DR800 web browsing and surfing is possible on DR800SG

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

If we can get a dictionary in html format then we can load it on the SD card as well. I have no doubt some awesome programmer here would implement dictionary function soon.

The fact that other readers including Sony and the upcoming iPad can manage a dictionary for their epubs means that iRex should be able to do the same. All I've heard from them so far is excuses on why it's difficult. I should think for $400 they'd be able to manage to figure out what other manufactures don't seem to have a problem with.

Anyhoo... I looked around for the Wikipedia thing. You'd actually need a pretty big SD card. A static HTML English-language snapshot of wikipedia is about 14GB in a bz tarball - I don't know how big it would uncompress to, but I'll bet it would be bigger than 64GB, which is (I think) the biggest SD card you can find these days.

A different solution would be to write a plugin for the 800 that would generate a wiki page on the fly from the 5.5GB article bz7 database that you can find at Wikipedia itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_database). That would require a bit of programming to put it together, but it would be of a reasonable size at that point. It would certainly be an interesting concept, as it would be very nice to have wikipedia for offline browsing on a reader.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

The fact that other readers including Sony and the upcoming iPad can manage a dictionary for their epubs means that iRex should be able to do the same. All I've heard from them so far is excuses on why it's difficult. I should think for $400 they'd be able to manage to figure out what other manufactures don't seem to have a problem with.

I'm sure they are capable of doing so.

They did have a dictionary feature planned and were working on it, but the design had to be pulled. They're not saying it was too difficult with ePubs, they're just saying that they had to change the way they were doing it from when they had Mobipocket. The first design didn't work out, and they didn't have time to re-design it before the release date.

Would you rather they had pushed the DR800 back even further just to get a dictionary with the first firmware? I'm sure you would have complained about that even more. Then again, I'm sure no matter what they do, you're going to find a way to complain about it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

If we can get a dictionary in html format then we can load it on the SD card as well. I have no doubt some awesome programmer here would implement dictionary function soon.

My understanding is that in order to completely integrate a dictionary with the viewers, it requires changes to the UDS (which we don't have access to).

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

I should think for $400 they'd be able to manage to figure out what other manufactures don't seem to have a problem with.

I agree with you on this. For premium $400 that is close almost half a grand. I would expect a premium reader with all those functionalities included. At the same price, the PRS 900 included a seamless working dictionary and great over all design. I think in order to compete, Irex should have more functionalities not less.

[Mr. X]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

Anyhoo... I looked around for the Wikipedia thing. You'd actually need a pretty big SD card. A static HTML English-language snapshot of wikipedia is about 14GB in a bz tarball - I don't know how big it would uncompress to, but I'll bet it would be bigger than 64GB, which is (I think) the biggest SD card you can find these days.

A different solution would be to write a plugin for the 800 that would generate a wiki page on the fly from the 5.5GB article bz7 database that you can find at Wikipedia itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_database). That would require a bit of programming to put it together, but it would be of a reasonable size at that point. It would certainly be an interesting concept, as it would be very nice to have wikipedia for offline browsing on a reader.

I'm working on porting http://users.softlab.ece.ntua.gr/~tt...iaOffline.html to run on the DR, but it requires building python and php and I'm not sure how it'll run in the limited amount of memory we have. Should clock in with a couple spare gigs on an 8GB card.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

I think in order to compete, Irex should have more functionalities not less.

I think everyone, including iRex, would agree with that. Most of the features people are asking for sound like things they are planning on adding. There haven't been very many requests that they've said "no" to so far.

Does that mean it's worth $400 right now though? That's up to you. I suspect more people will feel it's worth it after the next firmware upgrade though.

[Dellaster]

Originally Posted by penartur

The same should apply to kindles.

No, the Kindle 2 includes a "Basic Web" browser by default, with bookmarks for Google and Wikipedia already set, so they must have some kind of agreement with ATT to cover the charges.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Dellaster

No, the Kindle 2 includes a "Basic Web" browser by default, with bookmarks for Google and Wikipedia already set, so they must have some kind of agreement with ATT to cover the charges.

I would guess that Amazon is just eating the costs. They have a lot of other revenue streams besides Kindles though, so can probably afford to do so. I would assume they're hoping to make it back up again with eBook sales for the Kindles.

Do they have any kind of policy about "excessive" bandwidth usage?

[Dellaster]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Do they have any kind of policy about "excessive" bandwidth usage?

Nothing that was communicated the end user (me) as far as I know. I doubt that anyone could use enough bandwidth to be noticed. It would probably take 24 hours of the very slow web browsing to equal a Hulu TV episode.

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by Dellaster

Nothing that was communicated the end user (me) as far as I know. I doubt that anyone could use enough bandwidth to be noticed. It would probably take 24 hours of the very slow web browsing to equal a Hulu TV episode.

I agree with you. I haven't read any of the manual or documentation because the manual is just piece of paper. There was tiny booklet of agreement something which I never read. I agree the amount of bandwidth is not significant enough for wireless provider to care in my opinion.

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I suspect more people will feel it's worth it after the next firmware upgrade though.

Users will wait until April for the firmware upgrade but it would not include dictionary. They would have to wait several month to half a year. By that time, so many reader would come into the market. That is a long time to wait for dictionary.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

Users will wait until April for the firmware upgrade but it would not include dictionary. They would have to wait several month to half a year. By that time, so many reader would come into the market. That is a long time to wait for dictionary.

True. The question is, how many people consider a dictionary feature a "must have" when deciding to buy a device? Personally, I would consider it a "nice to have", but it wouldn't stop me from buying a device that otherwise met my needs. Everyone has different requirements though.

IMO, zoom and annotation are more important of the missing features than a dictionary. Hypothetically, if you could have a choice between any 2 of those three in April, which would it be?

[Dellaster]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

I agree with you. I haven't read any of the manual or documentation because the manual is just piece of paper. There was tiny booklet of agreement something which I never read. I agree the amount of bandwidth is not significant enough for wireless provider to care in my opinion.

And if there was a limit after which you get cut off, someone for sure would have done it by now and it would be all over the news: "Kindle Owner Loses Wireless Access! AmazonFail Again!"

[badbob001]

This is the url for google's mobile search page, which water downs the content for speed and small displays. It may make things speedier:
http://www.google.com/gwt/n

What does the flipbar do on a webpage? I'm guessing left/right moves between links and long-left/right is page up/down.

I'm guessing the kindle browser reformats everything into pages and has none of this scrollbar silliness.

[OrcaBlue]

I would definitely choose zoom and annotation of course. But to wait for something that will come several months to half a year for a feature that is just sad.