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duckface · 12-06-2008, 10:08 PM

It took about 3 weeks to arrive, as indicated.

I'm on a Mac, and was able to use it without problems.
As others have indicated, The SD media appears as removable drive
on the Mac.

I installed the 1.02 software by downloading it to the mac,
then unzip into the top level directory of the removable drive,
then restart the Irex.

With the 1.02 software, I got (very roughly) 10 hours of battery life,
with the sound and feedback lights turned off, but the stylus turned on.
Probably the stylus is a major drain however.

I purchased an 8gig SDhc - it works, however: *do not* format it on
the Irex, it reduces the capacity to 1gig, and you then have to reformat
on a computer. When I first popped the card into the irex, it showed 8gig.
Then I did the format and install software steps, resulting in a 1gig card.
I then tried reformatting it on the Mac as mounted through the Irex -- this
did not work, I think it resulted in a corrupted format. Finally I got
a card reader, formatted it on the Mac (as a ms-dos volume of course),
mount in the irex, install the software, all ok - after some unneeded steps.
When you first get the SDhc card it is almost certainly already formatted,
just skip the format step and install the software.
As someone else mentioned, the install software step does not copy the .pdf
manuals, so copy these off the original and resinstall them on the new SD.

The folder /Volume/IREX/System/Desktop (as seen from the host) is
a place to put things that is visible from the irex.

Positive: the screen can display a full page .pdf, small details such as subscripts are generally readable.

Some negatives:

The interface is confusing. I can see why USA Today and others gave it
a poor review. The linux foundation is presumably pretty well developed,
but it seems like they have developed an interface from scratch, it reminds
me of software the first dos computers, with additional bugs.
The hardware interface is also confusing -- there are three
left-dot-right hardware controllers, but the meaning of the middle "dot"
is different on the bottom controller. It should have a different shape.
The touch buttons do not work perfectly, and on my unit one of them
does not work well at all, requires multiple presses.
The placement of the controllers on left and
right makes it difficult to hold the device without accidentally pressing
page advance sometimes. There is a feature to turn off ("lock")
any of these controllers, but at random the lock seems to disappear
and reappear. The unit is too heavy to hold for a long period
(unlike the Sony reader, which can be held in one hand...
on the other hand, the Sony can display about a paragraph's worth of text).
The unit has frozen twice in about a day of use. The second time, it was
turned off I thought, and it would not turn on. I thought it was broken,
but a hard reset allowed it to turn on.

Due to these negatives, I'm not sure what I'll think of it in the long
term. However, it is a new device and is the only choice a the moment that is even
capable of displaying full page .pdfs, so it's silly to complain.
On the contrary I am grateful to be able to at least try this device.
No doubt the software will rapidly improve over time, doubly so
since it is open source.

Looking forward to djvu support, which is probably coming soon...

On Mac/Linux it is possible to convert djvu to pdf with djvups followed by ps2pdf
(If DjView is installed, in the terminal do
/Applications/DjView.app/Contents/bin/djvups file.djvu tmp.ps
ps2pdf tmp.ps file.pdf)

12-06-2008, 10:08 PM	#51
duckface Junior Member Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Dec 2008 Device: irex1000	Another first impression It took about 3 weeks to arrive, as indicated. I'm on a Mac, and was able to use it without problems. As others have indicated, The SD media appears as removable drive on the Mac. I installed the 1.02 software by downloading it to the mac, then unzip into the top level directory of the removable drive, then restart the Irex. With the 1.02 software, I got (very roughly) 10 hours of battery life, with the sound and feedback lights turned off, but the stylus turned on. Probably the stylus is a major drain however. I purchased an 8gig SDhc - it works, however: do not format it on the Irex, it reduces the capacity to 1gig, and you then have to reformat on a computer. When I first popped the card into the irex, it showed 8gig. Then I did the format and install software steps, resulting in a 1gig card. I then tried reformatting it on the Mac as mounted through the Irex -- this did not work, I think it resulted in a corrupted format. Finally I got a card reader, formatted it on the Mac (as a ms-dos volume of course), mount in the irex, install the software, all ok - after some unneeded steps. When you first get the SDhc card it is almost certainly already formatted, just skip the format step and install the software. As someone else mentioned, the install software step does not copy the .pdf manuals, so copy these off the original and resinstall them on the new SD. The folder /Volume/IREX/System/Desktop (as seen from the host) is a place to put things that is visible from the irex. Positive: the screen can display a full page .pdf, small details such as subscripts are generally readable. Some negatives: The interface is confusing. I can see why USA Today and others gave it a poor review. The linux foundation is presumably pretty well developed, but it seems like they have developed an interface from scratch, it reminds me of software the first dos computers, with additional bugs. The hardware interface is also confusing -- there are three left-dot-right hardware controllers, but the meaning of the middle "dot" is different on the bottom controller. It should have a different shape. The touch buttons do not work perfectly, and on my unit one of them does not work well at all, requires multiple presses. The placement of the controllers on left and right makes it difficult to hold the device without accidentally pressing page advance sometimes. There is a feature to turn off ("lock") any of these controllers, but at random the lock seems to disappear and reappear. The unit is too heavy to hold for a long period (unlike the Sony reader, which can be held in one hand... on the other hand, the Sony can display about a paragraph's worth of text). The unit has frozen twice in about a day of use. The second time, it was turned off I thought, and it would not turn on. I thought it was broken, but a hard reset allowed it to turn on. Due to these negatives, I'm not sure what I'll think of it in the long term. However, it is a new device and is the only choice a the moment that is even capable of displaying full page .pdfs, so it's silly to complain. On the contrary I am grateful to be able to at least try this device. No doubt the software will rapidly improve over time, doubly so since it is open source. Looking forward to djvu support, which is probably coming soon... On Mac/Linux it is possible to convert djvu to pdf with djvups followed by ps2pdf (If DjView is installed, in the terminal do /Applications/DjView.app/Contents/bin/djvups file.djvu tmp.ps ps2pdf tmp.ps file.pdf)