Overview
A little electronics firm headquartered in Florida, Augen is known for low-priced MP3 players, netbooks, and tablets. A 7-inch device named the Book is their initial entry into the e Reader market.
The device is somewhat similar to the black Kindle in its appearance, but this is as far as it goes; Augen The Book is not a true e-reader; it is actually a multimedia device.
The device’s low cost, the usual Augen strategy, is designed to shake things up in the eReaders industry. Augen The Book Reader, which has an MSRP of $99.99, is for people who want to find a discount e-reader that gives alternative options for reading.
Augen The Book Reader’s measurements are 8.9 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches, and it weighs ten ounces, so it is both larger and heavier than Kindle 3.
TFT LCD screen is actually a wider screen, measuring 7 inches in width. The screen resolution, which is 800 x480 pixels, is not quite as high as the resolution found on the Kindle 2, which is 600 x 800 pixels. Be that as it may, it has bright color images without a touch added layer on the screen. Additionally, I didn’t experience as much reflected glare with Augen The Book eReader as I did with the iPad.
Additionally, the brightness and contrast can be changed in order to make reading the font easier to see. The text is even readable in direct sunlight as long as the screen is tilted away from the sun.
You can turn the pages on either side of the unit, which allows the user to use one hand exclusively; you can also use either the right hand or the left hand. A QWERTY keyboard is located beneath the screen and can be used for searching the Internet, typing emails, and other tasks. You will find the HOME button/MENU button on the lower right hand corner. It is arc shaped and circles halfway around the small D-pad.
Augen The Book Reader is good for more than just reading because it includes a music player, a video player, and a complete web browser. Additionally, the built-in WiFi offers another method to search online.
Augen The Book Reader is similar to Kindle in that it has a text-to-speech function that reads eBooks out loud if they are PDF based. Even though this device does not have any function for book annotations, you can always type notes, and edit them using WordPad.
With this device, you can utilize AVI and MP4 video formats, Adobe ePub and PDF, TXT, DOC, CHM, RTF, FB2, HTML, MOBI, and PRC text files, MP3 and WMA audio formats, BMP, GIF, JPG, and PNG image formats. It has 2 GB of storage, so this makes it capable of handling as many as 1,400 books at the same time.
An SD expansion slot is provided for up to 32GB capacity which is handy if you want to store volumes of videos and music. You can watch two or three movies and read a few chapters in your book on one charge with the Augen eBook Reader because a charge lasts eight hours.
Positives
NO FLASHBACK on page-turn, FULL WEB as opposed to the stripped down version on cell phones, Vibrant COLOR screen, SD expandable slot, case included, Web functional QWERTY keyboard, Web Browsing, PRICE, Easy to use, WI-FI, Note pad, Free Books.
Negatives
It’s a bit heavy. Augen The Book ereder’s web browser is not very fast, but this is to be expected. After all, it is not supposed to be a notebook or desktop computer. While the case that comes with it is excellent, the prongs keeping it in place may need some adjustments.
Bottom Line
Basically, Augen The Book is a very good e-reader. I was not interested in spending too much money on another more well-known e-reader. I read numerous reviews, spending time searching the Internet for numerous perspectives. Augen may not be as lovely to look at as Nook and Kindle, but it does do exactly the same things and then some for a lot less money.
The details and colors of the screen are absolutely awesome. The Nook has a flashback option whenever you turn a page or scroll down a page, but this device does not offer a flashback option. The device provides a full QWERTY keyboard and compatibility with the Internet, just like the Kindle. I have logged in to my Wi-Fi and searched the Internet without any problems.
It also includes an area that is made for note taking, whether it is class notes or daily reminders. Scan Disk is supported as well. Among many things like viewing movies and pictures, you can read books or let the e-reader read to you.
I would recommend this item to any person who enjoys reading and traveling or simply does not enjoy waiting unless they have something to do. This fantastic e-reader is tiny and yet has so many functions. I do not understand why neither Nook nor Kindle have screens with color, SD slots and typical additional choices that are similar to this e-reader.
Design
The Augen Book eReader is designed to support PRC text formats, Adobe EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, DOC, CHM, RTF, TXT & HTML. The device costs less than a hundred dollars, so you can’t really complain. It has some good points, but I wouldn’t list reading as one of them.
