Next HW refresh fo full-sized Edge?

Originally Posted by Gunnerp245

@hardball

If you have not visited mobileread.com I encourage you to do so. At this link is a comparison of many ereaders.

Yes, I have; I actually posted a "which should I buy" thread, and haven't gotten much response there.

In the review you listed, is the eDGe among the readers? I don't see it.

Originally Posted by borisb

Yes.



The Library by default is on the internal 3GB available space, but can be relocated to the SD card, allowing up to 32GB space for the Library. Note that you only need to add content to the Library if you wish to annotate it or link it to an ebook.


The default music player will find media anywhere on the eDGe, including the external SD card, so adding them to the Library is not necessary simply to play them. Same for images and the Gallery application, and videos and the video player.

Hey, thanks for the info.

I actually just wen to the Uni store, and there was an eDGe on display, so I played around with it.

Overall very impressive the wide array of things that it can do. The android interface was actually more responsive than I expected. There weren't any PDF on the tablet for me to play around with, so I may have to bring my own to try on it next time.

The only issue I had was with the lag in input when I was writing on the e-ink screen, about 1/2 to 1 second. It sort of caused me to miswrite a couple of words, and some diagrams that I drew didn't come quite right because of that lag too. Has anyone else had issue with this? Is this lag something that one can adapt to over time when using the e-ink screen?

Otherwise, the functionality is perfect. The weight though, that's another story, in a completely different league than Kindle DX or Nook color. Hmmm...., choices, choices.

Originally Posted by HardBall

There weren't any PDF on the tablet for me to play around with, so I may have to bring my own to try on it next time.

If you go into the Browser and find a web page, you can tap the top right book icon (beside the address bar) that will convert the web page to PDF and display it on the reader.

Originally Posted by HardBall

The only issue I had was with the lag in input when I was writing on the e-ink screen, about 1/2 to 1 second. It sort of caused me to miswrite a couple of words, and some diagrams that I drew didn't come quite right because of that lag too. Has anyone else had issue with this? Is this lag something that one can adapt to over time when using the e-ink screen?

We tend to get used to it, especially by concentrating on simply writing without constantly watching to see how what we've written looks. If you switch to a plain (unlined) background, the response time is much better, too.

That's why I was wondering if a new model would be due out, don't want to realize the next month that I settled for the current model and missed out on the ideal version...
...Also I don't really want to be left behind...

I, like some others on the forum, gave up waiting for my ideal. The one I was waiting on (Adam) still is not out, and in all honesty wouldn't really do what the EE does anyway.... meaning, the integration of read and search, etc. Over the years, I've come to realize that 'the newest' and 'most up-to-date' are pretty much oxymorons in the tech world, anyway. Really, if you think about it, the moment they hit the stores, they are basically obsolete because the manufacturers/developers already have something ready to go directly behind them

Can the eDGe display the bookmarks/table of contents in PDF documents that are created in Acrobat/Latex?

Just wanted to add a note here... As Boris answered, yes it does. Also, any notes and annotations you add also appear in the TOC in the library. Because of this, you can also create your own TOC within the library. The WARNING here is... any notes/annotations you add within the library are hostage to the library. This is an Adobe thing. So, if you want them to remain 100% functional you can't remove your file from there or you will lose your notes. You CAN export them as an image file (meaning it is not searchable and without a TOC and only displays pencil notes and highlights). ALTHOUGH, any pre-existing TOC (eg. pdfs that have a TOC prior to adding it to the library) remain intact. AND MORE... not all pre-existing annotations cross over to the Reader. The ones that do remain intact (I've only worked with these from Acrobat Pro) are highlights, text boxes, underlines, pencil notes). Sticky notes and other pop-up comments do not cross over. Hope all this helps.

They'd better not start working on another device before they get Android 2.2 (and ideally 3.0) working on the devices that already exist. Since Entourage is obviously run by smart, competent, moral, and hygienic people, I don't think they would want the reputation a stunt like that would bring.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

They'd better not start working on another device before they get Android 2.2 (and ideally 3.0) working on the devices that already exist. Since Entourage is obviously run by smart, competent, moral, and hygienic people, I don't think they would want the reputation a stunt like that would bring.

What reputation? A reputation for being smart and developing multiple devices to satisfy the needs of more people? Yeah, what a horrible reputation that would bring. By your standards, Entourage can never work on another device ever, since there will always be a need to continue developing the devices that exist. It isn't as if as soon as Froyo comes out they can sit back and say "Well, that's done. We don't have to work on that device any more." You guys kill me. You act like Entourage can only develop one device at a time. Like they only have one developer who has to decide which device he'll work on today. I know it's a small company, but somehow, I imagine they have more than one person employed who can develop their devices. But what do I know? Nuffin'

The excuse that was usually given by certain Entourage fans on the forum for the slow progress on 2.2 was that they were busy with the Pocket Edge. They can't have their cake and eat it too; either E is too small to work on a new device and an OS upgrade at the same time or it was dragging its feet all summer and fall.

The reputation of which I wrote is a reputation for abandoning customers whose money they already have. In the Android world users are completely dependent on the manufacturer of their device for OS upgrades, so a manufacturer that stops working on the device is sentencing their customers to be forever stuck with the original OS unless they fork over more money for a new device. Of course, if a manufacturer nurtures an independent developer community (or at least doesn't take actions that interfere with independent development) some of this burden is removed, as antsy early adopters can find upgrades through alternative means. Hint, hint.

