TaKir - Wash my mouth? Hell I was being nice.
drachasor - I disagree but thank you for a rational criticism. I would agree with you but I've seenno serious pressure for a regime change there. The current government knows exactly what it is doing, by allowing Chinese companies to flourish they're just incresing their own tax base to keep their hold on power.
But this isn't a political forum, I remain doubtful about any high-tech products from China especially against two established and proven tech giants.
On the Irex, I am a bit concerned about its usefullness to me, I don't need or want any internet connectivity or a touchscreen (they need to have a second version). I am NOT going to pay $650 for an e-book reader, the added utility just isn't there.
That's why, despite the DRM, I'm going with the Sony. Most of the books I have currently are not DRM'd and those are probably a minority of what I'm going to use it for. I work for a DC think tank and mostly what I want to use it for is academic studies, papers, reports, etc. All of that is not DRM'd and mostly PDF (or easily convertable to PDF or Sony's format).
So this whole debate over specs is useless to me and I'm sure to several of you. It all depends what you're going to use it for. Me, being a political junkie, where it's from it important and of course price is also.