iRex is giving me pause...(small rant)

[drogo]

I was very excited about the iLiad when I first read the specs for it. 1024x768, 16-shade greyscale, pdf compatibility, and of course eInk!! I saw a new promising ereader, and all was good.

But then, problems began to arise. (Don't they always?) Issues with the software made me to decide to wait until the "official" consumer release. I've been an early adopter several times, and decided this time I would try the patient route. I've been reading ebooks on handhelds since my Palm IIIx. Then on my Zaurus, then my HieBook, Zaurus again (contrast was pretty bad on the HieBook), then most recently, I picked up a Dell Axim x51v. Wow, 640x480 in a 3 .5 inch screen is fantastic for text!!

But then I heard about the iLiad through the blog at teleread.org. It all seemed so promising. Eink technology, high res screen, long battery life, some open document formats and even PDF! Sounded good at the time.

At the time...

Now it's out, the battery life is nowhere near the original quoted times, it's pretty slow, and the rendering technology seems not to be complete. Well, I suppose that's to be expected, since it's not the official consumer release. But now, I'm hearing things I don't like. The remote kill thing discussed here and here. Then I've also read that iRex is not releasing the source for their OS implementation. If it's based on Linux, and it's being re-distributed, this is a big no-no. Maybe that issue was resolved, but if not....

In any case, I'm really pulling for this device to be everything it could be. I was disappointed with the REB-1100 and 1200 once gemstar took over. I'm hoping that iRex keeps it's focus in providing a good customer experience. I'll wait until the consumer release software version is out before passing final judgement, but what I'm seeing so far... It makes me think iRex might be headed down the wrong path.

Am I being too cynical? What do you guys think?

[rlauzon]

I think you are being too cynical - at least for now. Since the iLiad is still a pre-release right now, many problems are still being smoothed out.

Right now, I am judging my unit based on what iRex says works and not on what they say doesn't work yet.

Originally Posted by drogo

But then, problems began to arise. (Don't they always?) Issues with the software made me to decide to wait until the "official" consumer release.

Yet, it's still the best eBook reader I've got. I currently use it to read the content that I used to read on my Palm. I have found that I can read much longer on the iLiad than on my Palm TX.

Originally Posted by drogo

Now it's out, the battery life is nowhere near the original quoted times, it's pretty slow, and the rendering technology seems not to be complete. Well, I suppose that's to be expected, since it's not the official consumer release.

So it's too early to judge battery life. But all indications are that the battery life will be long. Right now, I get about 5 hours on a charge - that's on time with many page turns.

The slowness is something that you will have to get used to. Partly it's from the slowness of the device and partly from how eInk works. It's never going to be really fast - unless you want to accept a much lower battery life and that will only buy you fast document opening. The eInk will always be slow.

Yes, the rendering technology is not all there yet, but then they didn't promise that it ready anyway. Again, too early to tell, but what I see right now certainly points toward iRex keeping its promises.

Originally Posted by drogo

But now, I'm hearing things I don't like. The remote kill thing discussed

I was a bit upset about that and I spoke to them abouty it. I can see why some people would want this, but there are too many potential pitfalls for this. I can't see them implementing this in a consumer model. Maybe in a special order model for a vendor, but that's it.

Originally Posted by drogo

It makes me think iRex might be headed down the wrong path.

Am I being too cynical? What do you guys think?

Bottom line is "Time will tell".

I like what I see now. Whether or not I like what I see tomorrow is another story. Until iRex sends me a message along the lines of "The software is now production and all the features are working", I am going to hold off judging the iLiad too harshly.

[NatCh]

Hey, drogo, looks like you're not any better at taking the "patient" route than I am.

I think your first instinct is the correct one on the performance issues: wait until the "official" software/OS is released and see what that does. This is still Beta Days for iRex.

As to the other issues, I if I understood the discussion correctly, they are going to open up their OS, eventually. Some time after they get it to where they can call it 'final' with a straight face.

As to the remote kill thing, it looks like that's pretty fluid at the moment, and they're already getting lobbied to do some kind of password instead. I think that may fall out differently than they originally expected it to. Another thing to wait and see about if it's of particular concern. Keep in mind that any 'connected' device maker could do the same thing at some future point if they decided to. If you're aware of the stolen Sidekick drama back in May/June, you know that cell phones can apparently be deactivated remotely, and this hasn't been an issue yet.

Also, keep in mind that iLiad isn't the only e-ink reader, just the only one currently available. You can always try Sony in a couple of months or HanLin .... whenever they actually release.

Beyond that, I'm sure these are just the first three options, just as RocketBook was the first e-reader. I expect to see others in the coming days. There are rumors of an Apple e-reader (nothing substantive as far as I know), and the folks over at the Baen webboard are working on setting up their own LLC to design an e-reader (on this thread -- you have to register to read, though) -- if they pull it off, you can bet that one will be as open as a Montana sky with the Baen folks' fingers in it. Probably pretty cheap too.

As for iRex's possibly heading down the wrong path, they've proven responsive to customer, um, shall we say 'uproar?' They weren't going to sell to us directly, then they were, but not until September, then before September but only by invitation, then to anyone but they wouldn't talk to us, now they're active in their forum....

I'd say they have demonstrated a remarkable willingness to be influenced by the needs of their customers. If they were uncommunicative in the beginning, well that was just one of the first things they got influenced on.

[drogo]

Ok, you guys are right. They have been pretty good so far. Funny how easy it is to overlook the good things and focus only on the bad. Guess I need to work on that.

