Just bought: Augen "The Book".

[smallhagrid]

Immediately impressed me.
Fully charged right out of the box !
Yup - it's bigger than my (now useless) JB and heavier too - no biggie so far.

I love the display on this thing - and most impressive to me is that when I got to the car - at night, and plugged in my SD card, went to the book I was reading when the poor old JB died, and immediately noticed that without ANY adjustments at all, it was wonderfully readable in any direction, Nice !!!

The JB ->had<- to have it's text resized 2nd to largest for me with me olde eyes.

Kmart's super-duper add-on warrany cost a huge $13 for 2 years, and having used those before I can tell you they are 100% good to have.

I paid almost 2x as much for the JB, which had sucky PDF support and made it to just beyond 1 year before going nuts and taking 118 books (that I know of) on my 2GB card with it when it went.
Ectaco's 'support' is a joke and their standing policy seems to be 'treat the customer with nastiness so they'll go away'.
Glad I got NewEgg's extended warranty so I will not have to deal with them.
The JB would run for 4 1/2 hours total and then needed 5-6 hours to charge.
It would hang randomly as well when it was working at it's best.

My point:
The Augen product MUST easily be better than the JB and depending upon whether the warranty replaces or credits me for the JB I'll decide what to do afterwards...but the Augen reader will tide me over while I wait for the warranty stuff to kick in and I can easily return it to Kmart if it somehow proves to be unworthy.

In closing I must say that for $99 this looks like a great unit.
Since I need no browser/wifi/etc - just a reader, I see no reason at all to gripe about this new machine.

When Android tablets get to $99 with v2.2 or 3.x on them I'll make my next move, but for now I think it's GREAT that such devices have become so wonderfully affordable. Color PDFs on my handheld reader ? Yippee !!!

Best Wishes.

mark

[VentureForth]

Glad you like it. I love mine and use it every day. Be sure to get the firmware upgrade if you have epub files. Instructions are in another thread - search Augen and pick the longest Augen Book thread. I'm on my Blackberry and its hard to search copy paste thread links right now.

[smallhagrid]

Day 2 and still loving it !

I set the brightness to the 2nd lowest - easy to read in daylight or under lights at night AND unlike the old JB this battery has shown zero discharge after hours of use.
(Wifi is off too.)

Comes right on and goes directly to my place - goes right off, all nice and easy.

It IS a bit large and because of the truly useless keyboard it is not as well suited to the hand as it could be.

If I could somehow change this I would ONLY change the buttons and ditch the KB resulting in an easier to hold, smaller unit, but otherwise it does page turns better/faster than the JB did and in all ways so far has been a pleasure.

My JB on the other hand seems all worn out and I am anxious to see how the extended warranty process works out with it...glad I got it and wish it had lasted more than a year but paying the extra $20 will have proved the right thing to do if they are good about it AND that I will not have to deal with nasty Ectaco AT ALL !

Best Wishes,

mark

[Radiorox]

Just got one today! Unfortunately, I have to wait until I get paid again to load up on eBooks. But, I managed to put in a few medical massage PDF files that I have and those show pretty well considering that I have issues with the file on my computer. Let's see how it goes.

[VentureForth]

Be sure to get that firmware upgrade and check it with an eBook before you invest too much in new eBooks.

I hope you love it!

[smallhagrid]

Well - it's been a week now and the 'TheBook' is pretty good.

Battery life impresses me, as just a reader, with it's low illumination setting I got a full week out of it, almost double what the JB could do at it's best.

I've been trying to form an overall impression to sum it up and after a week of use here's what I've come up with: Clunky.
And I'll explain that too->
The bigger screen is nice, but holding this in the hand just ain't easy.

The buttons were no doubt placed by space aliens with 8 tentacles because there's no other rational explanation for their goofy placement.
The (useless) keyboard just makes it's size/weight bigger for no good reason at all.
The only way I've found that approaches in-the-hand comfort is in landscape mode with the KB at the right...and in the case so the tabs which hold it in are not in the way.

-IF- this thing somehow lost the KB and had buttons intelligently placed for one-handed use then it would be a very nice size and comfortable to use.

As it stands I am torn because the JBL is now down to 69.99 and Android tablets are looking better and better as each minute passes.

