Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

iRex was one of the first that offered folder support with the iLiad. I believe the DR1000 also has it. It's kind of strange if it's missing in the DR800. It seems to be a standard feature of the iRex devices so far.

OS of iLiad was -and in many areas still is- by far superior to all the others.
Folder support, even optionally adding metadata and thumbnails to those folders, on-the-fly renaming of book title and author's name, "intelligent" zoom for PDFs, ......
I guess, when comparing to others, they did recognise, how minimalistic their competition is.
In iRex 1000S they already cancelled quite a lot of features, still being even (or even still partially ahead of) with the others. Probably they aimed for reducing development costs by just being even with the others instead of "years ahead". Partially, I can understand that. iLiad never did receive the recognition it would have earned.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by DeReader

Ups, I did not realize this, so the Sony 900 is resolution wise also in the upper category.

Raw resolution means nothing by itself on these readers.

The 6" and larger readers all use the same DPI, so you can make a fair comparison by resolution. These new 5" readers have the same resolution as the 6" readers though, just crammed into a smaller space with a higher DPI. The side-effect is that while you get sharper fonts, you aren't getting the same amount of readable space, small fonts are just as hard to read.

But the main difference between screen sizes on the 900 and the iRex 800 is that the iRex screen is wider, while they are both the same height. And it's a bit of a toss-up which is actually a better size. The Sony has a nice width to it for raw text, but the iRex's width helps a bit more with PDF and comics.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by myprecious

But surely you can zoom in while in landscape mode? With dr1000 I usually activate page flow mode and landscape mode works perfectly.

There is NO ZOOM!
Only font sizes! (Reflow)

[DeReader]

Originally Posted by myprecious

But surely you can zoom in while in landscape mode? With dr1000 I usually activate page flow mode and landscape mode works perfectly.

Changing the text size in landscape mode does reflow the PDF, so the original layout is lost, but the screen is fully utilized.

[myprecious]

Thought you were referring to other formats - but no zoom in pdfs? Very dissapointing indeed!

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by myprecious

Thought you were refering to other formats - but no zoom in pdfs? Very dissapointing indeed!

Yes. Especially considering the benchmark zoom capabilities of iRex iLiad!

[garagumu]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

These two omissions of functionality seem almost bizarre to me. Why would anyone design a device whose sole purpose is to display multiple pages of text without the fundamental ability to go directly to a specific page number? I mean, that just seems like the very first thing a software programmer for a device like this would write.

And then did no one at iRex consider the possibility that a user might just sort of like to organize their books into categories and folders?

I'm also very surprised that it's not possible to jump to a page number. Is this feature present in the iliad or DR1000?

I think the removal of the folder support was a conscious decision, considering that they supported this in their previous readers. The DR800's manual says you can search for book titles/authors in the home screen, and you can also click on the index bar to jump to a specific letter. Well, this may be good enough in theory, but c'mon, the folder paradigm is ingrained in many computer users, you should at least give us the option to still use folders.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by garagumu

I'm also very surprised that it's not possible to jump to a page number. Is this feature present in the iliad or DR1000?

Yes - you just tap on the appropriate place on the "progress bar" at the bottom of the screen.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by garagumu

I think the removal of the folder support was a conscious decision, considering that they supported this in their previous readers. The DR800's manual says you can search for book titles/authors in the home screen, and you can also click on the index bar to jump to a specific letter. Well, this may be good enough in theory, but c'mon, the folder paradigm is ingrained in many computer users, you should at least give us the option to still use folders.

I agree. An excellent way to do it is the method adopted by Bookeen, where you get the choice of seeing either a "flat list" of books, or a hierarchical folder view.

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, the DR1000S has a very nice "file manager" which allows you to browse a folder hierarchy, copy files around, and so on. It appears that iRex decided to go from a file manager to a more specialised "library" application as the "front page" of the device. It is, IMHO, a retrograde step to remove folder support.

Perhaps it's one of those things that companies thinks is 'too complicated' for the non-business (ie, no paid support staff) consumer. For example, on Android and Windows Mobile phones, choosing a ringtone will open a flattened view of all media files, which is impossible to use since it also lists the thousands of songs one has on the storage card. It's insane.

But in IREX's case, it's more likely this is not due to a poor design decision but simply a decision to cut features that were not ready due to (need I say it?) poor project management.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by badbob001

Perhaps it's one of those things that companies thinks is 'too complicated' for the non-business (ie, no paid support staff) consumer. For example, on Android and Windows Mobile phones, choosing a ringtone will open a flattened view of all media files, which is impossible to use since it also lists the thousands of songs one has on the storage card. It's insane.

But in IREX's case, it's more likely this is not due to a poor design decision but simply a decision to cut features that were not ready due to (need I say it?) poor project management.

I think you were more on track with the "business device" vs "consumer device". We can ask them though, and see if they say that folder support will be added back in.

I'm guessing it was a conscious design choice though. Rather than folders, they're giving the options of sorting by title or author, and then selecting from an alphabetical list to narrow it down. They wouldn't have added all of that if it was just a matter of the folders not being ready yet. This sounds more like a replacement to the folder system, not a temporary place holder for it.

[myprecious]

How did irex even come up with such ridiculous ideas? I mean - they had a meeting - some brainstorming and someone was like: 'I think we should get rid of those useful features, who would want to use the folder structure or go directly to a page, or zoom pdf files' - and others agreed?
But seriously - was it intentional or by mistake? In both cases it reflects badly on the company (imho).

[garagumu]

Originally Posted by badbob001

Perhaps it's one of those things that companies thinks is 'too complicated' for the non-business (ie, no paid support staff) consumer. For example, on Android and Windows Mobile phones, choosing a ringtone will open a flattened view of all media files, which is impossible to use since it also lists the thousands of songs one has on the storage card. It's insane.

But in IREX's case, it's more likely this is not due to a poor design decision but simply a decision to cut features that were not ready due to (need I say it?) poor project management.

Well, if folders were supported in their old readers, I think that the new flat view is really a design decision. Perhaps they looked at tools like Quicksilver or Launchy, or even the "sort by artist/album/titles" approach of most mp3 players, but given the display's slow refresh time (compared to LCD's), I'm not sure how the "flat view + search" approach actually works out when you have a lot of books.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by garagumu

Well, if folders were supported in their old readers, I think that the new flat view is really a design decision. Perhaps they looked at tools like Quicksilver or Launchy, or even the "sort by artist/album/titles" approach of most mp3 players, but given the display's slow refresh time (compared to LCD's), I'm not sure how the "flat view + search" approach actually works out when you have a lot of books.

I thought the other eBook devices had similar flat views with different sort options. Folder support in the iLiad and DR1000 seemed to be more the exception than the rule amongst eBook devices.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by garagumu

Well, if folders were supported in their old readers, I think that the new flat view is really a design decision. Perhaps they looked at tools like Quicksilver or Launchy, or even the "sort by artist/album/titles" approach of most mp3 players, but given the display's slow refresh time (compared to LCD's), I'm not sure how the "flat view + search" approach actually works out when you have a lot of books.

I only have 600 eBooks on my iRex 800 for the moment. Searching (title or author) still is almost instantaneously (<< 1 second).