Quote:
Originally Posted by TGS
It does make you wonder what the FCC delay was about...Sony, Amazon with big readers coming to market around the same time? But I also wonder if IREX had got earlier FCC approval what their consumer marketing strategy would have been.
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1- Amazon had nothing new Shipping for XMAS 2009. Sony did. You may be thinking of the B&N Nook, instead.
2- FCC has a steady pipeline that takes about 3 months to process *anything* if the product is well-designed. Their tests are for interference first and foremost. *nothing* get certified that doesn't pass the *well-documented* rules. It would be seriously reckless for a company to go into mass production with a product that is *not* yet certified.
3- I'm too lazy to go check when the first anouncements were made, but I vaguely remember the Sonys were first spotted (via FCC documents, no less) in July 2009 and made it to market in early December (the Daily edition); the Nook was announced in the October time-frame and they barely made it to market in time, with only token shipments in 2009. The DRS-800 announcement came later than Nook's so that they missed the holiday season should have shocked nobody.
I suppose it's more convenient to blame the FCC and hint of evil protectionist policies in the American bureaucracy (never mind that Sony is a japanese outfit) than to admit you never had a consumer-grade product and were living off the good-will and hopes of people in need of the features that were promised and never delivered. (And notice its been six months since that and they filed *now*?)
Me, I agree that the DRS-800 form-factor is well-conceived.
The price was acceptable.
I would have bought at least one, for my mother. (Currrently I'm waiting on the Pocketbook 901 or a price drop on Kinde DX, which ever gets in first.
) But to this day I have yet to see a single review that finds their *shipping* firmware to be anything but buggy, slow, and oddly structured. It was all; "yes, its buggy but the *next* release will fix it." A year ago when I was playing firmware-of-the-month with my BeBook I might have risked it. But not now. The market has movedon beyond the forgiving hobbyist it relied on pre-Kindle. Now, you either deliver, or else. (Else being; chapters 11 or 7.)
Along these lines, note:
Pandigital, which this week started shipping its Novel Android-based color LCD reader has issued a recall of its product for many of the same issues plaguing the Irex product line; sluggish performance, inconsistent WiFi behavior, bugs...
I think we have just *officially* crossed the line marking the end of ebook readers as enthusiast/hobbyist devices and the beginning of the consumer electronics era; from now on there are no free passes.