on a positive note, that design does appear to be hand agnostic. Something Amazon fails to provide, in three tries no less. People reading for longer periods need and want to change hands and many like myself cannot hold devices in one hand for extended periods.
It will be interesting, and I have little doubt iRex could deliver a working model in very short order. I suspect the case is the only complicated issue, then refining the internal components to fit the final form factor while avoiding overheating and working as intended.
Given the mock-up, this would have to have an accelerometer to allow auto rotation. Auto-rotation is going to have to become pretty much ubiquitous for successful devices, especially large format. A button rotation would also be fine with me...but eventually auto-sensing orientation needs to be part of the deal. Then again a button reduced the power needs to constantly monitor a sensor for changes. As someone mentioned this is starting to get interesting, just as many of us here have been saying would come in this fall and winter...or Q3 & Q4 for our buds south of the equator.
I hope iRex makes it...they have been there from early one trying to make a good device. While it was always too expensive for my tastes, the Wacom was pure genius and the right decision but perhaps at the wrong time. Market a Wacom device at mass produced prices to big companies and I think this is a seriously solid device.
I see another potential competitor to all the large format builders and promoters in TabletKiosk but that is another thread yet they are a company who could catch the industry with their collective pants down if they could get smart...
I know I would be interested in an iRex reading only device. Isn't 8.1" sort of the TPB size pages? Or is 9.7" closer? I do not have a TPB handy to measure. I really enjoy a TPB book and honestly only discovered them a few years ago as I always just bought MMPB's for recreational reading.