5" resistive touchscreen MID, Google Android 2.0, GPS, WiFi ,3G from 189$ | Hacker News Reader

5" resistive touchscreen MID, Google Android 2.0, GPS, WiFi ,3G from 189$

12 pointsenso-now29 comments

We would like your precious feedback about our product. Here is the link : http://enso-now.com

Is it real or is it joojoo?

I've been looking forever for a (cheap enough) tiny touchscreen wifi device to embed into laser cut switch-plates and stick on my walls to control my X10 stuff. This looks close enough to get my interest. I think I'll need to root android to do what I want to do though. Is rooting android hard on this device?

How big is this usb dongle that gets you 3g? A picture would be helpful. The absence of one creates the impression that its been omitted for good reason, ie: its completely impractical to actually ever use.

Bluetooth?

External keyboard?

Charging dock or must we fiddle with little wires and connectors to charge it, get our music out of it?

Expansion interface port like iphone, or all/only usb?

Usb host mode, slave mode (like a disk) or both.

You product is an early adopter/uber-geek toy, you need to add the ability to drill down to much, much more technical detail in your web site. You need more pictures, and probably video of the device in action. I've got my finger on the paypal button, I need just the tiniest nudge to give this thing a try.

You might want to check out a Chumby One for $120:

https://store.chumby.com/

I like chumbies, I made a neat robot with a pulled apart chumby as a brain, but it takes a lot of pulling apart and re-jiggering to make a chumby fit in a wall plate. Its fun to do it once, its decidedly less fun to do it 10 times.

I'm about to just use ipod touches and give up on some of the more advanced stuff I wanted to do. I was hoping to use picwing frames but they turned out to be more vapor than real. I thought cruchpads were going to be it, and then they got joojoo-ed. Still looking.

Did you check out the Zii Egg?

I think you totally misunderstand the content of this post. Argument please, otherwise i have to think that you are just trolling. Thanks. Alberto

I don't think kqr2 does much trolling! He was just trying to help me out. Its a good point though, Your market and the Chumby market have much overlap. You should have a look at how they do things over there for ideas. You don't have enough meat on your site to actually sell these things yet. $200 is a big enough number that people don't buy just to try. I actually plunked down money because I was convinced that a chumby would be useful for something I wanted to do.

Hi, thanks. I finally understand your point of view. I will think about the ideas you inspired. thanks a lot. Alberto

Thanks a lot for your clever comment. Sincerely.

1) Rooting androind on this device is not hard, we can provide detailed informations. 2) The USB 3G dongle is very small, we will have pictures uploaded on the website in a couple of days. We are choosing amongst different designs. 3) No bluetooth 4) No external keyboard for now, we are conducting research about which models in the market android could support. 5) The ports on the machine are only 1 micro USB, and 1 9.5 mm audio out jack. 6) Charging is via usb cable to pc, or with included adaptor. 7) usb mode host

I will upload more pictures very soon, i am waiting to meet with the factory to buy the prototype i have ordered weeks ago, but the chinese holidays slowed down business here. Thanks a lot again. Alberto

Ouch. So its still in its joojoo phase. Ok, criticism numero uno: You should absolutely not "presell" these things. You should not look like you're within a hundred miles of taking money before you've got crates of them sitting on a shelf ready to ship tomorrow. Apple can get away with this kind of thing because they have a track record of delivering on time. For everyone else, its a "close browser, c-ya, not coming back until everyone I know has bought one, received it and raved about it" event.

If you responded, in thought, to this with even a tiny bit of "but I need the money from presales to pay the manufactures to get the fist shipment going", hang it up, you're just about certain not to make it in the hardware business.

Sorry to sound harsh, but I've been on this train before.