Good thing I have a good, long while before my return option runs out for this, it'll keep me covered while I work out possible warranty problems with the dead JB and keep watch for tablets with Android 2.1+ to become affordable.

Final word:
As of this exact minute in time, the Augen product is OK; not the greatest, but OK and when I compare it with the idea of a JBL for 69.99 I'd say the Augen is overpriced.
(But who knows what will show up next that puts both of these to shame somehow ?)

mark

[gintzj]

mine came from Heartland on the 5th and I love and enjoy it everyminute of the day

Only one problem now is the clock (it is very young) so it does not keep time

Have a great day folks

Keep smiling

Jim

[smallhagrid]

Great price. Recently saw it for only 89.99 at Kmart.
Nice enough, but not my 1st choice for a daily use reader.

Deciding factor:
Using an e-reader has shown me how much I truly enjoy reading one-handed with a very light reader; and the Augen is big and heavy by comparison to what else I've used.
(If I had arms of steel this'd be like a feather to me, but I don't have arms like that.)

No biggie.
I have the slip and very much appreciate Kmart's nice grace period on returns because it allowed me to compare it with 2 others - a huge help.
It'll be going back soon, with a smile.
(Too bad a firmware upgrade wouldn't make it any lighter to hold !)

Best Wishes.

mark

[gintzj]

Mine came from Heartland and I will be keeping it

I have no trouble loading books and reading them

and I do not mine changing the date each day.


Keep smiling

and I will keep my TB

Thank you

Jim

[VentureForth]

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

(Too bad a firmware upgrade wouldn't make it any lighter to hold !)

I have discovered that the majority of the clunkiness and weight is in the cover. Remove the cover and see how you like it. I like it much more!

[smallhagrid]

I used it 'naked' from the start:

Originally Posted by VentureForth

I have discovered that the majority of the clunkiness and weight is in the cover. Remove the cover and see how you like it. I like it much more!

And discovered I could hardly avoid hitting buttons by accident that way.
As I said earlier:

The buttons were no doubt placed by space aliens with 8 tentacles because there's no other rational explanation for their goofy placement.
The (useless) keyboard just makes it's size/weight bigger for no good reason at all.
The only way I've found that approaches in-the-hand comfort is in landscape mode with the KB at the right...and in the case so the tabs which hold it in are not in the way.

It is also bigger and heavier than I'd like - and this was reinforced when I got the Mentor...spoiled by the small/light JB...baffled by the big/heavy Augen...and once again spoiled by the small/light Mentor, and it's all good !

I like the TB well enough - and had I $$$ to spare I'd happily keep it around too, but that is not the case $-wise and I've decided that small/light in a reader IS better for me.

Best Wishes.

mark

[VentureForth]

LOL. To each his own for sure. This is certainly a device that falls in or out of various personal preferences.

[dixieknits]

Originally Posted by smallhagrid

Using an e-reader has shown me how much I truly enjoy reading one-handed with a very light reader; and the Augen is big and heavy by comparison to what else I've used.
(If I had arms of steel this'd be like a feather to me, but I don't have arms like that.)

I use my cover as an easel type stand, folding the left piece back for a base and the right for the angled support. It forms a really nice a nice angled stand and I use my Augen landscape with NO hands. It's easy to touch the page turn button at the top.
I don't find anything strange about where they place the buttons. The page turns are in the same place as my husband's Nook.

[7tronics]

For $80, the Augen TB seemed like a great deal and decent eBook reader when I first got it in July. But, then my daughter found a Pandigital Novel for $128 (after rebate and coupons) and I found a Sony PRS-600 used for $100. So the Augen TB was returned.

By comparison the Augen TB is wanting on many counts. If we didn't have both a color tablet and a decent eInk reader, I'd be tempted to keep a TB around.

If Augen comes out with a decent firmware update, a TB would be a very nice reader, with color to boot! So far, that hasn't been forthcoming, sigh.

Best, Mark
PS - a neighbor has picked up an open box TB for $40 from KMart. A TB meets the lower expectations of a eBook reader at this time for $40!

[Barnone]

I had two at $90 from Kmart and returned them both. Might go pick up an open box one or two for $40 each and wait for the hackers to fix the problems.