iRex has been gracious enough to provide me a DR1000S review unit. I'm not sure how long they'll let me keep it, but I can already tell that it's going to be difficult to give back.

I plan on doing a full review after a few days of real world usage, but now I'll give my impressions after about 45 minutes of playing with the device.

First of all, the screen is big! I've been using the iLiad for about 2 years, and it's amazing to see how documents look on a big screen like this. It also seems to have much better contrast than my iLiad. But eink screens tend to loose a little contrast over time, so was expected. But the overall whiteness and larger screen makes documents an absolute joy to read.

There are a few things I'm going to have to get used to. For one, I've had a few problems accidentally pressing the buttons. The way I held my iLiad, I could grab the device by the side and just press the page bar. Now, when I hold the DR, it starts to skip pages. I have to retrain my self to grab the device below the page bar. Also, I've had problems getting the DR to actually lock the keys when I press the lock button. I'm not sure w

Reading full page PDF's is an absolute joy. The PDF's in the screenshots are 8.5x11" pages from a technical manual. They are readable on the iLiad, however the text is very small. On the DR, I have my documents set to automatically crop the margins. It's amazing to open a PDF, have no margins, and read pages the way they were meant to be on paper.

The DR is very menu intensive. To do anything but change a page, you have to bring up a menu. While this isn't too bad with the stylus, I can see users without the wacom enabled model finding this very annoying. It's an extra step from the way things were done on the iLiad with the menu bar.

Speaking of the stylus, drawing on the DR is very similar to drawing on the iLiad. There's still a slight delay when writing on the screen, but it's no better or worse than writing on the iLiad. It's nice, however, that the DR is able to write with a second stylus (I use a Wacom Executive Pen) while the included one is in it's holder. On the iLiad, you would have to remove and risk loosing the factory stylus whenever you'd want to write with my more comfortable style.

Screen refreshes are slightly faster than on the iLiad. I've uploaded a video onto Youtube comparing the two. There are times that you see the "Please Wait" screen when flipping quickly from one page to another, or when moving forward 5 pages. Luckily, using thumbnail view and search diminishes the need to quickly flip through pages while trying to find a specific page.

I look forward to continuing to use the DR1000S and providing a more in depth review. Based on my first impressions, I'd happily replace my iLiad with the device.

Click here to view an album full of unboxing pictures (http://picasaweb.google.com/adamrb/DR1000SUnboxing#)

A few highlights:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/adamrb/SPzlWh5Q8RI/AAAAAAAAA7w/b41pXasjqY4/s400/100_0745.JPG
http://lh3.ggpht.com/adamrb/SPzlZTBZi9I/AAAAAAAAA8A/BB_RPV0ykYI/s400/100_0748.JPG
http://lh5.ggpht.com/adamrb/SPzlNl76UyI/AAAAAAAAA6s/EqHlPgX-ymY/s400/100_0736.JPG

Youtube video comparing refreshes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfRdaPp1j_M)

"this video is unavailable"

I guess the writing gap is the same as ever (as it is the same technology)
I'm nosy on your review of batterylifetime, and battery discharging while the device is off.

Thanks, Adam! I'm looking forward to reading your review.

(Still waiting on availability of the SW version, though I think it's going to be a while. :disappoin )

First impressions is Irex doesnt like first impressions. Video and photos are ripped out

Quick question, whats the deal with marking up PDFs? Can the DR1000 apply the changes to the pdfs within th device and let you take them off directly or do you need to use another computer application to do that?

Yep... can't find your video. But, while searching I did find a demo video done by iRex themselves. Not sure if I've seen this linked before... it was just uploaded today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc2ejYMbwZs

BOb

EDIT: Why do people use youtube for stuff like this.... it is SO LOW RES... that you can't really see anything. To use their free bandwidth I guess.

Pardon me but you mean to say there is automatic margin cropping in digital reader or you already have document set to crop the margin? If it is former it is so perfect.

Pardon me but you mean to say there is automatic margin cropping in digital reader or you already have document set to crop the margin? If it is former it is so perfect.

I'm not sure if it did it automatically, or if I hit the "crop margins" button myself, but it's very easy, and you don't have to manually set the zoom.

The Hide Margin's feature seems to work quite well. Also if you have a page which does not take all the width you can change to Continuous mode and get even bigger fonts (it works well for a couple of my documents)

I'm not sure if it did it automatically, or if I hit the "crop margins" button myself, but it's very easy, and you don't have to manually set the zoom.

The Hide Margin's feature seems to work quite well. Also if you have a page which does not take all the width you can change to Continuous mode and get even bigger fonts (it works well for a couple of my documents)

Thanks Guys. It seems to be so perfect.

Thanks Guys. It seems to be so perfect.

Besides the fact that that battery only gives you about 5 hours of use... I think this device sounds great. But, seeing how easily the screen broke on that video I'm waiting for the plastic screens from Plastic Login and PVI in the Hanlin V9 and whatever other devices come out once the screen does.

BOb

Why give it back, Adam? Did they specifically say this was just a loan?
Taking in account how you contributed for the iLiad, I would guess this review copy would be symbolic payment for your services. :)

that thing is a beast!

Screen refreshes are slightly faster than on the iLiad.
Going from 2100 ms down to 1400 ms is a nice speedup, but it's still 1300 ms too much. :-(