There are dark clouds on the horizon for all of us who bought an iRex Iliad and hoped to get Sony Reader- or Hanlin-like battery-life.

After our member Malder1 had caused quite a stir with his comment in this thread (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8351&page=1&pp=15), I put the question up on the iRex Forums here (http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?p=3059#3059) and asked for some answers from the iRex team.

The answer is there, and it has no good news. Basically, it boils down to "the iLiad was not designed to hibernate or suspend to RAM/FLASH".

What this means is that if you want to use your Iliad for casual reading, maybe 5 minutes or 10 minutes when you have a short downtime you'll have to do a full and time-consuming power-up and power-down every time and probably also navigate your way back to the book you had last been reading.

How an oversight like this could ever have happened with a 650€ device is beyond me. iRex, I'm heavily disappointed!

How an oversight like this could ever have happened in a 650€ device is beyond me.
iRex, I'm heavily dissappointed!

Why...? Was this one of the main features given back in June/July...? :blink:

they quoted 21 hours reading time on the box so we'll still have to see if they can achieve that

You are right Jaed...they never promised it or I'd have thrashed them even more, but if you like, you can read their "community statement"

I'll quote the relevant part:

Q) Will there be an operating mode on the iLiad, which suspends after every page turn to give us the 10.000 page turns?
A) Yes, this will be part of our power management optimization activities. However do note that in order to improve the speed of the page turns pre-rendering is required. Pre-rendering stops once all links are pre-rendered and so preventing the processor from going to standby after a page turn.

you can read it all here (http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=499&highlight=suspend)

the reason for my outrage is that I had talked to them evenbefore the device was launched and they also more or less promised that they would have the kind of Page-turn based battery-life the Sony Reader has.
Maybe I can't catch them with a direct lie (if you discount the statement above), but if you want a paper-like experience that contains the added bonus of needing about 1 minute to get back to the book you were reading or to take notes or to do anything at all...then you'll probably be very happy with the Iliad.
If it were something new and revolutionary they were trying, I'd perhaps be kinder, but since just about every PDA out there does this today (I've got a really old and cheap PDA lying here actually) right out of the box, I don't see any reason to be nice about it.

Maybe I can't catch them with a direct lie (if you discount the statement above), but if you want a paper-like experience that contains the added bonus of needing about 1 minute to get back to the book you were reading or to take notes or to do anything at all...then you'll probably be very happy with the Iliad.

Well... I would very much doubt Irex is lying... I've never seen a promise for a hibernate mode... It looks like there is possibility for a sleep, or even a standby mode which would probably extend battery life...

I would also very much doubt that you have been intentionally misled... Remember English is not their first language...


I don't see any reason to be nice about it.

Up to you, but hopefully you remain civil about it...? I've found being nice to be a better long-term strategy... Perhaps a trip to the Meditation thread...? :D

Well, I guess the Customer Q&A reply I posted above is pretty much a lie, but never mind.
I won't be uncivil, I just want to keep people who are looking for a paper-book replacement (people like me) from buying the wrong product.

I did a lot of "advertising" for iRex when they startet their "customer trial", the whole mobileread.com/teleread.org invite story, and I alsways tried to be patient with them, today I wouldn't do that anymore...

The fact that they actually came out into the open and admitted that it won't be possible is a good sign, but they should have done that back in July...enough people were asking about it after all...

Well, if you want open hardware, buy an Apple II (that machine was coming with the electric schematics). I am not very surprised, and on other hand 33 MHz wait mode, if feasible, seems me almost so good as interruptable sleep mode. Can we speak mAmps here? Specs anyone?

It is unclear if it is possible to switch off the power of some RAM and let the machine running on cachable RAM only. If it were, people asking for longer modes could rely on the CF trick, as Scotty suggested (but I also could to insert a bigger extra battery in the CF slot :D )

Now, it is true that a True Suspend was a discussed feature last year during the discussion of the OLPC machine, which in some designs was supossed to have a human energy based e-ink display. It is amusing that iLiad engineers missed that discussion; more likely the machine had already been deployed into production.

