Wow, between this and the Kakai unstealthify today, the dual screen ereader market just tripled in size in one day! Hopefully Entourage can keep up after their initial device got such lackluster reviews.
PressDisplay is a really neat periodical distribution platform. Nice to see it catching on!
Come on, Entourage! You can do it! Get your nifty device to market! I believe in you!
A whole bunch of pictures of the Entourage eDGe. These guys won an award early on (deservedly) so a lot of these shots are from the winner’s circle.
My father goes to CES every year for his business dealings, and this year I’m honored that he’s there representing my ventures along with his own. He’s spent a great deal of time checking out some ereader devices, and here’s what he thinks of each after going hands-on with them for a while and conversing with executives from each.
Plastic Logic QUE proReader: “Hands down the most impressive specialized device here in terms of design, both hardware and software. It’s ‘specialized’ because it’s really aimed at its very specific niche and it serves that market extremely well.
The hardware is slick and will result in many happy business people on planes since the battery lasts much longer than a laptop. The interface is well designed and puts the content quickly within reach, but having to sync it with Outlook could be the one hang-up. The announcement of a 3G model is a great step, and hopefully will bring along wireless syncing.”
Entourage eDGe: “These guys win for most versatile device. If this thing had a keyboard instead of an e-ink screen, it would just be a rather large netbook. The inclusion of the e-ink screen makes it something really unique and overall, it works surprisingly well.
One of the coolest features is being able to highlight a diagram or table on the black and white screen and display it on the color screen. This is a huge boon for textbook publishers who haven’t yet been shown that ebooks are a viable alternative for them.”
Havnon WISEreader: “What people may not realize in the States is that Havnon is a gigantic name in China, nearly a household name. Many international companies (think Nokia, Sony and Samsung) use Havnon technologies, software and patents in their devices.
Here at CES, they’re showing off some readers, but the more interesting aspect are the features of those readers that will show up in other devices thanks to Havnon’s willingness to license. Their executives are more excited about people coming up to them with OEM partnerships than purchasing agreements. Spefically, Havnon makes very impressive doodling and screen writing software [editor: think Wacom].”
Dad’s still walking around the show, so more impressions when I get them!
CES is like the nerd show that keeps on giving. My father spent lots of time with tons of devices today. His impressions will come later tonight. Here’s the straight up news of happened today at CES about ereaders and ebooks!
Plastic Logic QUE proReader in-depth video hands-on (Engadget)
Skiff and Marvell make it easy(er) for people to build their own e-ink devices (sorta) (Engadget)
Borders is the ebook store of choice for the Alex (mediabistro)
Mediabistro’s hands on with the Entourage eDGe (mediabistro)
COOL-ER reader was apparently developed in less than 8 months, is #1 in Europe (mediabistro)
Interview with CourseSmart’s Frank Lyman (mediabistro)
Pixel Qi promises screens in devices in 2010 (Engadget)
Speaking of Pixel Qi screens in devices, here’s the Notion Ink Adam (Engadget)
Bookeen debuts Orizon touchscreen ebook reader (Engadget)
Best selling author talks about ereaders and ebooks (mediabistro)
More time with Havnon’s WISEreader ereader lineup (Engadget)
Enough with the ereaders already, says Gawker (mediabistro)
There you have it! Our own hands on impressions coming later tonight.
Earlier today I touched upon the Entourage eDGe as a niche product for students, but this Wired article seems to disagree with me: this detailed hands on with the latest revision of the eDGe hardware seems to have nothing but love for the part netbook, part e-reader. I really love what Entourage is doing here. We’ll see how it stacks up against the myriad of announcements at CES!
Microsoft’s Courier demo was a really great view of what the future of tablet computing could be, but I disagree with what Peter Smith says about competing with the lower cost Entourage eDGe.
The eDGe is a niche product: it’s aimed at students currently in schools. While it can be used by a standalone user, it really shines when paired with some in-class software.
The Courier is aimed squarely at the same market Apple would be going after with their tablet. If the price on the Courier is low enough to leave a wide margin with Apple’s offering (which isn’t that hard to do, knowing Apple) then we will have a very interesting battle on our hands in the coming months.