I hope that they would eventually come out with something of an upgrade, especially on the size/weight, while keeping the screens at the same decent size, as well as access to more uptodate version of android with the android market. Of course I also hope that they keep updating the current versions, especially if I end up deciding on the eDGe as my first e-reader.

Another question:
Has anyone done reading on the eDGe's e-ink screen with Greek symbols on PDF files? Tons of formulae on the material that I'll be reading also would have these.

Also does it generally support displaying all unicode encodings on the machine?

Originally Posted by HardBall

Has anyone done reading on the eDGe's e-ink screen with Greek symbols on PDF files? Tons of formulae on the material that I'll be reading also would have these.

Also does it generally support displaying all unicode encodings on the machine?

If you PM me some sample PDFs I could tell you.

Originally Posted by borisb

If you PM me some sample PDFs I could tell you.

Great, thanks;

Sent you a PM.

Page 5 of the PDF you sent me shows all the equations, Greek letters, formulas and mathematical symbols just fine. I expected this to be the case, but wanted to be sure for your sake

As for Unicode, if you can point me to a sample I can likewise confirm. I know users in the past have had issues with fonts, but not sure how/if this would affect your question regarding unicode.

Originally Posted by HardBall

Has anyone done reading on the eDGe's e-ink screen with Greek symbols on PDF files? Tons of formulae on the material that I'll be reading also would have these.

I've read several papers with Greek letters and other obscure mathematical symbols in them and they've displayed fine.

Originally Posted by borisb

Page 5 of the PDF you sent me shows all the equations, Greek letters, formulas and mathematical symbols just fine. I expected this to be the case, but wanted to be sure for your sake

As for Unicode, if you can point me to a sample I can likewise confirm. I know users in the past have had issues with fonts, but not sure how/if this would affect your question regarding unicode.

Originally Posted by Chubulor

I've read several papers with Greek letters and other obscure mathematical symbols in them and they've displayed fine.

Thanks a lot, guys.

Originally Posted by HardBall

Has anyone done reading on the eDGe's e-ink screen with Greek symbols on PDF files? Tons of formulae on the material that I'll be reading also would have these.

This is an important issue for me as well, as in my discipline, I deal with Greek texts to a large extent, and I've dealt with support on this to quite an extent. But I must admit, I haven't purchased my EE yet (which I plan to do in the near future). What I have found, with other readers and PDFs in general, is that Epub cannot handle Greek characters. For whatever reason, I've never found an Epub document that displays Greek correctly. Amazon is far ahead here, because I have never found a kindle book that didn't display the Greek correctly. Sometimes their free PDFs from Google books, etc. don't display properly, but if it's in the Kindle format, it will display correctly. As for PDFs, it depends on the PDF. Not being technically inclined, I can't explain why some PDFs display correctly and others don't. It has something to do with whether the PDF is an image or text. An image displays Greek properly and text does not. However, an image has other drawbacks.

Entourage support was really valuable in helping me figure these things out. This was a serious concern for me, and so I contacted them with my concerns and after having them look at several books and giving me feedback, I worked this out.

What I have finally decided would work best for me is to create my own PDFs and create an OCR mask with a program like Adobe Reader Pro. This ensures that the Greek displays properly and the document is searchable. The only problem I've had with this is that sometimes the text is not smooth. I don't know if this has something to do with my scanner's resolution or what, but I'm planning on looking into that. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well on longer books, but there are people out there creating book scanners for just this purpose. You can google "BookLiberator" for an example. It hasn't been made available to the public yet, but about 3 months ago, they told me it would be available in 6 months and it is only about $300 with cameras. Of course there are professional book scanners available, but they cost thousands and the cheapest I've found is about $5k without cameras and $8k with.

If that is helpful, great. If not, sorry for wasting your time. But this is important to me as well.

Originally Posted by jsfiller

This is an important issue for me as well, as in my discipline, I deal with Greek texts to a large extent, and I've dealt with support on this to quite an extent. But I must admit, I haven't purchased my EE yet (which I plan to do in the near future). What I have found, with other readers and PDFs in general, is that Epub cannot handle Greek characters. For whatever reason, I've never found an Epub document that displays Greek correctly. Amazon is far ahead here, because I have never found a kindle book that didn't display the Greek correctly. Sometimes their free PDFs from Google books, etc. don't display properly, but if it's in the Kindle format, it will display correctly. As for PDFs, it depends on the PDF. Not being technically inclined, I can't explain why some PDFs display correctly and others don't. It has something to do with whether the PDF is an image or text. An image displays Greek properly and text does not. However, an image has other drawbacks.

I've had the same experience with Google Books. I downloaded Florian Cajori's "History of Mathematics" as a PDF a few months ago for free, and to my dismay every single mathematical symbol and every equation or inequality had been rendered into garbage characters. So if I was interested in Johann Bernoulli's childhood pet, I had no trouble finding that information, but the description of his mathematical work was illegible. I think it has to do with the OCR used by the person who originally scanned the work...Google doesn't scan most of those books themselves, so it's possible that some of them are scanned in a way that preserves non-Roman symbols.