Have two. not happy really with them. I mean most the stuff already on the system works ok. Except the browser is outdated and there is no way to update it. Amazon market simply will not load on either of mine. The "rooting" process hits a brick wall in that the menu you're suppose to go to to do the rooting doesn't exist. The E-ink side is mediocre. Nowhere near the kindles smooth function. PDF's look like crap on it. ultimately at least for me this has not been a solid buy. I can't use youtube. I LOOOOOOOVE PONIES the Youtube app crashes immediately and can never find the media its trying to play.
Oh the list goes on and on. And worst thing I got mine last time for 60 bucks more. dammit.

sdc100 wrote:Well, the Edge was released for over $350 just a year ago so it's hardly a "cheap tablet." And if the company had not gone backrupt, it would probably still be selling for $150+, even $200+. The hardware and design reflects the price. For example, it uses a 1.2 GHz Marvell ARMADA PXA168 CPU (running at 1ghz, I believe), not the 500-800mhz CPU of cheaper tablets. And doesn't use a generic design which most Chinese-made tablets used. The Edge uses a proprietary design which is optimized. Overall, the performance compares very well with higher end $200+ tablets, although it won't run Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

As for the slow eInk refresh, that's a limitation of eInk technology and has nothing to do with the Edge. You'd see it on the Kindle, Sony and b/w Nook. You trade speed for low energy use. As for the lag, again, it's a limitation of eInk. If you want a faster screen, use the LCD side. There are also settings to increase eInk speed. For example, go into READER PREFERENCES and turn on the QUICK DRAW feature.

The accelerometer is one of the most overhyped least used features on a tablet. Except for very few games, it can't accomplish anything that a manual orientation screen can't accomplish.

My Edge doesn't struggle with Angry Birds. Did you upgrade from Android 1.6 to Android 2.2.?

At this price, it is a cheap tablet. It is the best cheap tablet out there, but it's still a cheap tablet.

Yes, I updated it. Angry birds, especially Angry Birds Rio, would slow down (framerate) especially when lots of boxes were breaking.

The lag of the e-ink for note-taking is what I was specifically griping about.

The performance doesn't compare well at all to $200+ dollar tablets like the Viewsonic Gtab. Try to play something like Pew Pew (which you can't because of the lack of multi-touch). The performance is much better than most sub $200 tablets however.

The accelerometer for automatic screen rotation was the most annoying feature missing for me. I'm used to my screens rotating automatically.

As for being used as an extension of a desktop, most of my customers that own tablets do A LOT, if not mainly for casual gaming. The lack of of multi-touch and accelerometer make it useless for this. I couldn't find a way to zoom in and out on Angry Birds, for instance.

Despite my criticisms, as I stated in the original post, its a steal at this price.

P.S., didn't have time to separate the quotes, but responses were point by point per the original quote.

lol your lucky. Any ver of angry birds crashes immediately on mine. As do many made for Android apps.

theguruguys wrote:At this price, it is a cheap tablet. It is the best cheap tablet out there, but it's still a cheap tablet.

Yes, I updated it. Angry birds, especially Angry Birds Rio, would slow down (framerate) especially when lots of boxes were breaking.

The lag of the e-ink for note-taking is what I was specifically griping about.

The performance doesn't compare well at all to $200+ dollar tablets like the Viewsonic Gtab. Try to play something like Pew Pew (which you can't because of the lack of multi-touch). The performance is much better than most sub $200 tablets however.

The accelerometer for automatic screen rotation was the most annoying feature missing for me. I'm used to my screens rotating automatically.

As for being used as an extension of a desktop, most of my customers that own tablets do A LOT, if not mainly for casual gaming. The lack of of multi-touch and accelerometer make it useless for this. I couldn't find a way to zoom in and out on Angry Birds, for instance.

Despite my criticisms, as I stated in the original post, its a steal at this price.

P.S., didn't have time to separate the quotes, but responses were point by point per the original quote.

A nice person, Mark Rehorst, over at mobileread set up a torrent. It contains the 2.2 upgrade and the original 1.6 in case for some reason you would want/need to downgrade. Instructions included in a text file. Also the manual is there in both epub and pdf formats.

I will leave my torrent client up for the next week or two, to help with the load. Maybe few others can do the same until most of us get the software downloaded.

http://www.rehorst.com/mrehorst/PocketEdge_updates.zip.torrent

I'm already seeding clients. I guess others found this torrent.

Barnes & Noble should make something like this with the color and e-ink display.

Hey groovy guys and groovy gals - thank you for an *excellent* discussion. Not much bickering; lots of good, in-depth info. I started at page one wondering why anyone would want such a weird contraption. Your love for a product that nicely fills a niche is clear. No, I'm not going to get one - Linux on an EeePC 900A and Android on a Droid X keeps me occupied, but it is tempting. Carry on!

friartek wrote:

I'm already seeding clients. I guess others found this torrent.

