Augen The Book: Preliminary evaluations

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by 7tronics

As I said, I had high hopes for the Augen TB, but the company response of Pandigital and the ready access to fixes led me to choose a higher price product which so far is far more usable both for the intended eBook reading and as a general purpose media device and even primitive web browser!

Best, Mark

In all fairness, PD had the Novel out for 3 months before they recalled it and corrected the firmware. The Augen TB has only been out for less than a month.

That said, I am heading out tonight to get a PD Novel. I will keep the TB, in hopes they correct the problem. Then I can always gift it to somebody. If they correct some of the problems it can still be a good ereader choice for those like me, who prefer a backlit color screen.

[gintzj]

hi dear people
24 hours ago I got my TB

I have been waiting since 5/15/2010 with Heartland

Wifi works great

It saw my 8 mg sd card immediately

Calibre works good with the TB and SD card

I am a happy Camper

I was able to go onto the web and even download a pdf file that opened with n o trouble

It just did allow be to put it where I want to

I have no issues.

I checked with Aguen and I have the Lastest user interface with this unit.

they asked for my serial and date of unit.


the brightness is okay for me.

except readers for PDf until I changed the font and then the old contacts work fine

Keep in touch and keep smiling

I am happy with a big smile

one day I will talk about Heartland and how they almost lost me

But that is another day

that all for now folks


Jim

[gintzj]

I am having no trouble with epub file from the library or other souces I have downloaded already 3 of 4 books from the web

Epub is no problem

Thank you

Jim

[Kurt]

what is the date of your unit?

sounds like you have a "fixed' model?

[Donnageddon]

Be happy, Gintzj. The TB is a good ereader, and with some improvements could be great!

[dixieknits]

Hi, came home from K-Mart this morning after towel shopping with a $90.00 Augen. At the register, I was told they were no longer on sale for $90.00 but $100.00 but she sold it to me for $90.00 as that is what it is marked. As I had never heard of them, and really wasn't e-reader shopping found all of this a compelling reason to buy.
I'm happy as a clam with this reader. The screen is clear, great to read at night, in a car...etc. The page turns are fast, My PDF's worked great. I loaded in one audio book on the SD card and it's clear as a bell. Wow,.. I can't believe i"m so happy with such spur of the moment purchase. Time will tell how it holds up. I will probably never use it to web browse or wifi it to purchase, so as a basic it reader, it seems a GREAT value and I didn't have to bend my case clips, just gentley angle the reader in and out.
I think my husband will be receiving the Kindle 3 I preordered for Christmas. This reader is great..!!!

[Kurt]

yup
looks like they got fresh supplies - got a call from Kmart this morning letting me know that my rain-check item was in

now, if i can find my rain-check maybe i can find someone who can use the 10 bucks off

[mtnmedic]

I picked one up for $89 at Kmart yesterday. Still playing with it. Light, easy to hold. Screen auto rotates nicely while reading. Graphics are decent. UI is simple. Input with keyboard is decent. I love prev/next/home buttons on each side of the screen. Not crazy about having the earphone jack at the bottom of any device. Page turns are speedy, which is nice. Surprised it has a decent text-to-speech capability. Unless I’m mistaken, there doesn’t seem to be a night reading mode, which would be a bummer. Wi-Fi isn’t bad at all. No issues with connecting but it does need to see an SSID to connect. Not sure what the deal is there. Currently working fine on my WPA-PSK2 secured network. Most of the functions and features are what you’d expect from any reader and I’ve no complaints. Especially for $89. The included leather cover/case is a nice little touch, even if it’s a bit cheesy. The same goes for the note-taking feature. I think the big complaint I have is it’s sluggishness when it comes to web activity. As an iPad user, I didn’t expect this reader to be a tablet or web browsing device. It’s a reader. I get that. But if you’re going to put a web browser in your device and have a feature that allows you to shop for books, make sure the device and your software can bring up those pages at decent speeds (even if that means you have to resort to using a cell phone WAP browser). A browser on a device like this or the Pandigital Novel (which I also have, and it handles the web and Wi-Fi beautifully) is meant to shop for books, quickly look up something, read the news, maybe check email, etc. on-the-fly. Nothing more, realistically. My philosophy regarding readers is that the manufacturers need to get their first generation model mostly right in several key aspects in the first place if they’re going to have any success. Updates for readers are almost nonexistent. Wi-Fi/internet connectivity is a must, nowadays. The age of the readers that get their content solely via USB is gone, thankfully. I think the whole e-ink argument is also dying out with the proliferation of color LCD screens and improving technology that allows for a better user experience with them. For reading ebooks, I think this reader will do just fine. The price point is terrific and it would make a great gift item to get someone started in ebooks, if nothing else. I will test it soon for SD card integration, PDF rendering and battery life.

