Augen has an eBook Reader called "The Book"

[DaleDe]

Augen Electronics has added an eBook Reader to their line of electronics. It is a 7" LCD device with qwerty keyboard. For details see our wiki Augen The Book.

Claims to have ADE support but the actual eBook formats supported are not listed that I can find.

[astra]

Oops. My bad. Sorry.
I will ask mods to delete the post.

[zelda_pinwheel]

crikey, colour screen, wifi and note-taking abilities for 129$ ??? holy gadget lust batman ! although the screen is lcd apparently, so i'm not sure just how comfortable it would be for reading. but for an ultra-portable machine for getting a bit of work done it might be just the ticket...

i'd be very interested to hear more about this so if anyone (nate ? are you there ?) buys one please do post plenty of details.

[Wetdogeared]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Claims to have ADE support but the actual eBook formats supported are not listed that I can find.

From questions answered by Moderator on Augen Augen Products Forum:

Q:What are all the formats it can use for eBooks?
A: Format:TXT, PDF, HTML,RTF,EPUB

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

crikey, colour screen, wifi and note-taking abilities for 129$ ??? holy gadget lust batman ! although the screen is lcd apparently, so i'm not sure just how comfortable it would be for reading. but for an ultra-portable machine for getting a bit of work done it might be just the ticket...

i'd be very interested to hear more about this so if anyone (nate ? are you there ?) buys one please do post plenty of details.

I'm working on it.

[Barnone]

I am interested in the Augen e-reader since it appears that it will do most everything I do on my ASUS Linux Netbook but the shipping has been delayed until July.

[rscudder]

Well, I impulsively picked up Augen the Book - what a mouthful - at Kmart, for $100. Despite thoughts from others about it being the death of some of the smaller eBook readers, I do not think that will prove true. Compared to my Aluratek, it feels too big- but part of that is the reader is cozily embedded in a padded leather cover. It adds a lot of thickness, and I can't just pick it up and put it in my pocket, like the Aluratek will fit. On the other hand I think it could probably drop from chest high and bounce. I will hold about a normal page worth of text on the screen at once, and goes from portrait to landscape by gravity.

Some quick comments - it does have font choices if you are not looking at a PDF. It comes with Courier, DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Serif, hevetica, and Microsoft YaHei. It also can be set to simplified Chinese as the base language. After picking the font, you have 6 size choices. It shows you smaple text as you choose.

I have not been able to use it on the web- I can not figure out how to let it know what type of security my router is using, and it just keeps telling me it was not the correct passphrase for the security. I've been playing with it in a chair with it charging, so the battery life is still a real life unknown.

It has popup windows that come up sometimes- with the typical little x in the corner to close them- and I cannot figure out how to navigate to the x. Hitting menu does close the popup.

It has a joystick- not even a 1/4 inch high- which I do love. Pushing it acts as enter too.

It is a TFT screen - backlit- with a scrollbar to change the brightness. To read outside when I first got it, I turned the brightness down , and the matte screen did allow reading outside- although not as clearly as the Aluratek.

On the other hand - Augen's site takes you to a page with a picture on it - and that is the full content covering the eBook reader. A search does not give any information about doing anything on the reader- even downloading the manual. It seems like learning to use the Aluratek was much more intuitive for me - so I hope this site has people who pick one up and are better at figuring out some basics than I am.

I loaded books and music on it, and set up a similar file structure to what I had put on the Aluratek - and it doesn't seem to be able to look into lower files. I had to pull all the music out into a single huge list. On the SD card- same 32 GB as the Aluratek - I hope to have more success setting things up the way I find helpful.

It actually does show video- very darkly. And boy does that take up space. I watched part of a Dr. Who episode in .avi and then stopped and deleted the file. There seems to be no controls to affect the video except to start it and change volume- not even pause. I do not think I will use that feature much- but it might come in handy to show a movie to my backseat passengers during a car trip. Although, my netbook probably can hold its charge longer and look better. Video on a 7 inch screen, along with all the other list of features sounds great- but it is going to come down to how well those features really work.

Color sounds good - and seeing a few book covers was nice, but if it turns out I can not comfortably read outside, the trade off is not worth it.

It really does have an impressive list of formats it can read- txt, PDF, html, chm, rtf, fb2, epub, word, tcr, paml, doc, open e-book, open reader and mobi. It reads Adobe Digital DRM - although directions for that were on a yellow slip ticked into the manual.

And, rather nicely of Augen, it came with a mini CD with Calibre for the PC and Mac.

More to follow after I learn more.

Rebecca

[jblitereader]

It looks like this product is doing very well at kmart at least.

http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_1...=17-58372059-2

Which shows that this product is out of stock. Haha.

For now, I am happy with my jetbook lite.

[Marcy]

Rebecca, may I ask where you live that Kmart had this in stock?

I pre-ordered one from J&R for $129, but if I can get it at my local K-mart I'd cancel that in a shot.

-Marcy

[Marcy]

Originally Posted by livingenzyme

It looks like this product is doing very well at kmart at least.

http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_1...=17-58372059-2

Which shows that this product is out of stock. Haha.

For now, I am happy with my jetbook lite.

It also might only be available in store, not online.

I'm quite interested in this for reading in bed without a light. I'm currently using my iPhone, but the screen is pitifully small and iBooks kind of sucks. A bigger backlit screen would be perfect for me.

-Marcy

[LDBoblo]

Originally Posted by rscudder

It is a TFT screen - backlit- with a scrollbar to change the brightness. To read outside when I first got it, I turned the brightness down , and the matte screen did allow reading outside- although not as clearly as the Aluratek.

You turned the brightness down to view it outside? Why on earth would you do that?

[mshiscool]

video review posted at

http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/201...t-impressions/

[wandalynn]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Rebecca, may I ask where you live that Kmart had this in stock?

I pre-ordered one from J&R for $129, but if I can get it at my local K-mart I'd cancel that in a shot.

-Marcy

Marcy, the Book is in today's K-Mart ad for $89.99. Hope it's in stock near you!

[rscudder]

Originally Posted by Marcy

Rebecca, may I ask where you live that Kmart had this in stock?

I pre-ordered one from J&R for $129, but if I can get it at my local K-mart I'd cancel that in a shot.

-Marcy

I live in Schenectady, NY. It had come in, according to the clerk there, the day before- I was their first buyer. However, if what is noted above is correct about a sale today (Sunday as first day of sale) I wonder if they'd give me a partial refund!

I think it is worth getting as an experiment at this price- but I surely hope there will be some more info available soon, and some possible firmware updates!
Rebecca

[rscudder]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

You turned the brightness down to view it outside? Why on earth would you do that?

Lack of technical knowledge?

I had this idea it might function more like the Aluratek screen if it was not acting backlit. However, as I was also wearing sunglasses and suffering from an excess of 95 degree weather, I am not sure I could be considered in my right mind at the time
Rebecca