Just ignore me tonight.

Does anyone know (if at all) where to get screen protectors for these?

radi0j0hn wrote:Every time I see one of these, I am SO GLAD I got an iPad2 with 18 months same as cash (zero interest) at my local big box store. While others are fiddling with a crippled OS. I'm actually using my unit!

Except when you need to play/view Flash, lol

Very little fiddling required with the eDGe. It's very useful, especially with the Froyo upgrade.

walterbyrd wrote:"fold it so that one screen faces you and the other faces away"

Does this really fold all the over?

Yes. That's one of the things that makes its hinge so cool!

sdc100 wrote:I just tried plugging in a 1 tb drive and although it recognized that a USB device was plugged in, it claimed that the drive was empty. Nothing I tried allowed it to see the contents. Maybe a smaller drive would work. Or maybe it requires that the drive be formatted in FAT, which would make sense since flash drives are in FAT format. My drive is in NTSF.

I hadn't thought of that... yes, since the eDGe is an Android (Linux) device, it probably lacks the drivers to read an NTFS drive. Maybe it could read a ext2/3/4-formatted drive?

thedietcokeofevil wrote:
So far I like what I hear, but if somebody REALLY wanted to send me over the moon, you could tell me that someone has put together an NES/SNES emulator for this and a driver for a USB controller.

Pack light for your lunar voyage... I don't know for certain that Nesoid will run on the eDGe, but it's one of several NES emulators for Android devices:
http://www.nesoid.com/

Not sure about the USB controller though... most tablets don't have a full-sized USB port, so I'm thinking that it's unlikely that a driver would be available. But Google anyway.

I think a lot of people posting need to watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r1CZTLk-Gk

Everything is amazing, and no one is happy. Here you have both an e-reader, using e-ink, on the other side, you can watch a full MOVIE...and what do people say?

Oooo it lags when I play angry birds! Jesus people, this is an amazing piece of technology for the price of lunch and a full tank of gas.

thedietcokeofevil wrote:someone mentioned that you can hook up an external drive to this with the USB port? Can anyone verify that? Because that is awesome. Holy hell, if that's the case you can buy a portable HDD pretty cheap, load it up with whatever movies and music you want, and this becomes a pretty handy little travel gadget. Back in the early days of the PSP that was always my greatest frustration, that it seemed like such an OBVIOUS oversight not to include the ability to add a more substantial external data source.

I have to say to all the haters on here, I think most people realize this is not an iPad. I've had a niggling notion to buy an eReader for a while now (so I don't have to pay for the ridiculous number of books that exist in the public domain), and having looked around, this seems like a pretty good deal for someone who doesn't mind putting in a little bit of effort upgrading.

To be fair though, I haven't actually received mine yet. I may sing a different tune after it arrives, but I'm optimistic.

Yes some external hard drives will work; however if the HD needs more power then the edge can provide it will not. I have an external HD that comes with a y-cable to use both USB ports and it works fine.

jamesraykenney wrote:
Rumors are that CyanogenMod is being ported!!! That is Android 2.3!!!

Where does this information come from?

thedietcokeofevil wrote:
So far I like what I hear, but if somebody REALLY wanted to send me over the moon, you could tell me that someone has put together an NES/SNES emulator for this and a driver for a USB controller.

There is something along these lines;
Nesoid Lite is a Nintendo Entertainment (NES) ROM emulator for the Android mobile platform.?

Blacksunshine420 wrote:Have two. not happy really with them. I can't use youtube. I LOOOOOOOVE PONIES the Youtube app crashes immediately and can never find the media its trying to play.

Use the 1.3 app for dingo and the 2.2.1.6 app for ermine. YouTube app for Android provides you easy to use interface to the world's most popular online video community YouTube.com.

sdc100 wrote:Here's the link to upgrade from Android 1.6 to Android 2.2. Make sure you download the PE version (for Pocket Edge) not the EE version.

http://cdn.entourageedge.com/permine/update.zip.ermine-0.9

You can read more about the update procedure here:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134237

Excellent links here:
http://www.runboard.com/bedgehackersforum.p336

You can get apps from Amazon's Android marketplace, or simply Google the title with an APK extension. Download and copy into your tablet.

None of the entourage websites work. any idea how to get the upgrade from a third party website?

fxfuji wrote:If no one is able to post a link for the Froyo upgrade, I'll upload my copy of it to a file-sharing website for the Woot community. (Edit: I see links posted before me... never mind)

The CPU is supposedly runs at 800 MHz, though it's rated to run at 1.2 GHz. In theory, you could coax it to run at the higher speed (probably would need to root it and then hack its settings), but I wouldn't recommend doing it.

