enTourage Pocket eDGe review: first look

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

The enTourage eDGe (and its irritatingly random capitalisation) was one of the surprise hits of last year’s CES: a dual-screen eBook reader with a 9.7in e-paper display on one side and a 10.1in LCD screen on the other.

This year the company is back with the Pocket eDGe – a smaller and much more practical alternative to its ground-breaking forebear.

The right-hand side acts as a touchscreen tablet running Google’s Android. Its 7in colour touchscreen boasts a resolution of 800 x 480, and it’s an impressively vibrant, responsive display at that.

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Sony’s new eBook readers: first-look review

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

I’ve just returned from an event to launch the new generation of Sony eBook readers and I came away as intrigued as I was impressed. The new Reader Touch Edition and Reader Pocket Edition were on show, and lovely devices they are indeed.

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Asus E-Reader DR-950 review: first look at CeBIT

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Sitting in plastic display holders in a corner of Asus’ huge stand here at CeBIT in Hannover, are two unassuming little eBook readers. From a distance they look just as generic as most of the other models on the market. Get closer though, and things start to look more interesting. Turn one on and it gets better still.

First, there’s the screen size. With a 9in e-ink display and relatively narrow bezel, it feels a lot more like a portable screen than a portable computer, unlike the Amazon Kindle. Once you switch it on you can immediately see it’s not just big – it’s high resolution too, at 1,024 x 768. That’s the highest resolution we’ve seen, with the rest of the competition at 800 x 600.

It wasn’t just me who was impressed. Our eBook expert Stuart Turton, who’s with me in Germany, couldn’t suppress a grin when he first tried to navigate his way around the interface.
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enTourage eDGe: the dual-screen eBook reader

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

We’re expecting to see several companies launch dual-screen eBook readers at this year’s CES, but first out of the blocks is a little-known US company called enTourage Systems.

The enTourage eDGe (the company’s ridiculous capitalisation, not ours) was the highlight of the CES Unveiled event, which gives journalists a sneak preview of what’s set to appear this year’s show.  It has a  9.7in e-paper display on one side and a 10.1in LCD screen on the other, both of which are touchscreens, allowing you to annotate eBooks with handwritten notes or scan through web pages with the flick of a finger on the LCD screen.

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Living with an eBook reader

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

As PC Pro’s resident book fiend I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing nearly every eBook reader released on these shores. I popped my eBook cherry reading “Farewell, My Lovely” on the Sony PRS-505. This was followed by “Moby Dick” on the Cybook Gen 3, “The Jungle Book” on the BeBook and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” on the Cool-er – which takes the award for most disturbing book I’ve ever read.

I know some people are sceptical about this technology, but while I love paperbacks, eBook readers perfectly suit my reading habits. Just to establish those habits, I read two-to-three books a week and probably buy six or seven every fortnight. About half of those books I’ll give away, lose, or destroy while the other half slowly take over whatever house I happen to be living in. The ability to stick 850 books on a device smaller than a single paperback means that when I finally do buy a house I won’t need to worry about hiring the Royal Navy to ship my entire library for me.

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