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I purchased an iLiad BE shortly after it was released (and shortly after finding mobileread, incidentally), and thanks to the work of Adam B., ericshliao, and Kirys, among others, truly enjoyed using the device. My main want of the thing was a battery that lasted longer than ten hours; when the 800 was announced, with its much more reasonable power characteristics, it was an easy decision to give the iLiad to my sister for her classwork. Then I waited.
And waited, and waited .... I don't actually regret having waited; I don't mind IRex's poor communications skills; I don't mind the lack of a dictionary; I don't mind the lack of the annotation function (although I do find it somewhat important); I don't mind price fluctuation (within a certain tolerance). I do mind the lack of folder navigation. Casual readers, it's true, may not need it. The DR-800 was not (haphazardly as it has been) marketed to casual readers; it's been marketed to professionals.
I've got a sizable personal library, but I've also got a substantial professional library. My employer publishes exclusively in PDF, and the majority of those files are letter-sized. I also like to save blog, magazine, and news articles to PDF. The 8" format is ideal for me: I can travel without a trunk full of reference materials, I can carry around an 8" device with ease, and the letter-size PDFs are still legible. But not being able to sort professional materials from personal reading, and not being able to sort professional materials by category is a real problem for me. If anyone can give me some good advice, I'd like to read it, but I think I'll be waiting a little longer, until such time as IRex might provide that functionality or a better alternative turns up--and I'm not optimistic that one will, because all the 9" devices I've seen look much too big to carry.
- James
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