Announced: the iRex Reader DR1000

[HarryT]

If it's the same as it means on the iLiad, it simply means that they "stitch together" all the pages of the PDF and display it as one continuous document, rather than a page at a time.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

• Search in the document
• Mobipocket dictionary support from any content format

These are new, and significant, for PDF. Some of the others, such as handwritten annotations, are new, and significant, for MOBI.

[ppxnouse]

I wonder why it doesn't support MS Word???? Since most office users have to deal with Word it would make sense to support Word from the start.
Is Word format so difficult to handle?

Their marketing wording sounds a bit like the reader might come with a virtual printer driver, that renders any document to a PDF and transfers it to the reader.

If so, you might lose dictionary lookup, but this way can be even more convenient for some people who are used to print their document, but may not know how to copy a file to the SD card (Yes, I know such people ). So iRex does not have to deal with adding new formats , support different Word Document versions (not all versions look good in Open Office) and can spend their time on improving what they have.

Just guessing though.

[Tomek]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

From the FAQ:

• Create/remove a bookmark on a page
• Table of bookmarks
• Search in the document
• Write and erase comments (handwritten annotations)
• Change the pen thickness
• Mobipocket dictionary support from any content format

BOb

This sounds very promising! And Mobipocket dictionary support from any content!!! I like that...

I'll also need Wifi and Bluetooth to enable Wikipedia and other online reading sources at least around the house.

Now just waiting for some hands-on reviews

[Tomek]

Originally Posted by ppxnouse

If so, you might lose dictionary lookup...

It sounds from the neighboring post that you WILL be able to do dictionary lookups in PDFs as long as you have Mobipocket dictionary installed.

[ppxnouse]

Originally Posted by Tomek

It sounds from the neighboring post that you WILL be able to do dictionary lookups in PDFs as long as you have Mobipocket dictionary installed.

Sure, I was refering to a PDF rendered through a possible printer driver for the DR provided by iRex. If, on the Win32 side, they would use GDI instead of of for example PostScript, the resulting PDF would consist of images and not the actual text anymore. Well - Anyway it is more likely, that they - if they provide such a driver - will use PS which then will lead into searchable/lookupable PDFs.

[ebookreaders]

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

I wonder why it doesn't support MS Word???? Since most office users have to deal with Word it would make sense to support Word from the start.
Is Word format so difficult to handle?

An iRex engineer told us that a Word engine can be added later (by third party developers), as a 'plug-in'.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

They've been talking about the new viewer framework for awhile. I'm reasonably certain that it'll be included in a firmware update for the iLiad. I'm just not sure whether they'll change the current UI to match what the new Reader has, or if they'll leave the iLiads with their current UI.

At this point, they're saying "no new functionality for the iLiad." Which sounds to me like they're dropping their promise for the new viewer framework.

Originally Posted by Tulkas

New 1000 series looks great but I'll be keeping hold of my money until there are a lot of real-life reviews of battery life, connectivity, fragility & quality of support.

Once bitten, twice shy as far as iRex goes.

Good advice. This is a company with a rather poor track record of being able to keep promises to customers. I wouldn't buy anything from them unless I was pretty sure it already could do what I needed.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by nekokami

At this point, they're saying "no new functionality for the iLiad." Which sounds to me like they're dropping their promise for the new viewer framework.

I agree it certainly sounds that way, but "no new functionality" could mean lots of things. Is something they've been promising for months (maybe even since last year?) considered "new functionality". If they never intended it to be available on the iLiad, then everything they've said about it in the past was extremely misleading. I'm hoping that they've got more integrity than that.

[ToxicAngel]

Here is the first video of DR 1000. Not very impressive, i'm still in search for device to read my medical research books which are in A4 PDF's...hope plastic logic will deliver something better. It's too bad that today's market has almost nothing to offer to academic and business readers

[Gogolo]

i'm still in search for device to read my medical research books which are in A4 PDF's

ToxicAngel, what are the critical points for you thinking this would not be possible?

Gogolo

[NatCh]

Originally Posted by ToxicAngel

It's too bad that today's market has almost nothing to offer to academic and business readers

Actually, what I'm seeing from the DR series looks very hopeful for my own business and my wife's academic purposes. But I guess it all depends on exactly which tasks a given person is looking to use the device for.

May I ask which tasks you have in mind to use such a device for, ToxicAngel? I'm just curious, you understand. Sometimes I get so focused on my own aims and tasks that I lose some ability to imagine the needs that others might be looking to fill.

[nekokami]

To use the DR1000 for academic purposes, I would think one would at least want the text selection and extraction functionality available in one of the community-developed iPDF variants. Better still, there should be an application on the desktop/laptop side that can interface the extracts with a bibliography database. Hopefully cross-platform. The ability to "tag" selections with user-created tags and export those would be good, too. Or the ability to attach and extract scribbles as visual notes, and indicate where in the document they came from (per page on PDF, perhaps per line for other, less strictly paginated documents), and the ability to quickly jump forward to scribbles. Possibly even the ability to roughly convert scribbles to searchable text, so one could search notes (on a document or standalone) for specific content.

I'm preparing to start my literature review for my dissertation, and if I were able to mark up and extract significant points from the journal articles I'll be reviewing, and import them into some kind of reference database that I could then search through by actual text or by selected topic tag, it would be tremendously helpful. That's what I keep hoping someone will develop for the iLiad. I'd pay for the software to accomplish these tasks.

[junkyardwillie]

PlasticLogics note display that they showed in their presentation was pretty sweet. I liked the little pop up boxes that you could throw on there, it looked like a really clean way to add comments and if you could minimize those and had a way to bookmark them that would be awesome.

I dont really need that functionality but I can see how it can come in handy. For me bookmarks and quick access between docs is a must for my next reader. I already have two so I'm comfortable for now, I'm waiting for something to wow me to get a new one and this reader falls a bit flat. If I didnt have an Iliad I'd get it but its not worth getting another. I just hope they port over the OS to the old Iliad's as it looks like its much better than the original crap (I only call it crap because I love it so much).

I hope color eInk is finally a reality in 2009

[nekokami]

Quick access between docs is vital for me, too. We had sort of figured out an approach for doing that on the iLiad, and I haven't had the time or energy to try it out....