Also, it is rare to have a Wacom tablet and to try to be energy-savvy at the same time.

Also, software could solve some issues. For instance, instead of the splash page, it could start by offering the list of the last read books, to click straigh into them. And same after card insertion.

Well, I guess the Customer Q&A reply I posted above is pretty much a lie...

Why...? Nothing in that post points to a "hibernate" feature...? There is a mention of "standby" feature I would imagine this is what is described in their post about the possibility of standby/hibernate... (ie, scaling back the cpu...)

ahem...the question clearly was about "suspend" which is not the same as standby...and they formulated the questions, not the users...they just took the user questions as "basis"

ahem...the question clearly was about "suspend" which is not the same as standby...and they formulated the questions, not the users...they just took the user questions as "basis"

Well... Then you're back to what "standby", "suspend" and "hibernate" actually mean...

I wonder an ebook device should consume very few power between page-rendering and fast awake up within 1 sec when I want to read it.

I will wait and wait until the iLiad can do it (maybe within 2~3 sec by some kind of power management mode), though it is good enough in readability and digital handwriting...

I think the iLiad should do it as an e"book", especially an expensive one.

well, since I actually sent the "Suspend mode" question in to iRex (I don't know who else did) I can only tell you that I asked for "suspend like a PocketPC when it's turned off". I actually talked to some forum members (I think Scotty1024 wsa among them) asking about the Power-Management possibilities of devices like PDAs in general before I asked iRex too, just to make sure that I'm asking the right question and not misunderstanding anything.

As far as I know, Suspend mode means that all the RAM data is written to the disk (or in the case of Suspend to RAM stays in RAM) and then all power is turned off (only in the case of Suspend to RAM the RAM stays on very-low-power mode, just enough to keep it's data-content intact).
My computer does this as well, but there it's called Standby...it means the Power-Supply is still running and leaves a little voltage on the rams...everything else is completely off, the processor included.
There are different "modes" of standby, but I think Suspend is rather clearly defined with only the matter of "to RAM" or "to Disk" as variables.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The question is: why would iRex not support suspend? The PXA255 supports the necessary power management modes. Is it the touch screen that causes problems?

You're quite right, just one little detail: A PC has multiple standby modes, S3 is (I think) "suspend to RAM", while S1 leaves the CPU running and only switches off some other hardware.

So what iRex is aiming for is "Standby S1", with the CPU still running but with a reduced frequency.

If I had to guess why they cannot do S3/"suspend to RAM" or even "suspend to flash", I'd say the hardware buttons have no way to wake up the CPU. So the CPU has to run to check if a button is pressed.

If I had to guess why they cannot do S3/"suspend to RAM" or even "suspend to flash", I'd say the hardware buttons have no way to wake up the CPU. So the CPU has to run to check if a button is pressed.
Sounds like a hardware design mistake.

I think that problem with suspend could be unsolvable just if iRex made special hardware which wakes up cpu each 1milisecond. But then iRex needed special conclusion and effort for that.
I also read some papers about PXA255. It is cleary said that processor can have idle state and idle 33mhz state just by it self, without spesial hardware. As I understood, cpu can also have sleep mode, but there must be some hardware which awakes cpu. And, as I saw in /proc, there is no clock scale code for PXA255 in kernel. The good using of power scaling can consume at least half energy.
The question for scotty1024. Can you create some code in ipdf and idjvu which will just measure how much time it uses to render a page, and all cached pages? How much time isn't it doing anything?

Well... Then you're back to what "standby", "suspend" and "hibernate" actually mean...I don't know ... if they put it out there with no qualification, then I think they intended us to assume that it meant what we basically assumed that it did mean. :shrug:

Maybe it comes down to their B2B focus -- as others have commented, 10 hours is fine for most business applications -- especially compared to laptop/tablet battery life.

In any case, it's another indication that the iLiad and the Sony Reader aren't really directly competing products, they're simply aimed at different targets. :shrug:


On another note, CommanderROR, I think you have generally conducted yourself in an extremely civil manner, even when you've been well and truly torqued. Sure you've expressed ... discontent on occasion, but you haven't actually gotten nasty about it that I've seen. For that I commend you. :smile:

Thanks NatCh...:-)

I really was(am) pretty angry...staying civil isn't always easy then...

