First look at DR800SG (video review)

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

Mine doesn't seem to go fully to 100%. Seems to be stuck at 97%, but given the inherent inaccuracy of these meters not a big deal. I'll be curious to see how it holds up in my real world usage. If it is comparable to my Kindle DX that would be great. Initial indications seem to be pretty positive, but I need more normal usage to get a better feel. Too much playing around with search, opening and closing documents, etc. to yet get a good feel.

Could just take a couple cycles before the meter gets calibrated.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by rhadin

Like HansTWN, I am not giving up on iRex. I had high hopes for it but the number 1 hesitation I have is the reliance on the pen. I just know I will misplace it. As you showed in your video, you can use the bar instead, but I don't see that as a good, full-time solution.

Supposedly iRex will have a touchscreen version. That I would like to see.

It will also help if iRex comes through with the rumored/promised software updates that will provide missing function.

Where did you hear that they will have a touchscreen version (I assume you're talking about 'finger touch')?

[peaceridge]

Pros – OMG! The clarity of the screen is incredible – I didn’t realize how bad my Sony 700 was until I used the 800.
Very fast.
Love that folder view – kudos to whoever figured it out.

Cons – WWTT? Author sort is in author First name order – eck. Thank goodness for the folders view.
The sleeve is impossible – hopefully someone will come up with a decent cover soon.
Like someone else already mentioned, the small font is just a bit too small for me, but the medium is way too big.

Things for me to figure out - I would like to rearrange the Home screen to put Continue Reading and SD Card first.
How to change the font, or at least the font size so small is not quite so small, or medium is not so big.

All in all, I love this irex 800! The 700 will go on ebay. Thanks to everyone on this list for so many helpful hints.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Could just take a couple cycles before the meter gets calibrated.

That was my assumption as well.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Pros – OMG! The clarity of the screen is incredible – I didn’t realize how bad my Sony 700 was until I used the 800.
Very fast.
Love that folder view – kudos to whoever figured it out.

Cons – WWTT? Author sort is in author First name order – eck. Thank goodness for the folders view.
The sleeve is impossible – hopefully someone will come up with a decent cover soon.
Like someone else already mentioned, the small font is just a bit too small for me, but the medium is way too big.

Things for me to figure out - I would like to rearrange the Home screen to put Continue Reading and SD Card first.
How to change the font, or at least the font size so small is not quite so small, or medium is not so big.

All in all, I love this irex 800! The 700 will go on ebay. Thanks to everyone on this list for so many helpful hints.

I was able to get a good font setup for my preferences using Calibre. I will typically side load content and I use Calibre for the conversion so this is not anything different for me. I have two settings that I use, one gives 33 lines of text per page and the other gives 36. Both of these fall between the small and medium settings on the 800. For 33 lines of text I use a base font of 11 and a font size key of 9,11,13,14,15,17,19. For 36 lines per page is us a base font of 10 with a key of 8,10,12,13,14,16,18.

I would love to see an additional value between the default small and medium settings, but for now the above calibre settings work perfectly.

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

I was able to get a good font setup for my preferences using Calibre. I will typically side load content and I use Calibre for the conversion so this is not anything different for me. I have two settings that I use, one gives 33 lines of text per page and the other gives 36. Both of these fall between the small and medium settings on the 800. For 33 lines of text I use a base font of 11 and a font size key of 9,11,13,14,15,17,19. For 36 lines per page is us a base font of 10 with a key of 8,10,12,13,14,16,18.

I would love to see an additional value between the default small and medium settings, but for now the above calibre settings work perfectly.

Thanks, these work great. One question ex base 11 with 33 lines of text - this occurs when I make the font medium on the 800 - how would I have it show up as the small to begin with?

Lynn

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Thanks, these work great. One question ex base 11 with 33 lines of text - this occurs when I make the font medium on the 800 - how would I have it show up as the small to begin with?

Lynn

Sorry, forgot to mention that I had it set that way for the medium setting. All you need to do is increase the base font and the font key in the same proportion. For example, base of 12 with key being 10,12,13 etc. I'm guessing to get this setting for the small font size you might need a base of 14 or so. I wanted to have the option of going to a small font setting for some things so that is why I targeted the medium setting. Just keep the increases in the same proportions and it should be fine.

[badbob001]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Where did you hear that they will have a touchscreen version (I assume you're talking about 'finger touch')?

[Shaggy]

Thanks, I'd missed that.

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

Sorry, forgot to mention that I had it set that way for the medium setting. All you need to do is increase the base font and the font key in the same proportion. For example, base of 12 with key being 10,12,13 etc. I'm guessing to get this setting for the small font size you might need a base of 14 or so. I wanted to have the option of going to a small font setting for some things so that is why I targeted the medium setting. Just keep the increases in the same proportions and it should be fine.

Thanks, that totally solves my font problem.

Now if I could just rearrange the icons on the front so the sd card was first, and get a cover, I'd be perfectly happy.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

How to change the font, or at least the font size so small is not quite so small, or medium is not so big.

SlawekC has worked out how to reference a user installed font in ePub, see (off topic) FBReader Release for the DR1000S. This requires you to modify each ePub file to reference the font, so all that is needed now is an on-device userStyle.css capability.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Thanks, that totally solves my font problem.

Now if I could just rearrange the icons on the front so the sd card was first, and get a cover, I'd be perfectly happy.

There's nothing technically stopping this. It may be tricky to offer a way to rearrange them on the fly (right now the order is simply hardcoded into the source of ctb), but I was able to rearrange things up a bit so that "Continue Reading" is always first when it shows up, so it never winds up on page 2 when viewing as a list.

[peaceridge]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

There's nothing technically stopping this. It may be tricky to offer a way to rearrange them on the fly (right now the order is simply hardcoded into the source of ctb), but I was able to rearrange things up a bit so that "Continue Reading" is always first when it shows up, so it never winds up on page 2 when viewing as a list.

If you ever decide to do a wiki on how to do this, let me know. I'm real good at following directions. Or point me in the direction of how to learn. I saw the developer source in another mobileread thread, but couldn't figure out where to go from there.

Lynn

[Kolenka]

Well, I'm looking at a couple tweaks which may make the SD Card folder hack obsolete in probably 90% of the cases. I'm also testing out a couple little applets which like some stuff written for the DR1000S will let people install/uninstall the patched files at will.

I'll see where it takes me.

That said, if you can follow the directions of setting up the SDK and get the emulator running for v3.0 of the iOn SDK... you are past the hard part. If you can't, I'd probably wait for patched binaries.

EDIT: If you feel uneasy about any of this, don't push yourself. I forgot to mention there are risks in modifying the firmware to get this to work. I had to mess with the emulator for a couple hours until I was confident enough that I wasn't gonna brick my device (the app I have to replace is part of the core firmware). I do software development for a living, and I still couldn't breathe until the iRex finished rebooting... even though I'd seen it work in the emulator multiple times.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by peaceridge

Thanks, that totally solves my font problem.

Now if I could just rearrange the icons on the front so the sd card was first, and get a cover, I'd be perfectly happy.

Glad to help.