Augen’s The Book

5/15/11 UPDATE  Zero Tech Support must disqualify my recommendation  on  this unit.

I’ve been toying with the idea of an eBook reader for months. When Barnes and Noble came out with the Nook I was almost hooked. The features and price were good.

As always, I dithered and reading last Sunday’s paper I saw an ad at Kmart for an eBook reader for $89.99 with a color LCD screen. I tried to get some data on it but the web was surprisingly empty of info on Augen and their products. The Aguen website is a veritable wasteland, practically no information.

I stewed over it for 24 hours and went over to Kmart to look at one, decided what the hey and bought one.

Initial impressions are important. The packaging was good and the book is nicely wrapped in a leather case. The manual is a bit of a joke. I’ve gotten more information on battery toothbrushes.

The unit has a nice feel to it. It isn’t too heavy and the screen is very clear and sharp.

The wi-fi connection was easily established but don’t plan on this being your web browser. The wi-fi was fairly slow. Google gmail was painfully slow as was Yahoo. I found substantial lag on many movements. However I will continue to point out, this is primarily an eBook reader not an all purpose pad.

The Calibre software is nice looking but doesn’t work smoothly with this device. Since I don’t have any other eBook readers I don’t know if Calibre is less quirky with other readers. It works but you need to persevere. I downloaded the Adobe Digital Editions software and tried downloading a free eBook off of Amazon. It was a DRM file and supposedly the Adobe software would recognize the free aspect and manage to put it on my eBook. Didn’t work. Since I don’t like the entire DRM policy, I haven’t pursued trying to make it work.

I loaded some mp3 files and it plays them just fine. If you want any sound out of the internal speakers you need to take the reader out of the leather case. Headphone jack is standard and the headphones sounded just fine.

I tried a couple of videos. A video I shot loaded but it was very choppy. I commercial video I downloaded wasn’t even recognized. Since I didn’t plan on watching videos on this I haven’t pursued that area but I am not impressed with the video aspect.

I like the option of adding an SD card but I can’t even imagine ever having that many books on it. I may try a video on that when I have the time.

The battery seems to hold a charge well. I have only charged it twice in the last 6 days.

The text editor works but I am not sure what you would use it for. Even with a full keyboard it is still a tiny keyboard although compared to my phone I guess it is huge.

The best feature of this reader is the actual reading part.

The words are clear, you can change the font, you can go from portrait to landscape. I sat out on the deck and watched the kids swim until well after dark. I was able to read with no issues. It would be nice if the paging button was back lit as I periodically lost the button when chastising the swimmers in regards to their behavior.

I loaded my book up with all my Baen free library books. If you like scifi Baen should be on your favorite/bookmarks list. It is a great site and there are some super books on it for free download. The reader comes with a bunch of free books. Loading the books wasn’t seamless but it worked ok.

Overall this is a very good unit particularly for the price.

Features and Specifications:

•E-Book Reader

•Wi-Fi Connectivity with Full Web Browsing Capability where available

•Built-In Speaker for sharing

•E-Book Conversion & Content

•File Management Software

•Content Provider Partner “ebooksmedia.com" with DRM/SDK9 license

•Can also play MP3 Audio Files

•Can play Video files

•2GB Internal Memory - Stores up to 1400 Books

•Standard SD Card Slot - allows memory Expansion or inserting audio and video files downloaded from your PC or Digital Camera

•Rechargeable Li-ion Battery

•Includes Leather Carrying Case

•includes WordPad for Note Taking/ Text Editing

•Read in Landscape or Portrait View

•Zoom In/Out Function

•Includes 150 pre-installed books

•Screen: 7" diagonal 800 x 480 Pixels color TFT

•Unit Dimensions: 8.9" x 5.1" x .5" / Weight: 10 ounces

•Formats: ADE for DRM content plus TXT, PDF, HTML, CHM, RTF, EPUB, FB2, MOBI/PRC

•Expansion capability using Optional choice of SD MMC SDHC card up to 8GB

•Accepts Image Files: JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG

•Sound File capabilities: MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC

•Video: WMV and MP4

•TTS (Text to Speech) supported

•Rechargeable Li-Ion battery 2100mAh (up to 8 hours in e-reader mode)

•QWERTY Keyboard

•CPU: Ingenic 4755, Arm9 400 MHz

•OS: Linux 2.6.24

•Also includes: User manual; Leather Carrying Case; UL Certified AC Adapter

This was not a paid blog.