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mgmueller · 01-29-2010, 04:17 AM

iRex 800 has grown on me. Because of my high expectations, given my great experience with iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S, I've had some disappointments at first. But lots of them, after 1 week in realistic mindset, have disappeared.

Pros:
- Display quality: It's extremely close to Sony 505, my "benchmark unit" concerning glare/reflection/contrast/readability. For a touchscreen unit, that's top. It's definitely ahead of Sony 900, one of my momentary favorites.
- Form factor: For me, it's a little bit behind Sony 900. But still: It's a beauty and very ergonomic.
- Speed: It's very fast. A little bit faster in turning pages than Sony 900, which already is extremely fast.
- Stability/Reliability: Not a single crash in one week of heavy experiments. Same as with iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S before.
- Standby: Has been a weakness of iRex iLiad. iRex 800 starts within 3 seconds.
- Folder support: Not active by default, but simple to add. Personally, I don't need it. But most members insist on it, though still lots of units (Kindles) don't offer it.
- Flipbar: I already did love it on iRex iLiad. Convenient to use and because of it's size, I can rest my hand wherever I want instead of aiming for a single button.

Kaizen (refuse "Cons" here):
- Cover: I've bought it separately for € 49.95 directly from iRex. In my opinion, it's a bit oversized (width) and feels and looks a bit cheap. I prefer the minimalistic and efficient covers of Kindle or Sony. Or my elegant iRex iLiad cover from M-Edge or my equally elegant cover from Noreve for Cybook Opus. Next to those, the iRex 800 cover is "one league below", for a premium price.
- Switch off: Description in the manual is misleading. You go into standby by briefly holding the switch. It turns off automatically from standby, you can't turn it off manually. Confusing in the manual and a bit flimsy/non-intuitive to do (without further information).
- No scribble/annotation: Personally, I don't need it. But of course it's a logical use of any touchscreen and many members miss it a lot.
-Price: The price expected for US seems about right. But the European price, compared to Sony 900 is a bit high. Sony 900 was about € 380 for me. iRex 800 is € 499. They're too close (in my personal ranking) quality-wise for such a gap (but I had to buy it anyway, of course

). Probably Sony is able to "sponsor" via additional revenues from eBooks and licenses.
- Rotation feature: You only can rotate once, by 90 degrees (clockwise). The flipbar is on the left. So left-handed persons most likely would prefer to rotate the entire unit by 180°, which can't be done. I myself would prefer -90°, so the flipbar is on the top instead of at the bottom.
- Missing zoom: iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S did have the most advanced zoom feature when introduced (mark any area with your touchscreen and explode it to full screen. This can be activated for the entire document, whereas Sony 600/700/900 only do it for the respective page). iRex 800 doesn't have any zoom at all. As far as I understand, iRex did replace the former application by the Adobe SDK. So they didn't "leave it out". But the effect to the customer is the same: A popular feature is gone.

01-29-2010, 04:17 AM	#444
mgmueller Member Retired Posts: 3,308 Karma: 13024950 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Augsburg (near Munich), Germany Device: 26 Readers, 44 Tablets	Impressions after 9 days of usage iRex 800 has grown on me. Because of my high expectations, given my great experience with iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S, I've had some disappointments at first. But lots of them, after 1 week in realistic mindset, have disappeared. *Pros:* - Display quality: It's extremely close to Sony 505, my "benchmark unit" concerning glare/reflection/contrast/readability. For a touchscreen unit, that's top. It's definitely ahead of Sony 900, one of my momentary favorites. - Form factor: For me, it's a little bit behind Sony 900. But still: It's a beauty and very ergonomic. - Speed: It's very fast. A little bit faster in turning pages than Sony 900, which already is extremely fast. - Stability/Reliability: Not a single crash in one week of heavy experiments. Same as with iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S before. - Standby: Has been a weakness of iRex iLiad. iRex 800 starts within 3 seconds. - Folder support: Not active by default, but simple to add. Personally, I don't need it. But most members insist on it, though still lots of units (Kindles) don't offer it. - Flipbar: I already did love it on iRex iLiad. Convenient to use and because of it's size, I can rest my hand wherever I want instead of aiming for a single button. *Kaizen (refuse "Cons" here):* - Cover: I've bought it separately for € 49.95 directly from iRex. In my opinion, it's a bit oversized (width) and feels and looks a bit cheap. I prefer the minimalistic and efficient covers of Kindle or Sony. Or my elegant iRex iLiad cover from M-Edge or my equally elegant cover from Noreve for Cybook Opus. Next to those, the iRex 800 cover is "one league below", for a premium price. - Switch off: Description in the manual is misleading. You go into standby by briefly holding the switch. It turns off automatically from standby, you can't turn it off manually. Confusing in the manual and a bit flimsy/non-intuitive to do (without further information). - No scribble/annotation: Personally, I don't need it. But of course it's a logical use of any touchscreen and many members miss it a lot. -Price: The price expected for US seems about right. But the European price, compared to Sony 900 is a bit high. Sony 900 was about € 380 for me. iRex 800 is € 499. They're too close (in my personal ranking) quality-wise for such a gap (but I had to buy it anyway, of course). Probably Sony is able to "sponsor" via additional revenues from eBooks and licenses. - Rotation feature: You only can rotate once, by 90 degrees (clockwise). The flipbar is on the left. So left-handed persons most likely would prefer to rotate the entire unit by 180°, which can't be done. I myself would prefer -90°, so the flipbar is on the top instead of at the bottom. - Missing zoom: iRex iLiad and iRex 1000S did have the most advanced zoom feature when introduced (mark any area with your touchscreen and explode it to full screen. This can be activated for the entire document, whereas Sony 600/700/900 only do it for the respective page). iRex 800 doesn't have any zoom at all. As far as I understand, iRex did replace the former application by the Adobe SDK. So they didn't "leave it out". But the effect to the customer is the same: A popular feature is gone. Last edited by mgmueller; 01-29-2010 at 07:02 AM.