Hi,
As my knowledge, the Windows XP supports

* Conventional turn-off *
"The OS should close all data/processes" then the PC turns off all power of its peripherals.
When you press the power button of the PC again, it means you "restart(reboot)" the data/processes of OS from HDD to RAM from "zero condition".

It is like that a man lost his memory.
He should get his blank memory back from his dairy, etc (HDD) to his memory part of brain (RAM).

So, turn-off/restart(reboot) always cost a lot time about mins, you known.

* Hibernate mode *
"All recent data/processes in the RAM is written into HDD" for a while; then the power is entirely shut down like conventionally turning-off mode (note: no power consumed anymore after hibernate.)

It is like that a man sleeps all night. [/i]
His brain and his body full into deep sleep all night (no power consumed), but he can remember everything soon (about 30 seconds), when he wakes up (resume).

It just needs the time for all recent (actually, it became "previous", now) data/processes is written back from HDD to RAM. The OS is rebuild by the resent data/processes, not from the zero condition.

* Standby(suspend) mode:
Very low power is consumed to retain "all recent data in the RAM", but power of other peripherals such as monitor, HDD, fan, etc is stopped.

It is like that a man is just dozing/taking a nap.
Therefore, you can resume PC (wake up him) to do the previous work very quickly in about several seconds after other peripherals powered up.

Because the RAM continuously keeps the recent data/processes, theoretically the stanby/suspend mode will beresumed very very very fast, but time delay still exists due to delay of the peripherals.
*************************************

I believe the PPC or Palm's standby/suspend mode is as the same as above because PPC or Palm stiil consumes power after into the mode.
No reason why the same X-scale CPU based iLiad cannot make it.

I really was(am) pretty angry...staying civil isn't always easy then...Which is exactly why I consider it worth commenting on. :grin:

No reason why the same X-scale CPU based iLiad cannot make it.

You (and many others, I think) gut the wrong impression here. The iLiad CAN do all the modes you described. "Turn-off" is implemented. "Hibernate" is not, as the build in flash is to small, but nothing stops iRex or any third-party hacker from implementing it with a memory card. "Standby" is what the iLiad does between key presses, although it is not yet complete.

What the iLiad can not do is "Suspend to RAM", that is Standby + disabling the CPU, so the only components that would still consume power would be the RAM, the realtime clock, the memory controller and the keyboard controller. There simply are no memory or keyboard controllers (as I understand), so the CPU must do that work.

However, I'd guess the difference in power consumption between dedicated memory plus keyboard controllers and the CPU in 33Mhz mode is not very big.

I'm sorry that I revealed such problem. I still have a hope that iRex will find some solution maybe pseudo-suspend mode. Or they at least will make automaticall loading of last opened PDF file.

I'm sorry that I revealed such problem.Hey, if they don't get revealed then there's less motivation for iRext to fix them!

Besides, it's better for folks to buy the device knowing its limitations than to be surprised by them after the fact, which is actually what folks are finding so annoying. :shrug:

What would be interesting to know, what the difference in power consumption between full suspend (to RAM, to FLASH) and just maximum power cycling (33MHz and slow RAM refresh). Because at the end, it might not be a big difference?

I'm asking, because after all, even if you would turn of your iLiad completely, the battery usually discharge itself over time, so perhaps there is not so much difference between this normal battery-discharge or the very minimal power-consumption during power-cycling, or what do the experts think :-) ?

You're quite right, just one little detail: A PC has multiple standby modes, S3 is (I think) "suspend to RAM", while S1 leaves the CPU running and only switches off some other hardware.

So what iRex is aiming for is "Standby S1", with the CPU still running but with a reduced frequency.

If I had to guess why they cannot do S3/"suspend to RAM" or even "suspend to flash", I'd say the hardware buttons have no way to wake up the CPU. So the CPU has to run to check if a button is pressed.

Well, I'm not a designer or hardware expert, but since they have the 'lock' button now, could that be used? Locking keys would go into some low power state (suspend, hibernate, whatever) and unlocking would wake the unit up.

