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They did pre-announce the V2, and I waited several months for it to be available before buying. They learned that lesson well, and the Book Edition was a surprise.
It seems likely that there will be some competitors to the current v2 this year, with either 8" or 9.7" screens. Bookeen has made statements suggesting they might introduce a high-end reader, and Sony and Amazon must have at least thought about doing so. However, we have seen "this year" become "next spring" before with E-Ink devices (and Jinke initially announced a 9.7" device for delivery last year). My guess is that iRex has until next spring at the latest to deliver a significantly improved device. On the other hand, if they can introduce a new device earlier than their competitors (e.g. Astak Mentor 9.7" scheduled for October) this will help enormously.
If the current iLiad meets your needs, then go for it. The only thing the next generation of devices will definitely have is faster page turns and a suspend mode. I'm not sure a device with a touch screen and networking can provide multi-week battery capacity, but the current iLiad with a fast suspend mode would probably last several days between charges and the slow boot time of the current device (and lack of suspend) make the battery capacity much more problematic.
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