Hi,
Can anyone tell me actual real-world battery life compared between the DR1000 and Iliad Book Edition or v2? Preferably in simple reading mode, no annotating.

Posts I've been reading about the DR1000 suggest battery life is a showstopper!

Thanks,
Kenji
www.ktakeda.net

Right now the DR1000s is about 50% of the battery life of an iliad. Expect around 5 or 6 hours on the dr1000s and about 10 - 12 hours on the iliad. Note that irex is supposed to be updating this week with the power management features which should extend the dr1000s battery time quite substantially, but we'll have to wait to see what the actual results are.

One more thing, depending on the type of reading your do the dr1000s may not be a great fit. it's fantastic for full size pdf's, but I find it a little less comfortable for general enjoyment type reading.

A v1 iLiad usually has around 12 hours.

A v2 or Book Edition usually has around 15 hours.

Currently, the DR only has about 5 hours. However, there are a couple reasons for this (mostly because it's a new device and they're still working on the software). First is that there is a bug they are fixing soon that will increase it to 8 hours. Second, is that they have not implemented any power management features on the DR yet. Why they released the device before these features were done is anybody's guess. However, they plan on a future firmware upgrade that will implement standby and sleep modes. With those, the DR should have longer battery life than the iLiad.

Going into standby in between page turns should theoretically give the DR up to 24 hours. With sleep mode, it could theoretically run for "weeks" (but sleep mode basically means that it's sitting idle and you're not using it). Real world results for those two modes have yet to be seen though. We won't know for sure what the typical battery life will be with them until they're released.

If battery life right now is important, then the iLiad wins. If you're thinking more long term, then the DR will likely have better battery life (depending on exactly how well the power management features work).

One more thing, depending on the type of reading your do the dr1000s may not be a great fit. it's fantastic for full size pdf's, but I find it a little less comfortable for general enjoyment type reading.

Hi,
Thanks for all of this info, which kind of confirms what I gathered from piecing together info from other threads.

I want a reader for PDFs of my students PhD and MSc theses. Originally thinking about the Sony (forum for which which I've posted on), but the Iliad or DR look better with the bigger screens.

An example of the sort of thing I want to be reading is @
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~ktakeda/temp/ebooktest.pdf


Opinions on whether the iLiad 8" screen is big enough welcome :)

Thanks!
Kenji

In regards to a v2 or book edition, I've never seen 15 hours but your everybody's usage patterns are different.

From a full page pdf viewing perspective nothing beats the dr1000. The larger screen is absolutely fantastic for this type of reading and it will give you the closest to paper experience of any of the devices. The iLiad would be second for this type of reading, much better than the 6" screen devices, but still not in the same league as the dr.

Hi,
Yeah, my brain tells me the DR is the best experience, but I'm worried about portability. I used to have a 10" Acer Tablet PC and that was pretty good, but still a lot heavier than what I'm looking for now.

I just bought an Acer Aspire One (9"), and my main Tablet PC is a 12" Toshiba M700 (1.8kg). So I have some fairly lightweight PC devices, but want something even more portable for ebooks! I guess the Aspire One screen is exactly halfway between the Iliad and DR!

I'm going to Borders in Oxford to look at the Iliad, and I've played with the Sony a lot. Just hard to actually get hold of a DR to play with!

Thanks all :)
Kenji

Hi,
Yeah, my brain tells me the DR is the best experience, but I'm worried about portability. I used to have a 10" Acer Tablet PC and that was pretty good, but still a lot heavier than what I'm looking for now.


One of the reasons I sold my iLiad was the issue of portability. It's great for reading at home, but if you want a portable device for reading fiction, the 6" devices are (for my needs, at least) a lot better.

I'm going to Borders in Oxford to look at the Iliad, and I've played with the Sony a lot. Just hard to actually get hold of a DR to play with!
Thanks all :) Kenji

A
E
Ok you could always post a request on the see a device near you thread to see if one of the members with a DR are willing to meetup.