I don't see a plausible reason yet why the iLiad shouldn't be capable of suspend-to-flash _hardwarewise_ .
If iLiad would provide us with complete access to the devices we own I was quite confident that there will be someone who figures it out.

I think it must be something to do with the wakeup key...

And about the Power-Consumption comparison...I guess we really would have to get an anwer to that, but I'm afraid it won't be the same...
I can't imagine any CPU running at even 33Mhz that consumes so little power that the battery lasts for at least a few weeks (which is bout the times it takes for my PDA to run out of juice if I just leave it lying around without useage).

I think it must be something to do with the wakeup key...

Suspend to flash in my definition would mean that the state of the system (RAM and devices) is saved to flash and that the system is restored the next time it is started.
Of course this would mean using the power-switch to start up from suspend to flash and it would just mean faster "boot-up"-times.

Suspend to flash should work, and it would already be very helpful...Suspend to RAM would of course be a lot better!

My wish is the iRex can provide us the better iLiad which has long battery duration, fast file loading and page-turning, and quickly resume from any kind of reserving power mode.

Not just your wish Segatang...^^

Actually, all that should be possible with the current Iliad and some proper Software...

What I find annoying that they admit that the power management could be improved. They could do it. Remember: the audio is not turned off! One element of saving is to turn off the audio. 33 Mhz CPU and lower power on the DRAM would be enough.

But they do the implementation so slow. They don't focus on this issue! They don't realize that power management issue should be solved first and everything else comes after that! This is what looks like completely ignoring the user community, it does not matter what else they do well.

They don't focus on this issue! They don't realize that power management issue should be solved first and everything else comes after that! This is what looks like completely ignoring the user community, it does not matter what else they do well.

I think they are having all people who can work on power management doing so. Just remember, an application programmmer, who can do PDF zooming, usually is just about no help when it comes to kernel hacking (aka driver programming).

But they do the implementation so slow. They don't focus on this issue! They don't realize that power management issue should be solved first and everything else comes after that! This is what looks like completely ignoring the user community, it does not matter what else they do well.

I think Irex have given their reason for that in their post... Which would you have...? An Illiad that might last for 21 hours but has a good chance of crashing before that....? Or a hibernate mode that only returns to life every other time...?

As mentioned before, there is a lot of back-seat developing on these forums... I'm pretty sure Irex are developing as fast as they can, and from feedback on the beta program they seem to be doing fine.

I think Irex have given their reason for that in their post... Which would you have...? An Illiad that might last for 21 hours but has a good chance of crashing before that....? Or a hibernate mode that only returns to life every other time...?

As mentioned before, there is a lot of back-seat developing on these forums... I'm pretty sure Irex are developing as fast as they can, and from feedback on the beta program they seem to be doing fine.

Am I the only one complaining here about power management?

They have enough testers because they closed down the sign up. They said they need time for testing, not for developing. Otherwise if they don't have enough developers, why don't they hire more?

What they have provided is not a reason. It is just something to make people silent. My iliad crashes sometimes already, so that is not an excuse.


Or a hibernate mode that only returns to life every other time...?

This must be a joke isn't it? I don't see the difference against the current situation. When I turn on the device 1 out of 2 times I have to switch off, because it does not see my CF card. Which would I have?
I can see the choice is between instability without power management and instability with power management. The last one please.

There is no such thing as bug free software.

I think they are having all people who can work on power management doing so. Just remember, an application programmmer, who can do PDF zooming, usually is just about no help when it comes to kernel hacking (aka driver programming).

Sorry, I did not know that on Linux too there are programmers who do not know anything about the kernel and hardware like on Windows :)

Maybe it is so, but still he can do alpha-testing, he can read the code what other people have written and learn things and eventually be helpful. Nobody is born to be application programmer. "Power management" is not something that you learn in the university, but you can learn if you WANT by experimenting I guess (with the guidance of a seasoned programmer). At least this is what I would do and so far I always managed to learn new things.

mambo, you are definately not the only one complaining here...:-)

The trouble as I see it is that iRex is doing things back-to-front.
Usually, you build the Core-OS, implement the main elements like menu-structure, power-states and drivers for memory, display, controls,...
Then you start creating applications. You can always make small improvements and fix bugs in the Core-Os on the way, but starting on the basic functions after you have implemented advanced features like PDF zooming isn't really a good idea...

