Is this reader really helpful for a PHD student/researcher who reads PDF very often?

In my opinion, get off the fence and go buy an eDGe. It really is a great device. While many devices can display pdf files, one great thing about the eDGe is that it displays the full annotations in a pdf. I use Adobe Acrobat Pro to mark up pdf's extensively. When I view them on my iPad, none of the annotations are there, while the eDGe displays them all faithfully. I have to say that my enthusiasm for the eDGe jumped 1000% after installing the latest (Dingo) upgrade. This is a real quantum leap in usability of the software. The ability to quickly open a pdf on the tablet side is great. Everything is much faster, and the new menus in the journal app are superb. The eDGe is a fantastic tool for education, business and any other way you can think of using it. I am only sorry that such things were not even dreamed of when I was an undergrad.

The beat features for 10" e-Ink screen is reading two or more column articles. Most PhD. Students and Professors need to review paper on this format. it is better to read fullscreen without scrolling left-right or up-down. Another choice, if you can get big wide screen monitor and it can be rotated 90 degree like A4 page. AND we can do it with EDGE+DINGO now.

What is the website.

I wish I had the EE when I was a PhD student. I still have piles of jurnal articles I've printed and marked up for research while I was a grad student that I have to dig back through on occassion to find something I need to reference.

I wish PDF existed 30 years ago. I have about 200 cubic feet of technical/programming manuals collected over the years, and I'm not going to buy them all over again.

Originally Posted by ebook8

Can anyone share experience ?

I am doing this. It seems just better than print out all the papers. Better arranging and searchable. The only problem is it is slow to switch among papers when you discuss with your professor(s).

Originally Posted by ebook8

Can anyone share experience ?

Hi there, my name is Cooper and I am a high school teacher at Tempe High School in Tempe, Arizona, and I'm currently about two thirds through my D.Ed in curriculum and instruction via the University of Phoenix’s online program, and I'll gladly share my experiences with the Edge thus far. As a teacher, and a lifelong student, my advice is to have as many tools as possible, without developing a dependency upon on any one of them. Although the edge is great for PDF’s, it is far from being stand-alone, not yet anyway. At UOP the majority of the text books are e-books/PDF’s made available through the University bookstore for download. This is a bonus for Edge owners, but, if you’re getting ready to begin a doctoral program, and you’ve packed your Edge, make sure to take your lil’ laptop and external terabyte drive too…your backpack is about to become very, very heavy.

My dissertation is on the relationships, if any, that may exist between non-traditional curriculum/instruction and student achievement. My research actually includes quite a bit of data on E-learning, tech integration/tools, classroom response systems, and I’ve even gone so far as to take a peek at intra-neural implants, and what I feel is the future of education. I also did my M.Ed thesis on non-traditional curriculum at ASU which, ten years ago had a focus on information/content obsolescence, resource management and support systems, and let’s just say, given the rate of tech obsolescence, things are understandably a bit different…but not that much different.

All cool tech tools aside, ultimately, teaching and learning, decoding, and then processing and sharing information efficiently comes down to one variable; communication. Each year, the University provides a week-long residency where all doctoral students despite their respective degree programs come together to work on our dissertations, share ideas, and network. During my year two residency which took place last April I was having a discussion with one of the IS&T doctoral students concerning e-readers, and which one we felt would be ideal given the amount of reading and annotating needed for our literature reviews. Now of course, many students had the I-pad already, but primarily for leisurely activities, and at the time, the I-pad lacked many resources the Edge had integrated for meeting educational needs. Of course the Edge, although a just launched, had the e-ink screen and an LCD, so I could read my required texts, and do further research while surfing on the LCD. Over the duration of the week I read as many Edge reviews as possible, talked to as many of my knowledgeable colleagues as possible…and decided to pull the trigger; I ordered the Edge before I left residency, this was April ’10.

