We have seen the enTourage eDGe in Taiwan a month before its CES release last month, as they are already working with content providers in schools to start to test out virtual text books. But there is new news about the sale date bing pushed back by a month to March and some more details have been revealed by the company at a painfully slow rate. We have inculded a spec sheet at the end of the of the article right after our software hands on video.
We do know that it is going to retail for $490 which will put it in direct competition with the iPad, although the eDGe has a more direct and applicable focus especially if you are going to put it into schools. Working on group projects and sharing notes will be key, the one feature that I have been keeping my eye out for is character recognition and translating notes made on the e paper side to documents.
In an interview with e-reader-info, enTourage’s President and CEO Asghar Mostafa detailed how e book screen can be used with the lcd touch screen can be used on complimentary tasks.
* Drag the stylus across grayscale images on the E-Ink screen to view them in color on the LCD screen
* Attach Web pages, notes and video on the WiFi-enabled LCD screen to passages in an e-book
* Export PDF notes or revised documents (such as contracts that are marked up on the E-Ink side) so that they can be emailed to colleagues
* Open hyperlinks or view video embedded in an e-textbook on the netbook side
We are still a little hesitant to call it an ideal device for reading as its weight is a Hefty 3 pounds, think about holding a book weighing that much for hours while doing your homework. If you didn’t have wrist problems before, you probably will afterwards. Its not that we are against the idea, but we think its a great product to bring to market, i’ll just be waiting to see generation 2 at next years CES.
Below you can find our software demo, but one of the things that we noticed at CES was the lack of knowledge of the booth staff to run seamless and well explained demos. So we’ll stick with the one we got in Taiwan, even though the hardware was pre-production it was a better software demo then CES.
Via Gizmodo
Entourage eDGe Specification Sheet:
Dimensions: 8.25″ x 10.75″ by 1.0″ (closed)
Weight: approx. 3 lbs.
Internal Memory: 4 GB (3 GB for user) up to 3000 books
E-reader File Formats: ePub, PDF
LCD Touchscreen Display Size: 1024 x 600 (10.1″)
E-paper Display Size: 9.7″ e-Ink®(1200 x 825), 8 shades of gray
E-paper Input: Wacom® Penabled®
Operating System: Linux with Google® Android®
Screen Rotation: 90 and 180 degrees
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth capability
Battery Life: 16+ hours utilizing the e-reader screen / up to 6 hours running the LCD screen
Battery Type: Lithium-ion polymer
External Memory: SD card slot, 2 USB ports
Audio and Microphone Jack: 3.5 mm each. Includes internal microphone and speakers.
Audio playback: MP3, WAV, 3GPP, MP4, AAC, OGG, M4A
Video playback: 3GP, MP4, Adobe Flash Lite (H.264)
Input: Stylus input on e-paper and touchscreen. Virtual keyboard. USB keyboard (optional)