And now, to make it even worse, it seems the Hardware, the only thing we hadn't complained about before, is somehow not capable of allowing proper power-saving.

In case somebody has not really seen the problem yet...
Even if we get those 21 hours of battery-life, that is still less than 1 day of leaving your Iliad switched on without doing anything. It means you'll still have to switch it off after every useage to preserve battery life. You'll still have to endure the long wait until the device powers back up. I can't imagine a useage where this would not be a problem.

Example:
Casual Reading: I go to the lavatory, I pick up my Iliad. By the time it's booted and the book I was reading is on the screen, I can often switch it off again. Cool eh?

"Professional" Reading: You need to look something up for a paper you're just preparing. With paper-books you would go to the shelf, pick the book up and search for the page you need. With the Iliad, you have to pick it up, wait for it to boot and then you can actually start using it's advantages (once searching inside books is supported). In many cases you'd have found what you are looking for in the paper book before the Iliad was even booted. Cool eh?

Note-Taking: You are at home, the phone rings and you answer it, talk to the guy/lady on the other end. She then gives you a number or describes a route or something which you would like to write down. With a piece of paper you can start taking notes as soon as you find a pen. With a properly suspended e-ink device you can start taking notes almost right away. With the Iliad? I hope you have a good memory and still know everything she said by the tiem the Iliad is finally ready to go. You could of course write it down on paper and then write it on the Iliad once it is ready to go, but that would be...really cool eh?

On the Go: You are a busy man/woman with a full schedule and you keep it all on your Iliad. You are on a trip and meet some business partners. You have to work out a time and place for a new meeting so you check your schedule. Or rahter, you go all red and embarassed because your collegues various handhelds (PocketPC, smartphones, Palms, Tablet-PC...) are all there and waiting for input while your Iliad is showing it's pretty black-and-white booting screen. You could of course say: "It's eink, I can use it for ever and ever and don't have to recharge it.." but that would be a lie would it not?

Convinced that this a serious problem? I guess so!
But please, if you can find applications where this won't be a problem and where the Iliad would be a worthy replacement for pen and paper (or books) then feel free to point them out. I'm always willing to learn.

On another note, I talked to the guys from Jinke again and they have interesting plans for 2007.

Read this excerpt carefully...

We devote to the ebook devices; we plan to release 3 series and 6 types new products in 2007. And all these products adopt Linux OS and e Ink display. Some types have the 10 inches e Ink display. We focus on the communication function in our product next year, which include GPRS, WIFI, CDMA and 3G. We don’t design on/off switch on the products, all these can support suspend. When users charge the device one time, it can continue to use one month. We ever plan to adopt the solar charger.


Sounds good eh? Sounds like just about everybody apart from iRex thinks that you should use the strenghts of eink technology as best you can?

Otherwise if they don't have enough developers, why don't they hire more? ... Maybe it is so, but still he can do alpha-testing, he can read the code what other people have written and learn things and eventually be helpful.

In theory, yes, but in practise both new developers and training/learning new skills takes time... Its not an instant-on situation either... :D

This must be a joke isn't it? I don't see the difference against the current situation. When I turn on the device 1 out of 2 times I have to switch off, because it does not see my CF card. Which would I have?

Sounds like a dodgy cf card... I use mine with a cf card and have never seen this problem...

I can see the choice is between instability without power management and instability with power management. The last one please.

But it wouldn't be... It would be a choice between software (without power management software) with x number of bugs, or this, as well as power management with y number of bugs in it.

If you didn't attempt to minimise the number of bugs you would have x *and* y number of bugs. And imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth if 2.8 doubled the number of bugs...? :D

well...that's why we have beta testers isn't it? Through the buggy software at us and we'll help fix it...that's what beta testers do usually...