Why not? First, you'll drain the battery faster... proportionally to the speed increase. The CPU will consume 50% more power at 1.2 GHz vs. 800 MHz.

But more importantly, the CPU will also run hotter, and the device probably wasn't designed to handle the additional thermal load. I suspect that the enTourage engineers deliberately underclocked the CPU so that it would consume less power and dissipate less heat.

In any event, as sdc mentions, it plays videos without hiccuping, so it's plenty powerful enough as it is and doesn't require overclocking for normal use. One key is the Froyo upgrade (improved response over the stock OS).

Though I haven't done it myself, I have heard of owners who have connected keyboards via the USB port. Just for kicks, I may try to access a 1TB external HD with it.

please post link for upgrade... other links I've tried that are posted here don't work

suzegen wrote:please post link for upgrade... other links I've tried that are posted here don't work

You might want to check out my post near the top of this page(8). It has a URL for a torrent. I know it is working because I'm watching my torrent client statistics and I am currently uploading to other clients. An individual over at mobileread was kind enough to set it up.

I'm not going to presume here. In case someone is asking what a "torrent" is -- it is a peer to peer file sharing protocol which allows multiple clients to share the work load of feeding the data to those trying to download that data. Depending on how it is configured you could even be feeding others while your are download the data yourself. Very efficient way of downloading while the load is being shared in the uploading. If enough clients are sharing it can also be very fast.

If you don't already have a torrent client on your system, there are several out there to choose from. Just do a search and you will have several to choose from.

If you decide to download the upgrade this way and afterwards you leave your client up and running you could help your fellow Woot!ers to get the upgrade.

BTW, the file pointed to by the URL is very small and only contains information that is used by your torrent client to find the actual data to be downloaded.

friartek wrote:You might want to check out my post near the top of this page(8). It has a URL for a torrent. I know it is working because I'm watching my torrent client statistics and I am currently uploading to other clients. An individual over at mobileread was kind enough to set it up.

I'm not going to presume here. In case someone is asking what a "torrent" is -- it is a peer to peer file sharing protocol which allows multiple clients to share the work load of feeding the data to those trying to download that data. Depending on how it is configured you could even be feeding others while your are download the data yourself. Very efficient way of downloading while the load is being shared in the uploading. If enough clients are sharing it can also be very fast.

If you don't already have a torrent client on your system, there are several out there to choose from. Just do a search and you will have several to choose from.

If you decide to download the upgrade this way and afterwards you leave your client up and running you could help your fellow Woot!ers to get the upgrade.

Got the torrent. Thanks - could not find file anywhere else. I don't have the gadget yet but will upgrade as soon as it arrives.

If you select PDF reflow from the view menu, you should then have 6 levels of zoom to increase your font size. Make sure that fit to page is de-selected...

KyserSoze wrote:I got a red one last time around. I was unable to get google android apps to work and everything I read said it was impossible, but Amazon apps work good and they have many free, and a paid app for free every day. Most apps work but not all. The pocket edge plays xvid videos fine unless they're encoded with 5.1 channel sound. If you're looking for free books, go to easynews and search for files with the "epub" extension. I didn't like the way pdf's show up on the eink side, too small! Overall, I think it's a great product at a very good price, but mine still works.

Now the test of everybody's patience. Who will break first with the inevitable question?

"Has it shipped yet?"

The answer is sadly NO. They could start shipping on Monday. For anyone new here remember under "normal conditions" Woot! has to the end of day next Friday to ship. Also, remember the day of the sale doesn't count as the 1st business day. So; be patience. Just like you I'll be waiting for that email with the tracking number. They have never failed yet to send me one(knock on wood).

Good luck to everyone.

I bought one of these the first time it was on woot! and I'm quite satisfied with it, fully knowing all of its limitations. Not being in academia, I really don't have that much of a need for it but it's definitely a fun secondary (or tertiary or quaternary) device; I later bought a Xoom when it appeared on woot! and use that for entertainment media on the road when not needing to carry my netbook for more serious productivity. I did take the PE on a road trip and enjoyed being able to read PDFs on the e-ink side despite bright sunlight streaming into the car. I can see using this on the job when visiting construction sites and not wanting to subject my netbook or my Xoom to construction dust and other hazards.

That said, I knew ahead of time I didn't really need one and there's a definite possibility I'll sell mine (and even my netbook) sometime in the next year or two as I transition to my Xoom. I'm still evaluating things as product offerings change.

Has anyone found a suitable basic sleeve for these?

friartek wrote:In step three(3) you can use either a USB Stick or an MicroSD card. Several people have reported that they could not get it to work on the USB Stick(including me). The MicroSD card worked fine. This gives your an option just in case.

