[Riocaz]

Originally Posted by ali

She didn't make several basic mistakes. You guys give me the impression of people screaming "noone may critizise my mother but me! she must be stupid! she can't be tech-savvy! she didn't spend enough time to get to know my mother better!". Calm down guys.

The review states three bad things about the Iliad, and she is right:

In your opinion.

The fact is she did make several factual errors. Which, in my opinion, invalidates most of her points.

Maybe you agree with her opinion that doesn't make it right it an opinion only. I disagree, that is my opinion and my right.

1 - the documentation is missing. Even you, jæd, weren't able to turn it on. Read old posts in this forum to find your post where you asked where the on/off switch is. (Sidenode: And stop giving the "dead tree" figures. The impact of high-tech devices on the environment is much, much, much worse than some dead trees. The Iliad is no environment-friendly thing)

The on-off switch is clearly marked on-off. No documentation is needed for that. Just a basic grasp of reading.

2 - the screen displays content in an unreadable font size. the folks at irex did not implement anything to make generally available content readable on the device, even though that would've been possible. In the shop it says: Scalable text. You can change the font size of your text to suit your own reading comfort. (Format and DRM dependant.) I think people will assume that you can scale fonts to a comfortable size in the most prominent, most important, most recognized format the Iliad displays, which is PDF.

PDF is the most recognised format? That statement is laughable in itself.

One of maybe.

It's also laughable that people expect to be able to read a full page of a document sized for a4 on a device which is smaller than a5. Downright ridiculous in fact.

3 - it doesn't read protected pdfs, which is a killer for people who need to read protected pdfs. She got a point there. This forum is full of people asking for DRM / protected PDF support.

It was never claimed to. We would like to see it, but she claimed to have read everything and spoken to irex before purchase, yet implies she was unaware of this.

The review is just a normal review of just one of the dissappointed Iliad customers. She expressed her opinion, and is right in doing so. (Is this one of the "if you're not with us you're against us" things? Too many americans in the forum?). If I bought a mp3 player and see that I have to manually reencode all my mp3's to fit the device's needs, I'd turn it down and say it's shit. Even if there's a forum where most guys happen to listen to the matching 118-kps-mono-mp3's only.

What like the first Sony digital music players (which were sold by stores as "mp3 players") which diddn't in fact play MP3.

No one has said she diddn't have an opinion. It's that she was factually incorrect in several areas. And as such is misleading

And: "Reading everything" doesn't literally mean "everything". If you read all info in the shop, ask the manufacturer, and possibly newspaper articles and tests, it should be enough. You don't have to read every forum on the internet.

Again another laughable statement.

Mobileread was listed above iRex for several months. Many other sites were pointing here when Henrique was posting his reviews and answering questions.

If she missed that then she is either blind or simply did not look

When I buy something, I investigate to the extent of my ability. She is implying that she did the same. Yet I found my way here and she diddn't

And: Stop claiming that everyone should know it's beta, because:

How about you stop telling me and others what we can and can't say.

You've done it several times and franky it is really annoying downright rude.

1 - Finally we have that month where the "final consumer version" was supposed to be available, and

This comment is utterly pointless. yes we are, and ooh look the current firmware is (as I stated in my comments) in my opinion close to something that can be called final.

2 - there is a shop that sells the device to everyone. Without "attention beta" disclaimers.
Counting 1+1 together, that looks like the thing in the shop is the thing they announced as final product.

And if you have read my comments you will note that 2.6.1 is the first point where I would have said it's close to final, and I noted that they have now removed the statement that the software is not final.

That doesn't change the fact that this change is RECENT(e.g. within the last couple of weeks) and thus when she purchased hers she will have made the same agreement as the rest of us. Yet she makes no mention of it.

The iLiad and iRex do have problems. I have no issue with someone complaining about them (Hell iRex's support is utterly crap, and the battery life is still half what they claimed it would be) but I do have a problem with a highly respected e-book site publishing a misleading and inaccurate review.

My problem isn't that the review was critical, but that it was innaccurate, and failed to mention relevant information (Such as iRex's speed at putting out firmware updates or the fact that she agreed to buy it knowing the software wasn't final).