And what's your problem with Oval corners? Are you some sort of an oval corner discriminator? LMAO!

The screen can easily have sharp angles in an oval casing. It's just that I preferred the rendered version better than the actual prototype. That is all.

I have big (not to be confused with deep) pockets.


Spec wise, I agree with you. Looks wise... not so much. But again, a manufacturer cannot please all of the people all of the time.

Maemo could easily run all its programs on multiple platforms. Plus desktop software.

Thanks John,

I like inking, but I'm not sure I like it enough to forgo the form-factor and functionality of the Adam (Slate design, thin/light, small bezel, Tegra2, Pixel Qi, ultra-long battery life). Since this is likely going to be a semi-casual tool, I'd easily give up inking for the user-experience that the Adam provides.

I suppose my quest for pen-input is a wish, but a wish that must be implemented properly to be considered a factor in my purchase. The eDGe, while nice, only has pen input on the e-ink display, and then forgoes many of the qualities that I love about the Adam.

But I'll keep an open mind and try both of them out (or pour over reviews -- which is far more likely up here in the frozen north).

As for the 'palm recognition' () software, it seems that Ten One design is fairly competitive with its capacitive-pen line, and it wouldn't take much to see that this type of a tool on an barrage of coming android tablets could be lucrative. Perhaps a special app will be designed to take advantage of this. Perhaps this will come in the Adam 2. I will continue to hope, but for fear of an early end, will not hold my breath!

What do you find most compelling about the eDGe? How do you envision using it, and why does the Adam only slightly (if I interpret your first post correctly) out-pace it?

}:^)~

I agree. I read somewhere before that Canonical was implementing an android-layer for Ubuntu. If this happens, it'll be an easy port to Maemo, which will have the benefit of running linux ports and android apps!

For a device like this, though, unless it ships with maemo, I suspect the difficulty of a proper port will be too prohibitive. I certainly don't have the time or motivation to try to shoehorn the OS onto the device for the small benefit of running 'real-linux'. But the benefit of doing that to someone else may be much greater and worth the effort.

}:^)~

I got excited about the eDGe because it was the first 10" android tablet-ish device announced, the first android e-reader announced, and the first android e-paper device announced. It kind of gives all of the benefits of those things (which also retaining the benefits of a color LCD android device, for media viewing and such). Low power consumption of an e-paper device, e-book reading on a decent screen size, and just about everything I do on a netbook (web pages, web apps, notes, ssh, vnc).

I kind of like the "dual-book" idea (OLPC2 concept, MS Courier concept, etc.), but only if it's done right. In retrospect, I don't think the eDGe is ideal in its dual-book implementation "ideal" would be if I could use the non-color screen as a virtual keyboard/trackpad, so that it becomes a sort of virtual netbook ... but you can't do that on the eDGe, because the non-color screen isn't touch enabled, only pen enabled. It wouldn't be as good as a real keyboard, but it'd be somewhat useful, I think (the "virtual netbook" idea is a "nice to have", not a "must have", to me, though). Also, the OLPC2 lends itself to being used as 1 large screen. The eDGe doesn't (but that's actually a minor misfeature). So, the dual-book format is interesting, and the eDGe uses it to _technically_ (but not elegantly) meet my desire for both a color LCD and a low-power e-paper display.

My main disappointment with the eDGe is actually the lack of video-out. I want to be able to hook it up to a KVM (or maybe even a TV) to use for various other tasks.

The Adam, with its pixelqi display, gives you the same things (except the virtual netbook format), plus it has video-out. I don't need the pen input, so that part isn't a negative to me. It was the first device to be announced that really hit all of my bullet items (the eDGe hitting almost all of my bullet items, enough to be compelling), including the pixelqi display.

An Android version of the HP tablet (which is rumored to be coming) is also an interesting/compelling device. Probably one step down from the Adam, if it doesn't have a pixelqi display.

But, if what you start with is: "I want an Android/Ubuntu/Maemo/Mac-OS-X (not iPhone-OS-X) 9 or 10 inch tablet", with LCD for color, and e-paper for reading and low-power consumption, and KVM ports for use at a desktop (or at least USB keyboard support, for fast typing in a meeting or classroom) ... then you can see how those 3 devices all sort of scratch that itch quite well. And it should also explain why the Adam displaced my interest in the eDGe. The only thing that that the eDGe might do better than the Adam, at this point, depends on just how compelling the eDGe's e-book store is (and whether or not I can get those same titles through other e-book stores).

Great! That was tremendous.

I had no idea the eDGe had no video out! Lack of video out is a deal-killer for me, as this feature is tremendously useful (I use video out on my netbook all the time, despite its pathetic performance). Sometimes you want to view things on a larger screen, and a portable device makes a fantastic receptacle for photos and DVD rips.

I suspect that with the onslaught of tablets on the horizon, the great majority them being android tablets, the eDGe bookstore will likely have many competitors offering a sizable collection of books. Even amazon has a kindle app on the iphone, so I suspect with the growing popularity of android, an kindle or similar app is bound for the platform (if one doesn't exist already). Plus there's always FBReader and centuries of classics .

The Adam is just so damn elegant in construction. The PixelQi screen puts it right over the edge offering function or performance depending upon your needs. The tegra is blazing and I'm excited to hear that tegra may be the de-factor tablet processor (which may enable a new generation of game titles for android). The form factor is perfect (9" really is the perfect size): not too big, not to small. The battery life is amazing and with the cellphone-esque auto-sleep function, it won't have to be put to sleep like a traditional netbook. The matte screen announced is a CLEAR indication that these guys have thought this machine through thoroughly, plus it's highly functional.