Fast forward to today: 1/31/11, and my year three residency is just over two months away. I feel I’m ready, but seriously, everything I accomplished on my Edge, I could have accomplished on my Dell mini (and in many situations, I did). Although when I first received the Edge it stood up to the I-pad and other similar devices, but the Edge was/is technically cumbersome. Initially, in a meeting/class/learning environment I could get out my Edge and take some notes, read a few chapters, build some on-line links, all while patiently anticipating firmware updates that would enable me to do what the edge had promised; seamlessly annotate and build internal links. However, there have been many occasions too, where the “ghost/droid in the machine takes over, and I find myself bumbling around trying to open a simple PDF file, get online, take a quick note, etc, …all while my fellow classmates with their competitive tablets run circles around me, despite my two screens. Now, if I were a general consumer, and if I didn’t possess the knowledge I have pertaining to tech, I would be setting myself on fire trying to escape the cumbersomeness of the Edge, but I’m not.

Personally, I believe the Edge, despite currently having outdated fumbleware, and Entourage, despite having “daddy issues with their ability to communicate to their stakeholders, could lead/ be the forefront of the future of education. The future of education is a very personalized, optimized, tech-based experience, but until we all have intra-neural implants (which I welcome and embrace), we will have to rely on our tablets….and our thumb drives.
Now, Entourage can wake up, implement a Kotter 8-step model for longitudinal organizational change, and lead the masses into the interconnected, metacognitve future, or they can continue to turn their backs on the stakeholders, and although they may diversify, releasing new products, ultimately their lack of support infrastructure will cave them in on themselves.

I sum it up like this, “ the Edge is good from afar, but far from good, and has yet to actualize its true potential as the educational/communicative tool the education world needs asap.

---Take care,
Aurareader

Thank you very much for your insight, Aurareader!

Out of curiosity, what changes would you *need* to find the EE a more usable device? Would the predicted upgrade to Froyo, landscape eInk, and anchored eInk annotations be sufficient? Or, in your opinion, would it require completely new software and/or hardware?

Anyone else have thoughts?

Well, I don't know about other folks, but personally, an organic based, sustainment-dominated processing system would be most efficient, electromagnetic shock/pulse wave emitters are a must, and of course, some means of neural interfacing would be ideal too. ......Just Kidding....sorry, been reading too many on-line PDF's and my brain is fried.

Seriously though, the Edge is a really great tool, and in my opinion, one of the best educational/communicative devices available, I personally do not *need* much, besides a bit more transparency, and maybe a few more games too. "All work and no play"....ah whatever, but I get so sad when I'm in a staff meeting and all the other teachers are playing full screen versions of Angry Birds on their I-puds, and I'm stuck with some bumbleware, digitized, half of a half screen, in and outa sync, Angry birds. (Smiley face here).

P.S./Side note, Dearest Entourage Dieties (Mostafa, et. al., infi.), please send a couple dozen EE's or PeewEE's over to my classes at Tempe high school asap, for some betabustin' and I promise I'll provide you the best control tested findings you've ever seen. You want to talk about non-tradtional delivery and instruction...I'm your man. I cannot promise that all the devices will be returned in fully functioning order, but I can guarantee some will be returned with over sized capacitors, chevy small blocks headers, some levitation capabilities, and possibly that neural interface we've been discussing....I have the plans ready to go. (insert another smiley face here).
https://sites.google.com/a/tuhsd.k12...cine-man-plan/

love,
the aura reader.

What a great web page, are your students as engaged in learning as you are in teaching?

Like most teachers, when I started out, I wanted to save the world....now I just focus on one kid at a time....one day at a time. Growing up, I really struggled in school, and although the majority of my struggles were due to what my Ma calls "the day dreamer’s disease", I also now know the institutions are partially at fault for not being able to differentiate instruction, or delivery. I think I've known from about the third grade, that public education could, and should be much different. I'm very, very interested in trying to find out what our true potential is as a species, and to do this we're going to have to individualize, optimize and rectify some progressive, critical theorist’s ideals concerning information processing.

Let's just say, that with all of the influential variables at play these days, the bell curve can be tough to break. Some of my kids definitely step up to the plate though, others not so much. I'm convinced the real revolution, although having already started, will not really take place until we see 100% efficiency in transferring of information, and this can only take place with the evolution of intra-neural implants/transmitters, etc. Humans will no longer be capable of imposing their personal agendas, inherent biases or propaganda within their interpretation of the translation/transcription of the information. If this is our species evolving into robots, I welcome it.

Take care.
Aurareader