Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by professzore

Can you navigate with the flipbar instead of the stylus?

No, only minimalistic support for the flipbar.
I guess, it's not an iRex specific application, but more or less the standard application.

I can use the flipbar to turn pages in "newspaper view".
In zoom mode, I can scroll up and down.
But the stylus definitely is way more convenient.

I don't use newspapers on Kindle or Sony 505.

But I think I'll give it a try on iRex 800 and Sony 900. With touchscreen and newspaper view it's actually really fun so far.

BTW: iRex 800 starts growing on me. For now, a combination of Sony 900 and iRex 800 would be my favorite: Sony's form factor and cover and housing. iRex' touchscreen. OS a combination of both (with slight advantages for iRex).
Over all, iRex 800 to me is similar as iRex iLiad or 1000S. In my opinion, iRex has the most "professional" OS of my units, whereas Sony is more "end customer oriented". Kindle is the simplistic one, which isn't a bad thing.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

From what I understand a short slide of the power switch puts it into a suspend mode (not sure which kind yet), a long slide of the power switch turns it off.

Exactly. About 3 seconds vs. about 55 seconds for the respective startups then.

EDIT: You can't turn it off for thew moment, only standby is implemented yet.
If you reset from standby, reboot takes 55 seconds.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I don't know for sure either. My guess would be that the automatic suspend after a certain amount of time is to ram. Using the power switch to suspend it is probably flash.

However, they could both be the same mode. We'll have to do more testing to find out (or get technical information from iRex).

I've sent them a question asking for this information. I'll let everyone know what I hear back, if I get an answer.

[catharsis]

What is the exact screen size of the device? I don't find this info anywhere and I want to print some test documents on paper to get some idea about larger documents

[professzore]

Originally Posted by catharsis

What is the exact screen size of the device? I don't find this info anywhere and I want to print some test documents on paper to get some idea about larger documents

768 x 1024 px @ 160 dpi means about 122 x 163 mm. This is somewhat theoretical, since we actually don't know the useful area of the display (both phisical size and size in pixels).

For comparison see this PDF.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by catharsis

What is the exact screen size of the device? I don't find this info anywhere and I want to print some test documents on paper to get some idea about larger documents

What we have in the wiki is:

(122 × 163mm) 8.1" 768 × 1024 pixels, 160 ppi

this is the same size as the iLiad screen (quoted as 158 ppi) and is also consistent with the standard Vizplex High Resolution Displays.

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Exactly. About 3 seconds vs. about 55 seconds for the respective startups then.

When it's suspended, is the last page still shown or does it go blank? I think on some devices, they leave the last page up and you can't really tell if it's suspended or not. If their recovery from standby is fast enough, then it doesn't really matter as it appears to the user as always being on and ready. Kindles recently got a boost in power efficiency and I wonder if they simply had the device constantly suspend itself. I would prefer the last page to always be shown (perhaps show an on-screen indicator if recovery from standby is less than instantaneous). There is something special about how e-ink can show a page without power and I would like to see that.

The kindle comes out from the box with a welcome page magically already displayed. I suspect irex doesn't do this.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by catharsis

What is the exact screen size of the device? I don't find this info anywhere and I want to print some test documents on paper to get some idea about larger documents

It is 768x1024 at 160 DPI... The math would tell you 4.8" x 6.4".

But then you have to keep in mind that not all of the screen is usable off the bat.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by badbob001

When it's suspended, is the last page still shown or does it go blank? I think on some devices, they leave the last page up and you can't really tell if it's suspended or not. If their recovery from standby is fast enough, then it doesn't really matter as it appears to the user as always being on and ready. Kindles recently got a boost in power efficiency and I wonder if they simply had the device constantly suspend itself. I would prefer the last page to always be shown (perhaps show an on-screen indicator if recovery from standby is less than instantaneous). There is something special about how e-ink can show a page without power and I would like to see that.

The kindle comes out from the box with a welcome page magically already displayed. I suspect irex doesn't do this.

When suspended, it goes blank. No welcome page on iRex 800.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by badbob001

I think on some devices, they leave the last page up and you can't really tell if it's suspended or not.

Opinions seem to go back and forth on this. I've seen people complain that the last page is left up because it becomes confusing as to whether the device is running/suspended/shutdown, etc. I've also seen people complain if the screen is blanked because you're "wasting" the ability of the screen to display a page without needing power.

I've also seen the same people make both complains.

Personally, I'd like the behavior to be an option that the user can select, but that's more complicated than just hardcoding one or the other. I think all of the current devices hardcode it.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by badbob001

When it's suspended, is the last page still shown or does it go blank? I think on some devices, they leave the last page up and you can't really tell if it's suspended or not. If their recovery from standby is fast enough, then it doesn't really matter as it appears to the user as always being on and ready. Kindles recently got a boost in power efficiency and I wonder if they simply had the device constantly suspend itself. I would prefer the last page to always be shown (perhaps show an on-screen indicator if recovery from standby is less than instantaneous). There is something special about how e-ink can show a page without power and I would like to see that.

The kindle comes out from the box with a welcome page magically already displayed. I suspect irex doesn't do this.

We never really got much detail on the Kindle battery improvement, but I suspect it had more to do with the transition to GSM radios as opposed to CDMA. CDMA is a bigger battery consumer than the GSM 3G equivalent. This seems to be accurate since the improvement in radio off times weren't that great, it was really only with the radio on.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

When suspended, it goes blank. No welcome page on iRex 800.

Does it go blank for both? IE if it suspends because of inactivity or it suspends because you intentionally slide the switch?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Does it go blank for both? IE if it suspends because of inactivity or it suspends because you intentionally slide the switch?

Blank for both.

[badbob001]

In terms of screen whiteness, how does the dr800 compare to the sony prs300/50x? I've compared the prs300 with the prs600/900 and found the darker and fuzzier display on the latter unacceptable.

[garagumu]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Exactly. About 3 seconds vs. about 55 seconds for the respective startups then.

A resume time of 3 seconds most probably means suspend-to-RAM. I'd expect a longer resume time for suspend-to-disk/flash (not to mention that getting suspend/resume to work properly is not trivial at all).

Originally Posted by mgmueller

After a certain amount of time it goes into suspend (no idea whether it's ram or flash). I didn't pay attention and I can't change it in settings. I guess it's 30 minutes (of inactivity).

This is confirmed in the IREX knowledge base. The 30-minute timer can't be configured:
http://support.irexreader.com/s.nl/s...ype.KB/KB.2/.f

Btw, thanks for the all the information, mgmueller and dereader. I hope that a nearby Mediamarkt (here in the Netherlands) gets this in-stock soon, so I can it try it for myself.