I've seen other tablets at this years CES (not first hand), but none of them rub me the same way the Adam does. Here's hoping that its not vapor (it looked as though it was running a Tegra dev-kit), and will be released this year.

Here's a question, would you pay $499 for it? I know I would, and I highly suspect that the speculated $299 is far too low. Perhaps $399 is more realistic...

}:^)~

Not to mention that e-reader.com has an Android app for e-books from their store (which is a subsidiary of B&N). It also works with one other e-book store, and it ought to work with any Android device (including the Adam, and eDGe), but I suspect it wont have the special bindings that would work with the 2nd screen on the eDGe, nook, or Alex (so, I bet it will only display on the LCD screens that each of those have). In a way, that's a bit of a "win" for the Adam's methodology. But it should also work fine on the ICD android tablets, and the HP android tablet. Unfortunately, those don't have pixelqi displays (as far as I know).


Would I pay $499? Yeah, if I had to. I think the $300 +/- $50 estimate that was on several CES rumor blogs would be amazingly cool. But, if I'm willing to pay $450-$500 for the eDGe, and I like the Adam more, then I ought to be willing to pay that much (or a little more) for the Adam.

However, there's one big IF attached to that $300 price tag. It might be a "subsidized price" (one of the rumors says the founder/creator said "$300", and another one of the rumors says that he also said "it will be subsidized"). If that's the case, then the unsubsidised, or "no 3G", price could be a lot higher. So ... we just have to wait and see. Hopefully they'll make their April ship date (some of their stuff says June, but in one of the interviews at CES, he was asked for a ship date, and he said April).

Come June, I doubt I'll own an Apple Tablet (real or not), but if the reality of the other tablets I'm interested in doesn't pan out, and the Apple Tablet does pan out ... then it _could_ happen. I might own an eDGe, HP, or ICD tablet (if the 11" comes out). Hopefully, though, instead of any of those, I'll have an Adam. :-)

(that's pretty much my short-list of tablets that I'm interested in, in descending order of interest:
Adam
eDGe/HP*
ICD
Apple)

(* not sure if I like the HP more or less than the eDGe ... the eDGe has an e-paper screen, but the HP only has one screen so there's no app confusion and compatibility oddities, and it should have KVM support ... hard to weigh those against each other; but the ICD is 11", so even if it becomes real, it's just slightly larger than I want to consider)

I remember seeing ereader.com before, but didn't know that they had an android client (or any client for that matter). That's good news.

I'd be extremely surprised if the client didn't work on for the tablets with the larger screens. If the client works for the G1, and the Droid, then it can already handle different resolutions and scale it's type according to physical screen dimensions. It's not simple scaling, or the droid type would be ~2x smaller. Since the tablets have a very similar aspect ratio, the only added challenge would be to handle a non-static physical screen size. The thing is, a developer would literally have to go out of his way to do this (including constants for page width when wrapping text), and it would be easier to see where having a non-static physical screen size would be handy especially for many devices. Half of me thinks that they're just pumping generated HTML through the webkit renderer: that's what I would do as its quick, easy and solves the problem quite elegantly.

$299 +/- $50 subsidized sounds much more reasonable. Of course there's still time to be surprised yet.

I'm interested to see what apple brings to the table. The speculated price is $1000, and there are rumors that apple is buying up 10" LCD and OLED screens. I'm thinking that apple is going for more of a notebook appeal with the iSlate which could make it very enticing. There are a lot of slate PCs on the market that would be much more attractive if there prices weren't insane (I know, I've looked). Of course, I'm guessing that apple will re-define the OS experience rather than just plopping a traditional OS on the unit. I'm pretty sold on the Adam as it stands, but I will certainly wait to see all of the offerings before I decide, and the apple tablet could find it's way into my collection.

Apple has also been engineering a large datacenter, so it's anyones guess what they're up to. If they didn't routinely practice tech-despotism, I would be more interested in their product. However, it seems that every move they make is to restrict choice, and I don't like the idea of living without at least some open-software. We'll have to see.

The idea of an OLED display *is* very interesting, but in a very different way than the PixelQi display of the Adam. I think OLED would be awesome for everything except reading for extended periods (though this may not be the case if the brightness is dialed way down). Certainly the power drain would be very low, and the colour reproduction un-beatable. However, I'm guessing that the Adam will actually beat it in this feature.

If apple included 3D shutter tech (optional of course) on the tablet, and developer APIs and hardware to take advantage of this, not to mention awesome battery life, with pen input, I would be sold day 1.

You're list is just like my list, only a little more liberal. Here's mine:

Adam
Apple tablet

}:^)~

That's pretty much why Apple is at the bottom of the list, for me. I love Nextstep/OSX, and I typically love their products (though, the lack of full BT stack, and lack of options for physical keyboards, on the iPhone&iPodTouch are big mistakes, IMO), but their attitude over the course of the last decade has gone from "embrace openness" to "lets go back to being close minded arrogant bastards". Early 2000's: "Think Different". Late 2000's: "Think Steve's way".

They could wow me, especially if their tablet (if it even exists) is more based on Mac OS X (open application ecosystem) instead of iPhone OS X (closed application ecosystem). But I'm not counting on it. So, they're on the list, but only at the bottom of the list.

The HP, eDGe, and ICD tablets make the list because they're _close_ to what I want, but I haven't seen enough about the HP and ICD tablets to make me think that they're going to be exactly what I want (esp. since I'm pretty sure they don't have pixelqi displays). And, of course, I know which ways the eDGe comes up short. I'm mainly keeping them on the list just in case the Adam doesn't live up to the expectations they've created for themselves. If that happens, then I have 2nd/3rd/4th choices to consider as well (without having to rely upon Apple to save the day).

What's up with the water censor !?