Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

BTW: I really don't understand, why most of the manufacturers don't offer WiFi. I really enjoy it on nook and that's the main reason why I rank it that high.
But as the clear majority of manufacturers doesn't offer WiFi, there seems to be a valid reason...

One possibility is that for devices with 3G, the carrier gets some percentage of each purchase made and delivered over their network to offset operational costs of the contract. If a device's only network access is through the carrier, then the vendor can just add up the network-delivered purchases to figure out what they will need to pay the carrier. But if a device can download from wifi as well, then either the carrier will see less revenue (and not want to enter this contract in the first palce) or a more sophisticated system needs to be created to differentiate carrier vs wifi downloads.

[professzore]

Reply to badbob001

1. cheap
2. featured
3. reliable

featured + reliable

In the line of iportance: excellent readability [just guess if it's the right word], affordable size both for the device (small as possible) as the display (bigger the better), easy handling. Price doesn't matter if the unit meets all my requirements. That's what I'm going to buy an E-Class.

[professzore]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

BTW: I really don't understand, why most of the manufacturers don't offer WiFi.

Just a guess... Wireless supplies like Amazon's or B&N's (or for Europe, the soon-to-be wildly available 'txtr reader) may be a good alternative / advantage. In my opinon, the current (European) era of ereaders are much more about geeks than usual bookreaders. And this may not change significally until most of the mass-market devices with wireless (I mean 3G) connection AND quality wireless markets became wildly available. Wifi may be a good substitute for 3G, but overall not much more than a comfortable (lazy?) alternative of wire-uploading. Important note: at this time in Europe.

iRex seems to warmly welcome almost every content provider. Unfortunately, there are only a few in Europe with on-line shops available for directly-to-device selling model.

Technicaly WiFi (as Bluetooth) is a serious battery-eater.

BTW, if you have enough places to buy directly to your device, 3G AND wifi will be a must for (almost) all readers.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by badbob001

If a reader had these values:

1. cheap
2. featured
3. reliable

and you could only choose two, which would they be?

Great points and ones that I really believe Irex gave considerable thought to with the 800. They've focused on comparable features (suspend, battery life, online store, small footprint, etc) to the competition, but still differentiated themselves with screen size. They left out a lot of features from the iLiad (dual slots, zooming, in device file manipulation) that are probably not that important to the average target user and just add complexity to the device. That might frustrate hard core users, but it will probably lead to a better overall product experience for the larger population.

If we really think about it, the mainstream ereader buyer is going to download directly from the vendor store a few books at a time and maybe side load some classics. Focus on making that experience positive and you'll have happy customers.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Now why did Irex take out the PDF zoom function????? Which designer bumped his or her head?

It was done on purpose. They're not going to offer every feature from their more expensive "professional" device on their less expensive "consumer" device.
Supported features are one of the things they're using to differentiate the products, in addition to the larger screen size of the DR1000. If they didn't keep some enticements for "upgrading" to the DR1000, then they would basically be competing with themselves.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by badbob001

One possibility is that for devices with 3G, the carrier gets some percentage of each purchase made and delivered over their network to offset operational costs of the contract. If a device's only network access is through the carrier, then the vendor can just add up the network-delivered purchases to figure out what they will need to pay the carrier. But if a device can download from wifi as well, then either the carrier will see less revenue (and not want to enter this contract in the first palce) or a more sophisticated system needs to be created to differentiate carrier vs wifi downloads.

Question to me is, why units without 3G (still vast majority of all units) don't offer WiFi functionality.
If I remember correctly, BeBook 2 did announce WiFi functionality via SD-dongle.
If the manufacturers even would integrate certain webstores, they probably could have some kind of profit share.
Maybe it doesn't make sense to integrate WiFi without 3G from a cost perspective. But integrating it into the OS and offering a WiFi-dongle as an add-on shouldn't be a biggy.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by eLiNK

The iREX seems to forget it is not them who decide, what features the "consumer" version (using the description coined by Shaggy) should contain, but the consumers and the market.

Exactly. That's why I try to keep saying "their plans may change" when talking about the feature set support between the two devices. It would make sense during the initial launch/hype that they would want to retain more differentiation between the two product lines, otherwise the DR800 sales would just be killing their DR1000 sales (due to the price difference). As the devices mature we may see them drifting closer together.