DRM-protected EPUBs frequently have missing paragraphs and sentences. Additionally, they have very large margins that are not adjustable. In landscape mode everything is squeezed to the center. Furthermore, there is no way to modify or adjust the features you normally expect to be able to use easily with an e-reader (e.g. dictionary, layout, highlight passages, background color, add notes, line-spacing, etc.)
Looking at it from a positive perspective, DRM free ebooks have fairly nice display screens, with the exception that The Book does not appear to recognize the apostrophe in certain books, and places a space after every apostrophe, causing words to appear as follows: don’ t. The font is particularly bold, dark and well-defined, and options are available for the following: changing the type of font, spacing lines, making new margins and alignment capabilities.
PDF does not work well, as the narrow screen is a poor fit for PDF documents. Zoom function comes and goes, re-flow is non-existent, PDFs are not rotated automatically by the G-sensor, so it’s necessary to set it on the highest zoom level if you want to switch to landscape view. Once you’ve done all that, you can read PDFs pretty well. When trying to load a large PDF file, it will be time consuming, sometimes causing freezes, and it will not reliably turn pages.
Generally speaking, Augen The Book has some good points as an e-reader; however, there are still some bugs to work out. This is especially true with PDF and DRM’s eBooks. Most devices offer features that you won’t find on this device, such as the ability to look up words in the dictionary, highlighting, adding notes, and so on.
Video Functions
The Augen The Book ereader’s best feature is its ability to play videos. Both MPEG-4 and AVI video formats are supported. JR.com specifications say that WMV is a supported format; however, I wasn’t able to get that format to work. It loaded and started to play; then it stopped and went to the home-screen. There were several MP4s included in this test, and they were all good. None experienced jumpiness or lag except right at start up and when adjusting volume.
When watching a video, you can use the navigator wheel in order to fast forward or backward; all you need to do is press the Navigator wheel button. It lacks a menu system or indicator that shows the progress and length of a movie. Aside from that, if you must stop playing the video during the movie, it won’t take you back to the place where you left off, and you won’t be able to find it without fast forwarding through the movie.
Located on the back of the unit and hidden by the case, the speaker is not excessively loud. Unless there is no noise in the room, you will find that you need the headphones.
Life of the Battery
The life of the battery did not seem to last very long in the beginning, but after it was charged several times it seemed to last longer and now has a five to eight hour life. On the final test, I watched two complete movies and read several chapters of an eBook. Then I attempted to watch a third movie, and it was almost over when the battery died. The brightness was only on 50% at that point.
Pictures
BMP, GIF, JPG and PNG image files are supported according to its specifications. You can zoom in and rotate images manually. If you turn the device on its side, images will rotate automatically.
Some JPG files opened up just fine, but other ones gave me an “UNSUPPORTED FLIE” error message (not my typo – theirs!)
Music
There is a music player that has been built into Augen The Book, and it has the capacity to play both MP3, as well as WMA, audios. Due to the fact that the speaker is in the back of the device and is also covered by its case, the sound quality is not very good. The headphone jack is a small size, 2.5 mm, therefore headphones will probably need adapters.
The audio player is simple. It does not have any additional features such as advanced sorting, custom play lists or a shuffle option. The only features available are the play and pause features, along with the ability to skip tracks.
Some improvements are needed with Augen The Book ereader’s Web Browser and Wi-Fi. Every single time the unit is turned off, a re-scan for a network is required, then you are asked to enter your password again; sometimes it does not even recognize your password after you enter it, but you do need to let it know every time you want to connect. I had a problem getting the password to work properly; at first, it worked for about two hours, but then it would no longer recognize my password for a few days; it now recognizes my password, and I do not know why I had this problem in the first place.
Adhering to the idea of all the other applications, the web browser is quite basic. The main menu has two different options: you can mark a page as your favorite, which then becomes part of a folder located on the home screen, and an open URL option; the favorite folder cannot be accessed inside of the actual browser.
When Augen The Book is browsing online, the pages on the web browser have scroll bars on the left and right sides of the screen, as well as on the top and bottom of the screen. The space bar scrolls down each page and there is a Next page button that brings the scroll bar up to the top of the page. There are two buttons located on the screen’s left side that keep moving around pages and can go to other hyperlinks.
The nav wheel controls the pointer that allows hyperlinks to be clicked and also provides scrolling.
This web browser is generally sufficient if you must use it; you have the ability to download ebooks while using it, but it does demand a bit of patience because, similarly to most other e-reader web browsers, it is quite slow.