfer (and it should lead to a mandatory head examination every time anybody are stuipd enough to use that).

[etienne66]

Originally Posted by Mastiff

I can't really see anybody being out $600, since VISA should cover the amount if something happens. That's the beauty with plastic instead of wire transfer (and it should lead to a mandatory head examination every time anybody are stuipd enough to use that).

I was assuming I would actually get the Adam, but that it wouldn't do what I wanted. Does VISA cover that? I'd be surprised if they did. I think at the worst Notion Ink's applications won't work the way I want them too, but I think with being the Android OS, I'll be able to find one that is acceptable. From what I've read the hardware should be compatible with Android 3.0 and we should see an update sometime in 2011.

I've seen some say they thought a 7" reader would be fine. I've tried reading PDFs formatted for 8.5" x 11" on a 6" reader and I can't see that being a viable solution. Even in Landscape the text is still too small. I think a 10" reader will be borderline for this functionality.

I do sort of wish that this thing was running a Windows OS so I could install my Rosetta Stone on it, but other than that I think all of the programs I'd want to run are either on it or available for it. I'm probably going to see if I can't learn how to write programs for the Android anyway. Not professional programming, just for my own entertainment.

I'm sure me and others of the Mobileread forum will give our opinions of this device sometime in January.

There was some talk about VISA's fraud prevention kicking in on these transactions. They had called my house Friday morning. I returned the call and said I did the transaction on purpose. I got several calls to my work number throughout the day, but they hung up until the end of the day when I found out it was again the VISA fraud prevention. Very strange, but I've had similar responses before when I made some purchases from Russia. People are making too big of a deal out of this. If you don't normally make purchases from India, it is going to set off a fraud alert every time. After they got used to me making occasional purchases from Russia, the fraud alerts stopped.

Etienne66

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But... But... That's not supposed to have happened! We use that example to show the willingness of Americans to go to court for the most ridiculous reasons! (it never said in the manual I couldn't put my dog in it!)

There was the reports recently of some motorola droid phone that had supposedly exploded while it was being used when most could tell right away from looking at it that the screen was obviously cracked from a drop and the person hadn't noticed, I think it was quite clear what their intentions were when they went home to have pictures taken before being taken to the emergency room.

[Mastiff]

etienne66, no VISA does not cover if you don't like it. Ten again they didn't when I bought my Atom Phones from Hongkong either, and even though the Life wasn't all I wanted it to be it got better with a bit of help from XDA Developers. It's basically a leap of faith - if you think you can deal with it and be patient until it's hacked if you don't like the standard OS (took all of a week after the Nook Color came out...) then you buy it. And you'll be one of the first who has it. If not you read reviews and make an informed deciscion, but the problem is that even if tech journalists hate it you may love it and vice versa. Take me. I hate Apple's OS for computers, and still tech journalists rather uniformly says that it's the bee's knees and so on. And they hate Windows Mobile 6.5, which I happen to love (again with a bit of help from XDA Developers). I won't trade my HTC HD2 Energy Max Sense for any iCrap or Android phone (not because I hate Android (yes, I do hate iCrap...), but because I have a lot of applications that won't run on Android (or even Windows Phone 7)).

As for the VISA fraud alarm I haven't had any. No problems here, but I guess that's because I deal with Norwegian VISA. And I'm guessing that your VISA are about as paranoid as the TSA...which in my book would make them certifiably insane! I much prefer the Texas way (been to San Antonio several times): Be polite until they're not polite to you, then you kick their butt!

Got the confirmation on the preorder from Notion Ink as well now. They will send me a 900 because I live in Europe, and a correct power plug for my style. Everything is based on where you order from. Smart move!

[JSWolf]

To be honest, I'd wait until Android 3.0 is actually out and in the shipping product before buying any sort of Android based tablet.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

To be honest, I'd wait until Android 3.0 is actually out and in the shipping product before buying any sort of Android based tablet.

I agree, watching Android Atlas show on Cnet, they were talking about Motorola's Honeycomb tablet most likely coming out on Verizon. 10 inch screen, interesting looking product.

[Mastiff]

To me no product will be interesting without the Pixel Qi screen... But that's just me. I want a real reader, as close to eInk as you can get, that's versatile. That means Adam. Or if it hadn't died the Lattice. I probably would have bought both to compare and then sold the one I liked the least here in Norway. Almost certainly for more money than I paid for it! The Samsung Galaxy comes with a mandatory phone contract in Norway, and that will set you back around $1300!

[RoboRay]

Originally Posted by Mastiff

To me no product will be interesting without the Pixel Qi screen... But that's just me.

It's not just you!

There are two kinds of people interested in tablets: Those who have experienced the freedom of use offered by Pixel Qi technology and know they must have it, and those who have not and don't understand why it's the single most important hardware characteristic in selecting a device.

[Mastiff]

Well, I haven't actually experienced it, but I have read and seen enough about it to decide that it's the right thing for me! And really, with a unit that's screen and nothing more it should really be obvious that it's the most important thing! Yeah, software and other hardware matters, but without a good screen they will crash and burn no matter what.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But... But... That's not supposed to have happened! We use that example to show the willingness of Americans to go to court for the most ridiculous reasons! (it never said in the manual I couldn't put my dog in it!)

This is not an example of an American teen. We don't have "sixth form" classes.

[MikeFromHC]

Originally Posted by Mastiff

To me no product will be interesting without the Pixel Qi screen... But that's just me. I want a real reader, as close to eInk as you can get, that's versatile. That means Adam. Or if it hadn't died the Lattice. I probably would have bought both to compare and then sold the one I liked the least here in Norway. Almost certainly for more money than I paid for it! The Samsung Galaxy comes with a mandatory phone contract in Norway, and that will set you back around $1300!

I agree. Adam was of interest to me only because it was to be the first with the PQ screen and that's how it was initially advertised.
I suspect it was the main reason it obtained so many followers in a short time.

Initial purchases seem to bear this out.

As to the additional cost of the screen, PQ says to ask the Adam people.
(I asked both and received a prompt response from the lady herself.)

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by RoboRay

It's not just you!

There are two kinds of people interested in tablets: Those who have experienced the freedom of use offered by Pixel Qi technology and know they must have it, and those who have not and don't understand why it's the single most important hardware characteristic in selecting a device.

Hm, my impression is that in reflective mode Pixel Qi is a bit better than a regular LCD, but not nearly as good as eInk.

Also 10.1" is not large enough for comfortable PDF viewing -- it's just slightly larger than the iPad or the KDX, at lower resolution.

And the 1024 x 600 screen may be cheap, but the it just sucks (it's 168 pixels narrower than the iPad). So it will in fact be worse that the iPad for reading PDFs.

I am not sure why anyone is excited about this.