Nate Hoffelder of The Digital Reader has noticed that Augen—the cheap-Chinese-junk e-reader, tablet, and netbook company that placed some rock-bottom-priced units in Kmart last year—has apparently bitten the dust.
Hoffelder heard from a woman whose warranty-serviced Augen unit was never returned. When she tried to find out had happened to it, the woman discovered that Augen’s website was down (and has been for over a month), and neither she nor Hoffelder got any responses to emails sent to company reps. While this is not necessarily conclusive proof, it certainly looks bad for the company.
From what I heard, Augen’s products were consistent in their level of quality—consistently lousy, and not worth the money when for a little more you could often find refurbished brand-name products on such sites as geeks.com. Still, it’s kind of a pity not to have that cheapie option available.
