New Ebook Reader From Irex


b._.o._.b

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I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. You can read a lot of standard documents on A4 sized pages, even powerpoint and doc files. Its best feature for me is the capability to read PDF and show it on this size without having to scroll through the page or have to zoom.

http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000/features

Great technology, the only problem it has got is the price (rather expensive) and the lack of a real open development environment. Would be very nice to see something like debian on this.

Still, I'm very tempted to buy one... Anyone has experiences on ebook readers? Is this a good buy?
 
I really like the whole ebook/reader idea. The only thing holding me back is the price: there's still nothing out there sub-$400, and most of them still have that weird flash between pages.
It would be awesome to see a Pandora+epaper mod, but I don't see how that could happen.
 
Hrm, $750? Naaa wait til the technology becomes more widespread in a few years and pick one up for $200. You survived with the "strain" of CRTs and LCDs this long, what's a little while longer?
 
I had a sony prs-500 but it broke, it was great for reading manga. I'm thinking about buying a prs-505 once there's a price drop (should be soon as they're going to release the prs-700.). The irex would be neat, but it's far too expensive for me. And the glass screens are a bit fragile. Anyway, the plastic logic one looks really promising, especially if they release it at a reasonable price point.
 
geo12 said:
I really like the whole ebook/reader idea. The only thing holding me back is the price: there's still nothing out there sub-$400, and most of them still have that weird flash between pages.
It would be awesome to see a Pandora+epaper mod, but I don't see how that could happen.
There are a couple of reasons for me to want one. PDF's and HTML with pictures are usually not very easy to read on small screens. On this big sized reader this will be easier.
The other thing applies for all ebook readers, they just read good outside.

klikklak said:
I had a sony prs-500 but it broke, it was great for reading manga. I'm thinking about buying a prs-505 once there's a price drop (should be soon as they're going to release the prs-700.). The irex would be neat, but it's far too expensive for me. And the glass screens are a bit fragile. Anyway, the plastic logic one looks really promising, especially if they release it at a reasonable price point.
Yeah, comics will be great on this as well. On what format did you read them?

For now I think I will wait for my Pandora to arrive to see how it handles reading of PDF's before spending this amount of money. Maybe I can live with the burden of scrolling.
Also want to see some more in dept reviews and development of 3rd party software on the dr1000 before taking the plunge.
 
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I one converted from cbz & cbr to both pdf and lrf (sony format). The lrf conversion tool was nice because it was command line and could be used for batches, while the pdf tool was a java prog (there's a windows one as well) and didn't make very nice metadata, resulting in unnamed files.

Over all, if you need to read pdf's, I think the irex probably is a good thing to buy, far better than a pandora for reading. I'd buy one in a snap if I had the money.
 
b_o_b said:
I have been waiting for something like this for a long time. You can read a lot of standard documents on A4 sized pages, even powerpoint and doc files. Its best feature for me is the capability to read PDF and show it on this size without having to scroll through the page or have to zoom.

http://www.irextechnologies.com/irexdr1000/features

Great technology, the only problem it has got is the price (rather expensive) and the lack of a real open development environment. Would be very nice to see something like debian on this.

Still, I'm very tempted to buy one... Anyone has experiences on ebook readers? Is this a good buy?



The Apple Newton is a GREAT ebook reader, as is ipaq ppc's. I have both and both of them are great for reading. The iPaq screen is incredible and works in any light conditions from pitch dark to a sunny beach. The 1/4 vga screen does make for extra page turns, but it's very fast. I bought a ipaq recently for $4.99 that's four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I got a Newton for 10. You just need to make sure to get one of the newer ones with back-lighting. You can't use pdf's with either unit, but that's a tiny price to pay. It works great.
There is no way in hell I would pay over $700 for an ebook reader. I won't even pay the 400 which I think is still way too high. They should be subsidized by the profit of the books which cost 0 dollars to produce. I wouldn't mind getting one for free with a contract saying I would buy X number of books over some period of time. But since that model doesn't exist, I'm quite happy with the iPaq or Newton.



Chris
 
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Looks nice, but I would prefer something a bit more portable (to put in an inside pocket), but I hear what you are saying over scrolling on pdf's!

Is it only greyscale? Probably the only 'paper type' technology available at the moment, but colour would be a must for me for pdf's as I have loads of old magazine scans.

Hoping the Pandora pdf viewer allows quick and easy scaling and movement via the dual analogues (with shoulder buttons for flicking between pages) :)
 
christo930 said:
The Apple Newton is a GREAT ebook reader, as is ipaq ppc's. I have both and both of them are great for reading. The iPaq screen is incredible and works in any light conditions from pitch dark to a sunny beach. The 1/4 vga screen does make for extra page turns, but it's very fast. I bought a ipaq recently for $4.99 that's four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I got a Newton for 10. You just need to make sure to get one of the newer ones with back-lighting. You can't use pdf's with either unit, but that's a tiny price to pay. It works great.
There is no way in hell I would pay over $700 for an ebook reader. I won't even pay the 400 which I think is still way too high. They should be subsidized by the profit of the books which cost 0 dollars to produce. I wouldn't mind getting one for free with a contract saying I would buy X number of books over some period of time. But since that model doesn't exist, I'm quite happy with the iPaq or Newton.
Chris



The whole idea of an e-book reader like this is the large screen size (like a book size) high resolution, and better battery life. Since it only uses power while updating the screen the battery life is much better than squinting at a 3" low res iPaq for 2 hours before the battery goes out.