As to the refresh speed, I'm hoping that can be improved. The sony model looks like it refreshes in ~1 second. Video review can be found here. The page turns are about 30-40 sec in. You can't actually see him press the button, but you see his hand flex, the device move, then the page refreshes.

But that may be due to it's being 4-scale 800x600. Less work for the device.

I think I might get some samples of my documents together and ask someone to load them and see how they do.

Patience grasshopper, patience.

But I've been waiting soooo loooonnnnggggg!!!!!

[rmeister0]

Originally Posted by drogo

As to the refresh speed, I'm hoping that can be improved. The sony model looks like it refreshes in ~1 second. Video review can be found here. The page turns are about 30-40 sec in. You can't actually see him press the button, but you see his hand flex, the device move, then the page refreshes.

I suspect that may also be because the review unit was sent out with content already loaded on it, and the content was highly optimized to show the product in the best light. Remember, there is no official Iliad content that I've heard of in the wild, so everybody is loading up what they have.

My understanding of the Sony, and I don't remember exactly where I read this, is that the Beb file does some pre-rendering, or possible has pagination pre-calculated for pre-set font types and sizes.

The fact that the Sony has a smaller screen may also impact the perception, but I'm not sure.

[deadite66]

http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=9

- we are working on a new PDF viewer which will support scribble, zoom, pan, click on links in the pdf. Q4 release target. In release 2.6 (target 3rd week August) you will find pre-rendering installed allowing you to do page forward/backward more quickly.

[drogo]

Originally Posted by deadite66

http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=9

Sweeeet!

Guess I've got another forum to start frequenting!

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by rmeister0

My understanding of the Sony, and I don't remember exactly where I read this, is that the Beb file does some pre-rendering, or possible has pagination pre-calculated for pre-set font types and sizes.

The fact that the Sony has a smaller screen may also impact the perception, but I'm not sure.

I posted some info on the BBeB format in this post in this thread over in the Sony Reader forum.

To nutshell it, the BBeB format is XML based, which makes it pretty low-overhead, and I'd guess that Sony's software/OS is optimized to handle it quickly. I don't have a clue if it encodes page numbering or not, however.

As to the other, non-BBeB formats (RTF/TXT/PDF) the Sony Reader supports, if you run the file through their software to load it onto the Reader, it apparently does some pre-rendering during the load to optimize display loading, or some such, which may result in faster flipping.

I should probably stress (since most folks seem to think differently) that the Sony Reader will load/display RTF/TXT/PDF files natively, without running through their loading software. And that the loading software does not convert the files to BBeB, it just adds some pre-rendering of the pages. I guess it's up to the user to decide for himself whether the quicker page turn is worth the extra memory space.

I hadn't thought about the effect the smaller screen might have on percieved page-flip-time, but I'd think that it might be more noticable on a smaller screen. I'm thinking in terms of how far your eyes have to go fromt the bottom left of the last line, to the top right of the first line of the next page. If the screen is refreshing while you move your eyes the larger one gets more of it done during the move (across the larger distance) than the smaller one.

On the other hand, as fast as eyes typically move, I'd guess that an extra two inches isn't likely to result in a perceivable difference. Two feet wouldn't be likely to make a difference a person could notice!

[donkaarlos]

Hi,

I switched over from Librie to Iliad. I already enjoy the reading experience on the iliad. Yes at the moment it takes about double the time to make a page turn on the iliad compared to the Sony. However iliad screen size and resolution holds easily double the amout of text compared to the smaller screen of the Sony. So altogether waiting time is close to equal.

If and when prerendering helps, the situation will even be better.

Another positive aspect, which looks very promising to me is the speed of further development so far and the activity around this device. Software upgrades seem not to be that common with other reading devices..

[drogo]

No, wait. I'm not talking about percpetion of refresh speed. What I'm talking about is a CPU/Graphics engine issue. The way you can't run a game as fast when your display is set to 1280x1024 24bit as opposed to 800x600 8bit. Or the way a computer display can't set it's refresh rate (mhz) as high when it's at a higher resolution (with CRT's at least, LCD's are a different animal). There's so much more graphical information to be processed at the higher resolution that it performs the refresh slower.

I was thinking that since the Sony is 800x600/4 colors vs. 1024x768/16 colors, it's system has less work to do, and can therefore render pages quicker.

But now that I've seen that the BBeB format pre-renders, I'll just assume that's the reason for the speed increase.

And I'll continue watching, waiting, and drooling.

Edit:
Also wanted to say thanks NatCh for the correct info on the sony reader and pdf/txt/html docs. I was under the misconception that they would have to be run through a converter to be displayed.

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by drogo

I was thinking that since the Sony is 800x600/4 colors vs. 1024x768/16 colors, it's system has less work to do, and can therefore render pages quicker.

Hmm. I hadn't thought about it that way. It may be a factor, but I wouldn't expect it to be perceivable, let alone noticable.

Originally Posted by drogo

But now that I've seen that the BBeB format pre-renders, I'll just assume that's the reason for the speed increase.

I don't know exactly how much pre-rendering the Sony will with the BBeB, I think it's probably more that the Reader's software/OS is particularly quick when it's handling the BBeB format. They are close kin, after all.

Originally Posted by drogo

Also wanted to say thanks NatCh for the correct info on the sony reader and pdf/txt/html docs. I was under the misconception that they would have to be run through a converter to be displayed.

You're welcome, glad to help. Pop over to the Sony forum and browse there, if you like, there're some other things that folks seem to have misconceptions about on the Sony Reader.