Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions

[DeReader]

Originally Posted by Jumpn Jack Flash

Any sign of a SIM slot? Anybody willing to pull it apart to see if a Wifi card could be put in.

I opened the battery cover and next to the slot for the micro-sd card is another slot for a sim card. But I don't know if it's even connected.

Some more impressions after trying out a few PDFs and epubs:

• PDF rendering is of high quality and switching between pages fast. Despite the missing zoom, documents are readable which I could only read comfortably zoomed on the Iliad.
  
• ePub rendering quality is good, but sometimes page switching very slow (I think it is slow when the next XHTML-file of the epup has to be fetched)
  
• There is no support for folders. I always categorize my books on the reader in folders and subfolders. Iliad did support this, with the DR800S I'm getting all books from all subfolders in one big list.
  
• No direct jump to a page number. You have to use the index (if available in the document).
  
• The included sleeve is a joke, not much better than this
  
• No holder for the stylus in the device, that means I'll have to search for the stylus often

Most negative points could be remedied by a firmware update. So far I am quite happy with the quality of the display and the readability of rendered PDFs.

As a little bonus to this posting I include three microscopic pictures of the e-ink structure (done with a cheap USB microscope for kids) for the Iliad, DR800S and the Sony PRS-300.

You can see, that in the oldest display from the Iliad, there are a lot of "stuck" pixels. These will not change their color and make the screen more "gray". The current displays are much "cleaner".

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

.mobi and .prc don't even show in the booklist. Didn't find any way to access them (DRM free of course).

iRex has said that Mobipocket will not be supported, not even DRM-free Mobipocket. They had to drop support completely when they switched over to supporting Adobe DRM due to the licensing terms involved.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Then it's a no-go for me. What formats does it read? Except epub and pdf, that is?

Unfortunately, Mobipocket insists on an exclusive agreement with device manufacturers. I don't think it's possible for iRex to include another DRM format and then install a Mobipocket reader as well. Doing so would violate the Mobipocket license. Of course, since the device is open, it's possible that 3rd party developers would be able to port their own non-DRM Mobipocket viewer and then distribute it "unofficially".

[mgmueller]

Nice feature: At first, in thumbnail view you see symbols for your books.
After having opened each for the very first time, the symbol is replaced by a thumbnail of the actual cover.
Meaning: Sony 600 and 900 or Cybook Opus are generating the covers in library view. For the first time, that's time consuming. iRex 800 only does it for the books actual in use. So far, it's working for .epub, .pdf and .pdb (are there any other working formats? I guess, that's it).

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

iRex has said that Mobipocket will not be supported, not even DRM-free Mobipocket. They had to drop support completely when they switched over to supporting Adobe DRM due to the licensing terms involved.

Interesting. Didn't know, this is valid for DRM-free as well. How's BeBook/Hanlin/Astak solving this? They support DRMed ePUB and DRm-free Mobipocket, if I'm not mixing things up.

[zerospinboson]

Anything about developer access so you can install 3rd party apps?

[mgmueller]

I can't access the Micro SD card in Windows (doesn't even show). Neither the original one, nor mine. No idea, whether that's standard or a failure of my unit.
I have to check again, whether it's a feature or has been coincidence or an "accident": I've copied some books to the root of internal memory, just to check them out and make some pictures. Next time, when accessing them, they have been on the Micro SD card. Maybe content is copied automatically to the SD card? Anyway, I've copied the first part of my library manually via adapter to the card and then reinserted it into the reader - loaded with the first 400 eBooks of various formats.

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by DeReader

PDF rendering is of high quality and switching between pages fast. Despite the missing zoom, documents are readable which I could only read comfortably zoomed on the Iliad.

Given that both devices have the same resolution, what do you think accounts for the better readability on the dr800? Is the document rendered larger on the dr800 due to less interface elements / smaller margins?

Originally Posted by DeReader

As a little bonus to this posting I include three microscopic pictures of the e-ink structure (done with a cheap USB microscope for kids) for the Iliad, DR800S and the Sony PRS-300.

You can see, that in the oldest display from the Iliad, there are a lot of "stuck" pixels. These will not change their color and make the screen more "gray". The current displays are much "cleaner".

It would be interesting to know if these stuck pixels on the iliad are due to immature manufacturing or general degradation of e-ink displays over time. I wonder if a conditioning program can be made to work those pixels back to working order by repeatedly performing solid white and black transitions.

Quick, everyone get your microscopes on all your readers and specify age and usage habits!

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

I can't access the Micro SD card in Windows (doesn't even show). Neither the original one, nor mine. No idea, whether that's standard or a failure of my unit.

Since the OS is linux, it's likely it's formatted using a file system like ext3, which Windows systems don't normally support.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Interesting. Didn't know, this is valid for DRM-free as well. How's BeBook/Hanlin/Astak solving this? They support DRMed ePUB and DRm-free Mobipocket, if I'm not mixing things up.

I remember that came up before in a discussion. I was originally under the impression that you could support non-DRM Mobipocket without the exclusivity issue, but somebody had an explanation for it. I'll dig around older posts and see if I can find where we talked about it before.

Maybe the difference is that BeBook/Hanlin/Astak never had to sign a license agreement with Mobipocket agreeing to exclusivity since they never offered DRM Mobipocket. iRex had to sign it when they put it in place on the iLiad.

I did ask iRex at one point if it would be possible for them to keep non-DRM Mobipocket, and they said that they couldn't because of the license agreements.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by badbob001

Since the OS is linux, it's likely it's formatted using a file system like ext3, which Windows systems don't normally support.

The iLiad and DR1000 both use FAT32 on the memory cards though, and they run Linux as well.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

First impression: iRex 800 seems a perfect compromise of readability and mobility. Very nice!

That's actually a very nice size compared to the DX.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by badbob001

It would be interesting to know if these stuck pixels on the iliad are due to immature manufacturing or general degradation of e-ink displays over time. I wonder if a conditioning program can be made to work those pixels back to working order by repeatedly performing solid white and black transitions.

We've seen with iLiads that the contrast tends to fade a little bit during the first couple weeks of use. Maybe this is the reason. It would be interesting to make the same comparison again after the DR800 has had a few months of use. It might just be a general eInk thing.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by badbob001

Since the OS is linux, it's likely it's formatted using a file system like ext3, which Windows systems don't normally support.

The original SD card has been formatted FAT32, so is mine.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I remember that came up before in a discussion. I was originally under the impression that you could support non-DRM Mobipocket without the exclusivity issue, but somebody had an explanation for it. I'll dig around older posts and see if I can find where we talked about it before.

Maybe the difference is that BeBook/Hanlin/Astak never had to sign a license agreement with Mobipocket agreeing to exclusivity since they never offered DRM Mobipocket. iRex had to sign it when they put it in place on the iLiad.

I did ask iRex at one point if it would be possible for them to keep non-DRM Mobipocket, and they said that they couldn't because of the license agreements.

..but at least BeBook DID offer DRMed Mobipocket before the firmware upgrade to DMRed ePUB...