It is not made to be pocket size. But that is why you get the big screen.

The reason I don't like the Sony ones is the relatively small screen. This one looks much better though.

b_o_b said:
Great technology, the only problem it has got is the price (rather expensive) and the lack of a real open development environment. Would be very nice to see something like debian on this.

Still, I'm very tempted to buy one... Anyone has experiences on ebook readers? Is this a good buy?
Well you can't do animation on these which means no desktop environments that use cursors etc. The displays on these are rather slow, but that is a limit of the technology.
 
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Because of this thread I started drooling and reading the various forums on the irex. They seem to have problems with power management at the moment, only getting 5-8h of use time. That's pretty crappy for e-ink. But they're going to update it fairly soon. I'd really love to have one, maybe my patience won't last until the plastic logic one and I'll save up and buy one these. 2000ad and corto maltese should readable on this, mm..
 
I've been reading ebooks for about 6 years, and I have yet to be impressed with any of the exclusive ebook readers on the market today, mainly because of the ridiculous price and the lack of a backlight. I have a Palm handheld that I bought for $60. I put Wordsmith and FontSmoother on it and the display looks amazing, and it is fast and responsive. I have about 40 novels on it at this time. I have high hopes for the Wiz when it comes to reading.
 
DaveC said:
Well you can't do animation on these which means no desktop environments that use cursors etc. The displays on these are rather slow, but that is a limit of the technology.
That's right, every time a new page appears you see the screen building up. It is only usable for static information.

Larken said:
I've been reading ebooks for about 6 years, and I have yet to be impressed with any of the exclusive ebook readers on the market today, mainly because of the ridiculous price and the lack of a backlight. I have a Palm handheld that I bought for $60. I put Wordsmith and FontSmoother on it and the display looks amazing, and it is fast and responsive. I have about 40 novels on it at this time. I have high hopes for the Wiz when it comes to reading.
I have got the same hopes for Pandora. The main issue will be a userfriendly ebook reader with the right options. Unfortunately I don't think porting an already available ebook reader will be good enough to provide this. Maybe there is a developer with a passion for e-books that will adjust something like fbreader for one of the two handhelds.
 
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Larken said:
I have high hopes for the Wiz when it comes to reading.
The Wiz!?!

I get a headache just thinking about reading books on a tiny 2.8" 320x240 screen. Ouch!
 
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DaveC said:
christo930 said:
The Apple Newton is a GREAT ebook reader, as is ipaq ppc's. I have both and both of them are great for reading. The iPaq screen is incredible and works in any light conditions from pitch dark to a sunny beach. The 1/4 vga screen does make for extra page turns, but it's very fast. I bought a ipaq recently for $4.99 that's four dollars and ninety-nine cents. I got a Newton for 10. You just need to make sure to get one of the newer ones with back-lighting. You can't use pdf's with either unit, but that's a tiny price to pay. It works great.
There is no way in hell I would pay over $700 for an ebook reader. I won't even pay the 400 which I think is still way too high. They should be subsidized by the profit of the books which cost 0 dollars to produce. I wouldn't mind getting one for free with a contract saying I would buy X number of books over some period of time. But since that model doesn't exist, I'm quite happy with the iPaq or Newton.
Chris



The whole idea of an e-book reader like this is the large screen size (like a book size) high resolution, and better battery life. Since it only uses power while updating the screen the battery life is much better than squinting at a 3" low res iPaq for 2 hours before the battery goes out.

It is not made to be pocket size. But that is why you get the big screen.

The reason I don't like the Sony ones is the relatively small screen. This one looks much better though.




That's the advantage of an Apple Newton over the iPaq. It's screen is much larger and is 1/2 VGA (320x480) resolution (vs 1/4 vga for the ipaq). To me, cost is the number 1 consideration (and the fact that it's got to work and be comfortable for me). I just can't see spending hundreds of dollars for an e-book reader (let alone close to a thousand) and then paying a pretty high price for the books. Now, maybe if I could pay $400 for the reader and have $400 credit at the e-book store, or even a $200 credit at the e-book store, that might be worth it. But really, with the ipaq or the Newton (especially the Newton with it's long battery life and larger display) I'm willing to forgo the e-ink to get the reader hardware so cheap.
The main draw of an ebook reader, for me anyway, is the ability to have a lot of books with me wherever I go, cost concerns, instant dictionary and the clutter of real books. I do read a lot of older books, so I can get a lot of e-books for free, where no matter how old the book is, paper always costs money. I have noticed that while new e-books are cheaper, they are not cheap enough. Printing the book and knowing how many to print and shipping them and all of the other problems of a physical product make up a large percentage of a book's cost, and I feel like e-books raise the profit of the publisher, while giving the customer less. I also lend and borrow books with friends, which is something e-book sellers do everything they can to stop, so there is a loss of value there. There is also something intangible about buying something for which you receive nothing physical. Like a cd is a cd, you're paying for the music, but you get the cd. Games come on a cartridge or cd or dvd, books come on paper. To get a file e-mailed to you or wirelessly transmitted to you makes me feel like I'm not getting something tangeble. I can sell or trade a book when I get done reading it. What can I do with a used e-book that nobody else can use (that has been encrypted to my machine)?
The whole thing kinda reminds me of ATM's. There was something that saved the banks untold amounts of money in paperwork/records and teller/retail space and yet consumers are paying out the ass for it.
 
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