[RadioMan52]

Originally Posted by Kurt

what is the date of your unit?

sounds like you have a "fixed' model?

Now that is the question of "Questions" what is a "fixed" unit?

A whole bunch of units are being returned to K-Mart stores, not a good for this unit in general.
I picked up one as a open box special.
Problems with WiFi connection even on Micky Dee's open systm as well as other WEP and WAP to start.
If you do not add the USB drivers from the mini CD then you will have connection problems.
I noticed that a update is being touted what are the indicators of old versus new versions.
This box has potential but they have to fix and add some polish... I wish that the Linux crew would hel them out and get this right.
Regards

[dixieknits]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Not very well.

I wouldn't get this for PDFs.

hmm.. I found just the opposite.. If you turn your reader landscape mode, it reads them as if they were text or epubs.

[7tronics]

Thought about picking up an open box The Book for $65, but still no official fix postings on the Augen site. By contrast, Pandigital Novel team has been putting out a new firmware build about every 3 weeks. Yes, 4 month head start, but there is NOTHING at all posted on The Book on the Augen US site. Not looking good for this little guy!

Best, Mark

[VentureForth]

Well, the post that I made with the steps to update your firmware is about as official as you're gonna probably get. No, it probably won't ever be placed on their website because it's a huge 87 MB file. Their hosting company will flip a gasket if they generate 10,000 users trying to download this file. This is a company that is doing everything to keep costs to a minimum. Even their home page is a simple site with their help site and forums hosted individually from inexpensive/free providers.

Keep in mind, these guys are an American company, but extremely small. Sure, all their stuff comes from China, but how's that different than Wal Mart?

My Dad said he talked to CS at the end of last week and said they are tying to get a new update posted. Will let everyone know if it happens.

[gintzj]

how do we bring in a WMA file from the public lilbrary

Their problem will not recogize the TB

Help please

Thank you

Jim

[bec]

Originally Posted by VentureForth

Stop the presses! Allhats over in the Augen forum mentioned this, but I thought it was a fluke, until it happened to me. THIS is a show stopper so far as I am concerned (and yes, I have reported it to the proper authorities).

Last night I bought and paid for a John Grisham book, "The Associate," from booksamillion.com. I was able to save it to my computer and open it with Adobe Digital Editions without any problem. The book reads fine on Digital Editions.

I then used Calibre to move the book to The Book. The Book accepted the DRM without any problems and at first glance, the book appeared normal on the screen. However, after about page 7, I noticed that there were paragraphs that were being skipped when I moved to the next page. As you can with non-DRM books, I attempted to change the zoom, but on protected books the options are limited to Original, Fit to Screen, Fit to Height, Fit to Width or Zoom. None of these options would reveal the missing paragraphs. Can't change the font or font size.

I again went back to Digital Editions on my PC and there was no discrepancy.

I can handle the little bugs, the irritations, the nuances, and quirks, but when I cannot read books that I have bought and paid for, it was the first time I considered returning my Book.

I haven't yet. There shall be a viable solution!

I am having the same problem, have you found a solution?

[RadioMan52]

Originally Posted by VentureForth

Well, the post that I made with the steps to update your firmware is about as official as you're gonna probably get. No, it probably won't ever be placed on their website because it's a huge 87 MB file. Their hosting company will flip a gasket if they generate 10,000 users trying to download this file. This is a company that is doing everything to keep costs to a minimum. Even their home page is a simple site with their help site and forums hosted individually from inexpensive/free providers.

Keep in mind, these guys are an American company, but extremely small. Sure, all their stuff comes from China, but how's that different than Wal Mart?

My Dad said he talked to CS at the end of last week and said they are tying to get a new update posted. Will let everyone know if it happens.

Now things are getting scary for sure.
K-mart is selling the open box units for $65 each; yes the sales slip still gives you the return policy (Thank you K-mart). The Miami area stores have over 15 returns availabel, after my own experiences and reading this group I can see why they are being returned the word from one of the managers was that the returns where to be sent back the new orders are “sell them as Open Box”.
Interesting thing is all of the locked topics on the Augen support site and t I applied for membership in the Augen run forum last Friday and I am still in pending approval status I guess they are working like “banshees” or “Mark” is reading at least this forum and if you say anything that is not “positive” No approval.
This can be a Nice Unit when they get their act together and put it out for real.
A interesting comment from one of the Linux gurus that picked up one of the open box units ($65), this after he played around with the unofficial update software as his “open door” his comment are that he was able to see a whole bunch of interesting things inside the box, the (WiFi) web browsers (extremely slow) issues are mainly caused by low buffer memory and video allocation possibly caused by trying to keep maximum memory available for book storage and that many of the apps look like englisfied china mobile phone apps which accounts for the striped down interface/functionality.
I sure hope that Augen gets things moving and fast on clearing up the user issues or else we will be facing an “orphan” system and go on to the Novotel.