When I upgraded mine, it worked fine with my USB flash drive.

fxfuji wrote:Pack light for your lunar voyage... I don't know for certain that Nesoid will run on the eDGe, but it's one of several NES emulators for Android devices:
http://www.nesoid.com/

That is awesome news. Thanks for the info!

Very excited to get mine in the mail X)

I got the Entourage Edge that is the one that had a 10.1 inch dual screen. I purchased it from Staples and later purchased the pocket version for under $100. I order accessories and when I called to about returning the sleeve, the customer service person refused and when I asked for a supervisor I was told they would call back. She returned my call an gave me a number and it was tech support. I could not get a RMA from them at all. I contested the charge with my credit card and they could not get in contact with anyone from the company. So they agreed to give me $40 credit as a courtesy. I wrote a review on Staple website and Staples Sales rep. called me and I explain my situation with the company. And I return to Staples the 10.1 Entourage. Entorageedge.com website is gone. The company did not last. They came up with a great ideal for students to download text books but gave the device the poorest qualities. You can't Skype, there are no magazine to download and now since there website it closed you can't get tech support. I would have not recommended this to anyone. HOLD ON TO YOU STYLUS BECAUSE YOU COULD ONLY PURCHASE AN ADDITIONAL ONE FROM THEM. Before there website shut down they had a 40% off sale and the additional battery for the 10.1 inch called the Edge was sold out first. I sold mine on ebay. I still have 3 new stylus. I would have not purchase it for $79, I would put that money tolds a better device. All who order this item good luck. Staple "cut ties" with them and stop selling there tablet.
Unfortunately they this company did it to themselg by not give the public a quality device.

I missed the SquareTrade warrantee. I, never even saw the banner. Does anyone know if it is still possible to get the warrantee?

deecastile wrote:I missed the SquareTrade warrantee. I, never even saw the banner. Does anyone know if it is still possible to get the warrantee?

Yeah, I forgot to pick it up too, but if you go back to the PWNIES! of comments and click on the name of the product in WootBot's post it will take you to the full write-up and the Square Trade banner is there.

And remember to do a search for coupon codes!

pjkatz wrote:...HOLD ON TO YOU STYLUS BECAUSE YOU COULD ONLY PURCHASE AN ADDITIONAL ONE FROM THEM...

NOT true, any 'pen enabled' stylus will work. The 'pen enabled' stylus is needed on the eInk as any stylus or your finger will work on the LCD.

does anybody know when woot will start to ship?

Waiting on my item to show shipped -- in the mean time I'm thinking of how to upgrade the storage capacity. Any idea how this would be possible or if it is doable at all?

Thank You, mossygreen. I got it!

mossygreen wrote:Yeah, I forgot to pick it up too, but if you go back to the PWNIES! of comments and click on the name of the product in WootBot's post it will take you to the full write-up and the Square Trade banner is there.

And remember to do a search for coupon codes!

Impatiently waiting for shipping, woot woot, please I will beg. Beg Beg beg. Shameless I know.

yahdmon wrote:Waiting on my item to show shipped -- in the mean time I'm thinking of how to upgrade the storage capacity. Any idea how this would be possible or if it is doable at all?

If you're talking about changing out the internal memory or flash memory - I haven't heard of anyone doing this. From what I've read, it will take a microSD(SDHC) card up to 32GB. There is a switch that will allow you to switch between the internal storage and the SD card as the primary data storage.

Switching back after exceeding the 3 GB internal storage capacity may cause issues. Haven't tried this.

Is this still seeding?

friartek wrote:A nice person over at mobileread set up a torrent. It contains the 2.2 upgrade and the original 1.6 in case for some reason you would want/need to downgrade. Instructions included in a text file. Also the manual is there in both epub and pdf formats.

I will leave my torrent client up for the next week or two, to help with the load. Maybe few others can do the same until most of us get the software downloaded.

http://www.rehorst.com/mrehorst/PocketEdge_updates.zip.torrent

I'm already seeding clients. I guess others found this torrent.

Thank you very much!

friartek wrote:A nice person over at mobileread set up a torrent. It contains the 2.2 upgrade and the original 1.6 in case for some reason you would want/need to downgrade. Instructions included in a text file. Also the manual is there in both epub and pdf formats.

I will leave my torrent client up for the next week or two, to help with the load. Maybe few others can do the same until most of us get the software downloaded.

http://www.rehorst.com/mrehorst/PocketEdge_updates.zip.torrent

I'm already seeding clients. I guess others found this torrent.

shutttleman wrote:Is this still seeding?

MBs uploaded keeps climbing.

shutttleman wrote:Is this still seeding?

I am still seeding and will continue to do so for a while

Though I was not the first sucker, I was pulled in to the idea of the Dual (Multiple) possibilities.
Awaiting the item, though I am sure the wait will be worth the experience.
Thanks Woot and enTourage

Wish enTourage was still in business on these type products.