Hasta La Gadget!

Well it’s about time, Spring Design! After missing its February ship date, the company is finally ready for you to whip out the plastic and pre-order its Alex — that dual-screen, Android-based ereader we liked so much at CES. While you can shell out the $399 today, you’ll still have to wait until mid-April for the mailman to drop off the package. We’d like to say the wait stops there, but we’ve also learned that early buyers won’t have access to the promised Borders eBook store until June. When we chatted with Spring Design CEO Priscilla Lu last week she confirmed that Borders will officially launch its store in the “June time frame,” which will be around the very same time that the 3G version of the Alex will be ready to hit the market — at least there’s access to Google Books and an micro-SD card slot for sideloading in the meantime. With so much coming down the pike it may be worth waiting a bit more time for this one, but our own Alex arrived just last night so no matter what it’d behoove you to wait a few days for our review before you hit the source link to pre-order.

Update: Well, this is odd. Even though this news hit the wires today, the shop page on Spring Design’s website is definitely non-functional right now. Instead, you’ll see a message to check back soon. We’ll keep doing just that until we see signs of life… or hear otherwise.

Update 2: And we’re back…the pre-order page is finally up!

Spring Design Alex finally up for pre-order, Borders eBook store launching in June originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is it an Android tablet? An e-reader? Just a sweet gadget with two screens? Truth is the Entourage Edge is a little bit of everything, and that’s exactly why we’ve been so intrigued with the “dualbook” since we fondled it at CES. Finally ready to make its shipping debut, the $499 dual screen device is aimed at students, but really it’s for anyone interested in a combination 9.7-inch E Ink reading / note-taking experience and a 10.1-inch Android web tablet. It’s sounded very cool to us for quite a while, but there’s always a difference between hype and reality. Does the Edge live up to its promise or attempt to do too much? The only place to find out is after the break in our full review.

Continue reading Entourage Edge review

Entourage Edge review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spring Design Alex still not available for pre-order, ‘early spring’ ship date still planned originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been dying to know more about Microsoft’s Courier tablet / e-book device ever since we first caught wind of it last September, and while our entreaties to Mr. Ballmer went unanswered, we just learned some very interesting information from an extremely trusted source. We’re told Courier will function as a “digital journal,” and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed. That’s a lot smaller than we expected — this new picture really puts it into perspective — and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we’re told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD, Pink, and Windows Mobile 7 Series, which we’re taking to mean Windows CE 6.

As we’ve heard, the interface appears to be pen-based and centered around drawing and writing, with built-in handwriting recognition and a corresponding web site that allows access to everything entered into the device in a blog-like format complete with comments. We’re also hearing that there will be a built-in camera, and there’s a headphone jack for media playback. Most interestingly, it looks like the Courier will also serve as Microsoft’s e-book device, with a dedicated ecosystem centered around reading. It all sounds spectacular, but all we have for a launch date is “Q3 / Q4”, and we have no idea how much it’s going to cost, so we’re trying to maintain a healthy skepticism until any of this gets official — call us any time, Microsoft. One more pic showing the interface after the break.

Update: We’ve added a gallery of user interface shots — some of which we’ve seen and some of which are new.

Update 2: We’ve just gotten two full-length HD videos of the interface in action. We’ve seen parts of these before, but there’s some new stuff here that’s quite interesting. Check it below.

Continue reading Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’: exclusive pictures and details (update: video!)

Microsoft’s Courier ‘digital journal’: exclusive pictures and details (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were fortunate enough to get a quick moment with Samsung’s new assortment of e-readers back at CES, but the cool kids over at Notebook Italia were able to get the E6, E101 and E61 on video. There’s little doubt that these look awfully different than all of the other me-too options on the market, and the touch input seems to be extraordinarily responsive based on the demonstration. Speaking of which… hop on past the break to have a look yourself, cool?

Continue reading Samsung’s E6, E101 and E61 e-readers shown on video

Samsung’s E6, E101 and E61 e-readers shown on video originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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