Hasta La Gadget!

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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For all the fuss made at its launch back in August, Sony’s Reader Daily Edition has all but dropped off the map in terms of interest. Remember, Sony’s response to the Kindle gave us a 7-inch touchscreen device with free AT&T 3G data for a street price of $399. Now we’ve got a proper in-depth review of the thing. On the plus side, the interface is simple and easy to understand right out of the box with nice, oversized icons suitable for your meat digit manipulation. Unfortunately, the Daily Reader was also sluggish. According to Laptop, it was common to suffer a delay of a few seconds after tapping an icon or other interface item. Worse yet, about a third of the time the Daily Reader’s touchscreen display wouldn’t respond to taps or swipes at all. Conversely, page turns responded with a relatively snappy (for E-Ink) one second delay — faster than both the Nook or the Kindle. The EPD display was also a bit “dull” compared to non-touchscreen e-readers like the Kindle and Nook thanks to the additional screen layer that enables touch — a common issue that affects all touch-enabled e-readers, we might add. This resulted in some eye strain in medium to low light. Connectivity also proved a sore spot. AT&T’s network would inexplicably drop out during testing. It was plenty fast, however, when available, capable of delivering new books to the device in just seconds. Performance still lagged both the Kindle and Nook during comparison testing though. Laptop‘s verdict isn’t surprising then, finding the $140 premium you’ll pay for the Daily Reader difficult to justify compared to the EPUB supporting Nook or Kindle 2 with its better design and superior content selection.

It’s worth noting that Laptop did not test the Daily Reader’s library finder services that lets you check out e-books from the local branch for free for a period of up to a month. A shame; as library nerds we think that’s one of the killer features compared to the competition.

Sony Reader Daily Edition reviewed: unworthy of cost premium or love originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve spent all our time hearing about a DR-950, but today at CeBIT ASUS has trotted out a DR-900 as its first 9-inch ebook reader. It doesn’t appear manifestly different from what we’ve heard and seen already, with WiFi connectivity augmented with a 3G option, and a battery life rated to last a pretty radical 10,000 pages on a single charge. The interface on show clearly invites touch interaction, and we can fill in a few gaps with what we know of the DR-950, namely a 1024 x 768 resolution on a Sipix panel, 4GB of integrated storage, 3.5mm headphone jack, and support for PDF, TXT, MP3 and ePUB files. We’ll be tracking down an official price and release date shortly, as well as smudging a few fingerprints on these before the day is through.

ASUS makes DR-900 e-reader official originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E-readers are getting better without a doubt. But cheaper? Not so much. The upcoming Spring Design Alex will sell for $359 — way out of reach for those who cruise the used book store scene. Freescale’s i.MX508 processor might finally make these things more of a smart buy, an 800MHz ARM-based chip that includes, among other things, USB host functionality and dedicated circuitry for controlling E-Ink panels. It’s effectively a system on a chip for the next-generation of would-be Kindle killers and it’ll sell for just $10 at volume, resulting in more advanced readers that could, according to Freescale, retail for $150. That’s the kind of price point that might just make Grandma stop digging through piles of dog-eared Stephen King books and get with the times.

Freescale’s new i.MX508 processor could mean cheaper, faster e-readers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The world’s first e-reader and netbook hybrid is set to start shipping next week. The dual-screen eDGe, made by Entourage, comes with a 9.7-inch E Ink screen on the left half, and a touchscreen LCD on the right, meaning you can use it as an e-reader, a notepad, or a regular netbook — at the same time.

“Pre-orders received by January 12 will start shipping at the end of this week. New orders will ship in March,” says Doug Atkinson, Entourage’s VP of Marketing and Business Development, in an interview with E-Reader.info.

The other big news is that Entourage launched its own e-book store to compete with the bigger boys, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the upcoming Apple iBooks store. Why not simply partner with someone already in the book business?

“Having our own e-bookstore allows us to offer books and documents based on our customer demand,” says Atkinson in the interview. Entourage is mostly aiming at public domain books – about a million of them in a partnership with Google – but have also managed to sign up publishers like Oxford Press, Ingram Digital and LibreDigital.

As reported by Gadget lab in January, the device will come with 4 GB storage, 2 USB ports and a SD card slot, weighing roughly 2.5 pounds. Which, when you consider Macbook Air’s 3 pounds, isn’t that light.

The $490 device runs on Google’s Android OS and will be able to handle Microsoft Office documents.

There seem to be some pretty cool features, though, especially when it comes to playing around between the two screens. You can drag a grayscale image from the E-Ink screen and view it in full color on the LCD one, or attach video (on the right screen) to a passage from an e-book (on the left screen).

When using two screens, or primarly the LCD screen, the battery life is 6 hours. When only using the E-Ink part, you can squeeze out about 16 hours out of your eDGe, the company claims.

Note: In case you were wondering why the weird capitalized letters, Entourage people say the “DG” in eDGe stands for “Digital Generation”. Edgy.