And I don't think it's a dodgy CF card...I never had that problem before (and I did not change my card), but 2.7 introduced it and it didn't go away with 2.7.1 so it's probably not found yet.

And jaed...we are not talking about WHEN iRex will be implementing power-management, we are talking about the fact that they admitted that they CAN'T implement it at all...at least the kind most of us were expecting...

Jaed, I think both of us have a point.

Maybe my 4GB Kingston CF card is dodgy. But there are things that are not rational:
1. If I put it into a card reader and attach to a PC it ALWAYS works.
2. It does not matter how many times I take out and put back into the iLiad, it will be not recognized, once it is not recognized on startup. It will be only recognized when I restart the iLiad. This tells me that something is not right with the iLiad.
3. When I restart the iLiad, the card ALWAYS works. Never happened so far to me, that it would be necessary to restart the iLiad 2 times to make the card working again.

On the other hand what I am talking about is I still believe that they can improve the power management. I still don't want to send back the product and a pseudo-suspend mode would suit me. though, I deeply share CommanderRORs feelings.

My point is, that they just seem to have different attitude to the whole thing. It does look like that this issue is not so important for them. They have intentionally adopted an approach of small improvements. This is they strategy. This is an intentional and not an emerging strategy. At this pace it can take forever the development. All I want to see is concentrated efforts for a solution.

I said I am ready for beta testing. But I was not contacted by them. They seem like have enough beta testers by now. So what keeps them back from delivering a test version? Remember they did not say they can not do it, they don't have enough programmers, they said "thorough testing" what takes long. This is what sounds strange to me.

By the way there is no such feature that could not be turned off, so if the device get instable, it is possible to switch back to "safe mode". And what they say, that it is difficult to add a new option to the settings application. Ridiculous.

i want to add some things here.
As a linux user (Ubuntu 6.10 on a T42) I know that powermanagement is troublesome. There are some tricky things, you only need a driver that goes on rampage after STR/STHDD and you loose your Display after suspend. I can see the problems there, even as a non-programmer. But I would have thought a tiny/embedded system would have less problematic points. Especially when the hardware was designed to run a Linux OS. The thing about the buttons is probably that they are no ACPI or keyboard buttons and therefore can't wake the iLiad from a real suspend to RAM. (thats what I think, and some of you already mentioned here or at iRex's forum.)

The thing about the buttons is probably that they are no ACPI or keyboard buttons and therefore can't wake the iLiad from a real suspend to RAM.

Yepp, I don't know too much about hardware-design but I doubt that they are polling the buttons for no reason.
Actually I think that this aspect of the iLiad might be an excellent cantidate for http://TheDailyWtf.com/

But I'm still very confident that there is the potential for expanding the iLiad runtime on battery by the factor 5.

If they only would release sufficient sourcecode and instructions how to unbrick the devices...

Being part of the beta-tester group, I'm also not so sure, if this beta-test group would be a big help on solving power-management issues: Usually developers want some steps to reproduce the fault. But with such low-level stuff like power-managment, we could just report: "Oh, my screen does not work", but could not give any more hints (e.g. steps to reproduce would be always: I put iLiad to suspend...), as we don't have access to internals (e.g. no debugger, no logfiles, etc).

So I agree, we could do some long-term stability testing (e.g. it could be that only every 10th suspend goes ballistic or if you suspend for a long period of time) but I guess iRex does not need us beta-testers for the first implementation round, as it would be relatively trivial to test, if suspend works or not: By just putting iLiad to suspend after they did some code changes :-)

I could also imaging, that this stuff is quite hard to develop, as you would need to test it on real hardware (no simulator), but could be wrong, as I don't develop such low-level stuff :-)

You're quite right, just one little detail: A PC has multiple standby modes, S3 is (I think) "suspend to RAM", while S1 leaves the CPU running and only switches off some other hardware.

So what iRex is aiming for is "Standby S1", with the CPU still running but with a reduced frequency.

If I had to guess why they cannot do S3/"suspend to RAM" or even "suspend to flash", I'd say the hardware buttons have no way to wake up the CPU. So the CPU has to run to check if a button is pressed.

erm ... I doubt so ... wakeup triggers are mostly handled by onboard auxilliary controller chips and not the main CPU itself. They 'just' need such a controller to wait for triggers, very much like how the various IO controller chips can wake up a whole PC through a phone or LAN line even with the whole system switched off.

