Just bought: Augen "The Book".

[jhempel24]

I think I may be getting this rather than the Kindle....seems too good to pass up.

I just talked to Mark on the support site about the abandoned concerns, and he stated they are currently updating their support site.

As far as official firmware, he stated it's being polished right now and the date to be released is August 30th!

Here are the fixes (copy and paste from chat):
fix the drm issues with B&N,SD card recognition,MAC address for wi-fi,rotation problem

Guess this will be going over a kindle for me....unless I can't stand the backlit screen....that might be hard to deal with, but if I put it on low I think it'll be just fine!

[smallhagrid]

Today I saw the Sony Prs-300 for $99 at BJ's Wholesale Club.
The $99 price point is becoming MUCH more common and if I were still looking my first stop would searching with price low>high at Newegg for "ebook reader".
They had the Jetbook for around $120 and if it was that or The TB I'd get the JB for sure (and as I did before get a GOOD warranty too...).
I wrote my opinions of the 3 models I've had/used in another thread and of the 3 the Augen would be my last choice just because it is uncomfortably clunky for one-handed reading (like in bed...) and it is too 'buttony', as if they wanted to make it something else, but ran out of time to develop it and settled on it being just a reader...
That's my 2 cents anyhow.

Edit:
Just had to look..JB at Newegg is $89 - Astak Mentor is $99...I'd take either over the TB.

Best Wishes for Happy Reading !

mark

[Donnageddon]

Originally Posted by jhempel24

Here are the fixes (copy and paste from chat):
fix the drm issues with B&N,SD card recognition,MAC address for wi-fi,rotation problem

No mention of fixing hyperlinks in the reader, huh?

That is a major need for this device.

[kilohertz53]

I'm glad the accelerometer is going to get fixed, but on the whole, the upgrade sounds underwhelming. I'm impatient, but I guess I can wait until August 30th.

I don't care all that much about the audio, video, and web browsing functions of "The Book", but I would like to see working hyperlinks in e-books and have the ability to directly download ebooks from sources like MobileRead and Project Gutenberg, not just "EBooks Media".

I assume The official upgrade is taking this long because Augen is a small company that contracts out all its hardware and software work. Small company = small contract = low priority. That's just the reality of outsourcing, and I can deal with that.

Where Augen really dropped the ball was in keeping customers informed. The customer support site doesn't have a product registration option (a big mistake, IMHO), the News and Knowledgebase sections go without updating for months at a time, and the Augen forum is practically a ghost town. No wonder customers feel abandoned. (The whole debacle with the illegal software on the GenTouch Android tablet didn't help Augen's image either.)

[gintzj]

I agree with you about product registration

we each have a separate serial number and an e-mail address that we could be notified form a patch or fix is happening

and Augen site is not so hot