Is the pen supplied inadequate?

[pdam]

I recently realised that the pen for my tablet PC works on the Iliad. It is much larger, easier to use and makes notetaking a joy, rather than a pain with the supplied pen, which I personally find too small to be efficiently useful.

I for one would like to see a better (thicker) pen included, possibly built into a griphandle on the back of the device. The supplied pen holds back a device I have recently found really useful as a notebook at a conference ...

[scotty1024]

The iLiad would need to be much thicker to hold a proper sized writing stylus. You could "hang" a larger stylus off the back, but what about when you want to lay the unit flat with the stylus attached? Or purchase an inexpensive carry pouch?

What I'd like to see is a hole in the iLiad and a hole in the stylus along with a supplied lanyard kit with each unit. I keep thinking I'm going to lose the sucker and then I'll really be running my battery flat.

By the way, Cross makes several "Pen Enabled" styluii. I find some of them more comfortable for writing than even the stylus supplied with the Motion Computing LE1600. You can also purchase a variety of different nibs for regular sized Wacom styluii, these nibs can produce a variety of different writing effects and feels.

[pdam]

Good tips - however this puts the price of the device up ... as I have to buy a 3rd party pen to make it usable! I paticulaly like the lanyard idea .. but this should be supplied.

The device wouldn't need to be any thicker it the pen were on the side top or bottom, rather than on the back (but it's already designed, so too late for version 1).

It just seems strange that the device is more expensive than the Sony device, it has additional features (theoretically) such as pen input and mp3 ... but to make it properly usable with these additional features ... you need to shell out more money on top of an already high price for a better pen/headphones etc ... hmmm

[scotty1024]

Originally Posted by pdam

It just seems strange that the device is more expensive than the Sony device, it has additional features (theoretically) such as pen input and mp3 ...

Both Sony's do MP3's. The Librie even has a built in speaker and can do "Talking eBooks" that speak to you as you flip the pages.

From the internal photos posted of the iLiad I can tell you that the iLiad is not a cost reduced consumer oriented design. It looks to be more closely related to an engineering proof of concept design. I've often wondered if iRex pitched the iLiad to Sony and Sony said no.

I've also begun to wonder if iRex though they were going to be getting a BBeB DRM license from Sony...

In any case, to be able to market a device at $350 USD (and include a $50 ebook rebate and retail mark up for Border's) you can't be tossing in integrated circuits like a drunken sailor.

Best example I can give: real time clock.

The PXA-255 CPU chip in the iLiad has a built in real time clock, but the iLiad has a real time clock integrated circuit in the design, ignoring the one they got with the CPU chip.

Intel also thought the PXA-255 CPU would be in charge of the FLASH memory for the ebook storage. Instead the iLiad uses the MSystem's Disk On Chip device, which costs more $$$ (and I'm beginning to suspect is running very much slower than FLASH attached to the PXA-255 would have been...)

The Sony Reader has one lithium ion battery, the iLiad has two "custom designed" (iRex's phrase) batteries.

Or as I've put it before: the iLiad is a Rolls to the Sony Reader's Ford Probe. If you open it up you know where some of the extra $350 went. If you wanted to pay for it, well that's another matter.