Yes, you are perfectly right about Apple and its track record. We do not have that. Anyway i am not pre-selling anything, the device is currently produced and i can ship you 500 hundreds of pieces to you in a week. Anyway, you are perfectly right. I will send soon some prototypes to influentials tech blogs, and you will see the real thing soon. Thanks a lot for your feedback. Alberto

As an ecommerce guy, I can't help but point out a few quirks on the online store:

* Tab index on /n/MyAccount/newshipping-addresses.php is way off. Try tabbing through the form.

* The JavaScript alerts when you do something CORRECT are very nonstandard. JavaScript modal dialogs are commonly reserved for client-side ERRORS, not after you submit a form correctly.

Thanks for your reply. It is precious. We will fix that asap. Alberto

Hmm, it looks like their web site was recycled from a clothing retailer or something.

When you click on the picture of their epad, you get a picture of a white shirt.

http://enso-now.com/n/Store/step1.php

Also, it looks like the enso-now logo is a black version of the Lucent logo.

http://business-meetings.co.uk/images/New%20Lucent%20logo%20...

Also, I couldn't find detailed technical specs. What processor? Amount of RAM, etc. ?

I would wait for a critical review before ordering.

Hi, thanks for your feedback. It is greatly appreciated. I wouldn't have found that bug easily. Yes the system is built on a codebase i use for my works, i am also a web developer. Regarding the Lucent logo, yes, it is based on the Enso character, you can find more informations about it here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D I think it is widely use on the web because it is actually looking nice. Just google at http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=enso&... and you will see that. I agree with you about a review before ordering. thanks. Alberto

I have also updated the page with the missing RAM specs. Thank you. The RAM is 256MB DDR

A DSP that does video and audio decoding, like Archos' device would be nice. The problem with Archos' device is their terrible customer service and even worse custom software.

I really want a nice ~32G music/video player that uses Android. I do have the Archos device, and the hardware is nice, but the software is So. Fucking. Bad. I will write it myself if I am allowed to, but I can't flash my own firmware or have root access, so that's not possible.

Also, the screenshot on your web page is not Android 2.0.

Hi, thanks for your comment. With an additional t-flash card you can expand the device memory. Alberto

Yeah, but without a DSP chip for audio decoding, the battery is going to last about 20 minutes.

Did i ever say that our device does not have a DSP ? thanks. Alberto

No, but you also don't say that it does. So does it ?

I will update the specs page. Yes it does. Thanks!

This looks like something that is too good to be true. Unfortunately most of the times, that means it isn't true. I'll wait with buying this untill I read some reviews. But if it works like the site makes me believe, I'll certainly buy one.

p.s. I couldn't find that it is a resistive screen on the site, only in this title.

I was just about to buy a SmartQ v5, or a Ramos w7, for precisely this purpose. Well done.

Now, before you get my $189, tell me more about this "external USB 3G" business. Does this device come with a 3G radio, or not? That's like saying my laptop "has 3G" because it has a USB port.

Hi, thanks for your feedback. The 3G comes through an external micro USB dongle, which is designed to be as smallest as possible. Stay tuned on the web site, in the next days we will be posting detailed pictures. Thanks!

But does this dongle come with the device? What services is it compatible with?

Yes the dongle is included. You have to tell us which country you live in, and which operator(s) you intend to use it with. We currently support Asian, American and European standards for 3G.

What are your impressions about this device ?

I would not buy one based on what I've learned so far. Having a dongle for 3G connectivity seems like a bad design decision. The storage seems anemic, at just 2gb, and the main memory being 256mb makes me wonder why I would want to get rid of my old N800 for this.

It would be acceptable if the dongle was in an internal or snap-in bay of some sort, so that it could not accidentally become dislodged and did not mar the shape of the device.

Yes, right. The main selling point of this device, is the small size, that makes it really easy to carry in your pocket.Also as mentioned in previus comments in this thread, the 3G dongle is designed to be as smallest as possible. Regarding the anemic storage, you can always upgrade it with T-Flash. And the RAM memory is good enough to run smoothly with any application. Thanks for your comment.

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