BTW, this is all just speculation on my part. I have heard nothing from them about their future plans along these lines.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It really confirms my experience with many European companies, they are driven by their engineers.

Not really. When a company has two similar products, it's pretty common to put in "artificial" feature differences between the lower end model and the upper end model. That's nothing unique to iRex, it's pretty much standard practice.

[badbob001]

If anyone is curious, here are the statusbar icons from the SDK that are used for the DR800x.

Some features such as wifi and bluetooth are not in the existing DR800x devices. Some of the stylus features are interesting and either means they may appear on the DR800x or that a future update to the DR1000x will give it the DR800x interface.

The icons are 32 pixels tall so it means that the DR800x can have at most 1024-32=992 vertical pixels for document viewing (unless there is a full-screen mode).

Stylus Zoom
Stylus Pointer (not sure what this is for)
Stylus Pan
Stylus Pen
Stylus Lookup
Stylus Erase (I guess no support for the eraser-side of the wacom pen yet)
Menu Button
Locked
Unlocked

Download Inactive
Download Active
Download Completed
Download Error

Battery 100% Charging
Battery 100%
Battery 75% Charging
Battery 75%
Battery 50% Charging
Battery 50%
Battery 25% Charging
Battery 25%
Battery Low
Battery Very Low

3G Active
3G Inactive
Flightmode Active
Bluetooth Active
WIFI Active

[badbob001]

These left and right statusbar icons either are for scrolling a more-than-full status bar or navigating a document. I'm hoping for the latter (useful for going back and worth between two parts of a document such as footnotes).

UPDATE: Silly me. They are for turning pages.

Right
Right (disabled)
Left
Left (disabled)

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

And if they had any sense they would reduce the DR 1000 to $550 or so, who will buy it at almost $900 now?

Professionals who need the larger screen and additional features that the DR1000 provides? The DR1000 is not meant to be a consumer device and compete with the DX, etc. It's in a completely different market. That's why you're not going to see the DR1000 on shelves at BestBuy, etc. It's not intended to be competitively priced against the DR800, DX, Sony's, etc.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

This is good news for the DR1000S, which won't have most of its PDF functionality removed with the switch to Adobe Digital Editions, but makes it very plain that this is a marketing, not technical, decision.

Correct.

[ajamudc]

Originally Posted by Fjaril

Sorry, I don't have the pictures at hand right now, however, I just passed about 1 hour reading scientific pdfs on the 800.
It is perfectly readable - though a little bit small. Landscape mode doesn't help at all it still shows the complete page on the screen - which makes it extremely small and unreadable. Increasing the font size helps, however usually formulas are getting messed up - in such cases I switched back to original layout (which is very fast).
I would say, you can use it for scientific pdfs, but it's not optimal. Therefore I hope IREX will add a zoom feature....
The graphs by the way are perfectly readable!

Thanks for the information, Fjaril. That was exactly what I wanted to know.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

But is this possible for them?
If Mercedes would reduce their prices by, let's say 40%, their market share certainly would triple.
But their profitability?
...

Exactly. Why do people buy a Corvette when they can have a Malibu for half the price (I don't know much about Mercedes so I'll use Chevy instead)... they're two completely different cars marketed at two completely different types of customers.

Chevy doesn't want the Corvette to compete against the Malibu. Could Chevy put the same engine in a Malibu that is in the Corvette... probably. But they don't do it on purpose. They're also not worried about whether the Corvette is price competitive with a Honda Civic.

It's similar with the DR1000 vs DR800.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by badbob001

I know they are a small company and can't survive with smaller margins like larger companies like Amazon but they need to find a way to compete. If they want to compete price-wise, then they need to match or better the competitors' pricing.

The DR1000's competitors are not the same as the DR800's competitors.

The DR1000 is not supposed to compete against consumer level eBook readers.

If a reader had these values:

1. cheap
2. featured
3. reliable

and you could only choose two, which would they be?

For a consumer device, 1 and 3. For a professional device, 2 and 3.

The DR800 is a consumer device. The DR1000 is a professional device.