Granted the IO controller is using some power, but should be miniscule compared to the main CPU running.

I think iRex has been about as clear with their priorities as a quick knife thrust to the kidney's.

Their focus is B2B. It's nurses filling forms, meter readers taking meter readings, news papers attempting to morph to the digital era...

They could improve power management but it's already good enough for B2B so why spend resources on something that is "good enough"?

They do have a microcontroller to wake up the iLiad: UCB1300. It's a Philips "kitchen drawer" chip that is used for a variety of features such as the Wacom, speaker and I suspect: the buttons.

So far I haven't seen iRex embrace the fact that they have a known set of hardware. Case in point? Speeding up the boot. I was told the reason the wireless.sh stop is in the startup sequence is because loading the hotplug causes it to wake up the WLAN card.

If I had been coding this? You can bet the hotplug would have been modded to not wake up the WLAN card. Oh well...

They've taken a bunch of off the shelf open source software and slapped it together to be "good enough". It's time for collaboration to begin so people can help polish off some of the rough edges and produce a more polished product.

OK, so basically you are saying that the Iliad has everything that would be neede for the whole Suspend thing?
So why are they then saying "it can't be done" rather than "we don't want to do it, do you"?

I agree with Scotty, their B2B viewpoint is fulfilled even with a 10-hour runtime. Commander, you were talking about having to look up something while at work... why switch the iLiad off during your working hours? I think they might be thinking of the iLiad lasting 1/2 working days (not resting hours), and currently it works very well, for B2B; time to leave, switch off the PC, switch off the iLiad, put it in its cradle (or hub)... charged up for the next day.

Actually, even though I'm an "at-home" user, I'm happy with it right now, I'd appreciate a quicker boot-up time, say 20sec, if it can be managed, and of course, the longer the battery lasts, the better, but it's enough for me right now, with my usage. :)

well...I'm not sure...maybe the battery won't last all that long with so many recharges...but never mind...it's not a paper replacement, and that's what was/is advertised...^^

That's my only worry, too... how many recharges does the battery have in it? 3 years? That would be enough for me, by then new e-ink devices will be the cat's pyjamas. :D

One key factor in this is iRex's command of English.

Suspend is the wrong term for what the iLiad is capable of. In Intel speak what the iLiad can achieve is "deep sleep".

An example from the iLiad, here's what their script says when it shuts down the WLAN:

root@ereader:~# . /usr/bin/wireless.sh stop
wlan0 deepsleep:setting to on

So if we quit calling it "suspend" and start asking them for "deep sleep" they may start understanding what we are talking about. :)

Since the set of hardware is well understood, after all, it's just what's in the case. :D The reliability of the "deep sleep" can be quite good. As pointed out previously, when it's a a mixed bag of accessories and 3rd party add on's it's a much larger challenge to make it work.

But the iLiad is a closed system with no factory options and very limited 3rd party accessories. Reliable deep sleep is possible. But it's like I've been saying, there is no CVS/SVN server to go grab deep sleep support out of for an iLiad. It needs to be custom crafted by someone with a good understanding of the Linux kernel and iRex has other B2B priorities right now.

GeekRaver left a Sony Portable Reader un-foraged at the local Border's so I was able to get my hands on a working one today. I just left it on at my desk for an hour with 1984 open on the screen. The battery meter didn't even twitch.

I'd like that for my iLiad.

I wanted Sony Portable Reader page flipping time, I got it. All I need is more source from iRex to get the other...

There is no reason whatsoever that the iliad could not do what we, the users, would consider "hibernate".
All that has to be done is to store the current book/page that the user is reading, and get back to ipdf when the iliad wakes up. There is easily enough flash memory for that. Of course a more general hibernate would be useful, one that could wake up and restore any program - but for a device that has such a one-track use it isn't really needed.
The boot sequence should be made faster - but that, again, as scotty1024 pointed out should also be possible.