iRex DR800SG Delayed till end of November

[superhero]

Originally Posted by etienne66

As for me I've given up for now. I went ahead and bought a Sony PRS-600. My brother had one and it handled the PDFs I wanted to read just fine and it's able to read epub.

The PDF's I want to read are for Microshaft's certification books. (No I don't like Microsoft, but they put money in my pockets.) And it reflowed the text just fine. I didn't know some PDFs could be reflowed. I learned something new. I'm sure the Irex will probably be able to do the same thing since they are using ADE.

I still want the DR800, but I will now wait for others to review it and maybe I'll buy one for my birthday in May. I still think the 8" screen is the idea size and I like their form factor. As long as the annotation works with that pen, they'll still probably get a purchase out of me, it will just be later rather than sooner.

Etienne66

I agree. I really wanted the IRex but I bought the Nook because I had a feeling it would sell out and I was excited by the Nook. I do believe the 8 inch screen is the sweet spot for me as well as it opens the door to read more than just regular books but also spreadsheets, PDFs and comics. My real concern apart from the deafening silence is the complaints I hear about customer service and product support for their existing products. If this silence is an indication of what we can expect for customer satisfaction, I may not pick up this unit. At the price point for the unit I really don't want to take a chance and wind up feeling burned.

[PhishStyx]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

The Nook says the same thing. I just went to Barnes and Nobles site and it says that the Nook will not ship until February.

Well, that's if you order it right now. When I ordered mine several days ago, I got an arrival date of January 15th.

[Mackx]

Originally Posted by superhero

My real concern apart from the deafening silence is the complaints I hear about customer service and product support for their existing products.

When I had a problem with my DR, customer service helped me very quickly, so there are also good things about the customer service. On this (and other) forum we seem to all react like 'normal people' venting/releaving our frustation, but forget to tell the good things. So do not forget that there are also positive things regarding iRex and the DR1000.
(Although the silence on the delaying of the DR800 and new firmware releases for the DR1000, does not help very much in seeing the good things ...)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Do you have a link to the announcement? Does it give any hints that there is currently a manufacturing capacity problem that is driving the need for an increase?

It was here on MR a few weeks ago. It would have been on the "News" forum.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It was here on MR a few weeks ago. It would have been on the "News" forum.

Sorry, my mistake. It's Netronix who are doubling production, not PVI:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64228

Apologies for the misinformation.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Apologies for the misinformation.

No problem, I appreciate the correction.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Mackx

On this (and other) forum we seem to all react like 'normal people' venting/releaving our frustation, but forget to tell the good things.

Yep, that's pretty standard for any discussion forum. People who are angry/upset are a lot more motivated to speak out than those who are happy. It's just human nature. For every person you see complaining online about any product, there are probably many more who are silently content.

[superhero]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Yep, that's pretty standard for any discussion forum. People who are angry/upset are a lot more motivated to speak out than those who are happy. It's just human nature. For every person you see complaining online about any product, there are probably many more who are silently content.

I totally agree but I still think the venting and frustration being felt is pervasive. This isn't a case were people are trolling and throwing out unfounded complaints. It appears the complaints are genuine and I find them extremely helpful in making purchasing decisions. I really appreciate this group as the people here scrutinize the products more than the casual buyer and give a better insight into not only the form and function but the technical as well. Also, in this type of active group I would expect those who have an Iliad to counterpoint the negative posts and those have been far and few.

While the 8 inch screen is my heart's desire, my brain will be happy with a 6 inch device if it does what I want it to do while receiving good and responsive support which the Irex "seems" to lack at this point. Time will tell but I don't think I will be an early adopter of this product which is sort of killing me since I am such a gadget guy and that 8 inch screen is calling my name.

[Mackx]

Originally Posted by superhero

I totally agree but I still think the venting and frustration being felt is pervasive. This isn't a case were people are trolling and throwing out unfounded complaints. It appears the complaints are genuine and I find them extremely helpful in making purchasing decisions. I really appreciate this group as the people here scrutinize the products more than the casual buyer and give a better insight into not only the form and function but the technical as well. Also, in this type of active group I would expect those who have an Iliad to counterpoint the negative posts and those have been far and few.

I see your point and indeed we do not have any trolls in this forum. I am using my DR1000 now for more then a year and it really helped me a lot in getting my 'productivity' higher. Fortunately I only got one problem with the hardware which was very quickly solved by iRex (it helped that my office is about 500meters from the Irex headquarters). The software problems I solve myself

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by superhero

I totally agree but I still think the venting and frustration being felt is pervasive. This isn't a case were people are trolling and throwing out unfounded complaints. It appears the complaints are genuine and I find them extremely helpful in making purchasing decisions.

I'm sure the complaints are genuine, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying that people are a lot more likely to post if they are upset than if they are happy, it doesn't mean that what you see online reflects the total customer base. Seeing a large percentage of upset people like that isn't necessarily an indication of a pervasive problem. It's just that people who are happy and don't have any complaints aren't going to be as vocal.

Also, in this type of active group I would expect those who have an Iliad to counterpoint the negative posts and those have been far and few.

There use to be a a lot more of them. One of the problems you sometimes see is that the people who are angry and have a negative opinion of a company may tend to get upset when there are others who disagree with them. It's very noticeable over on the iRex forums. In years past the tone of the discussions on there was much different, and you did see counterpoints and opinions from both sides. Over time though, a lot of the people who had positive attitudes ended up leaving because they got sick and tired of an upset vocal minority that would attack anyone who had differing opinions. I don't think most of them really did it on purpose, they were just frustrated and lashed out, but it got bad enough a while ago that most of the people making the type of counterpoints you're asking about gave up and left. It's all part of the same human nature. People who are happy aren't as motivated to stay when their opinions are met with criticism.

I've seen that happen with other forums as well. It's unfortunate, but sometimes that's just the way it turns out. People who don't jump on the bandwagon get driven off. In the long run it hurts everyone, because those who are left don't really hear differing opinions/ideas anymore, which is how we learn.

It's always good to look for opinions from others online when making a decision, but it's usually also a good idea to take them with a grain of salt. The number of people posting online is almost always a very small fraction of the total customer base, and the percentage of the ones online tends to lean heavily towards those who are complaining because of human nature.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I'm sure the complaints are genuine, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying that people are a lot more likely to post if they are upset than if they are happy, it doesn't mean that what you see online reflects the total customer base. Seeing a large percentage of upset people like that isn't necessarily an indication of a pervasive problem. It's just that people who are happy and don't have any complaints aren't going to be as vocal.



There use to be a a lot more of them. One of the problems you sometimes see is that the people who are angry and have a negative opinion of a company may tend to get upset when there are others who disagree with them. It's very noticeable over on the iRex forums. In years past the tone of the discussions on there was much different, and you did see counterpoints and opinions from both sides. Over time though, a lot of the people who had positive attitudes ended up leaving because they got sick and tired of an upset vocal minority that would attack anyone who had differing opinions. I don't think most of them really did it on purpose, they were just frustrated and lashed out, but it got bad enough a while ago that most of the people making the type of counterpoints you're asking about gave up and left. It's all part of the same human nature. People who are happy aren't as motivated to stay when their opinions are met with criticism.

I've seen that happen with other forums as well. It's unfortunate, but sometimes that's just the way it turns out. People who don't jump on the bandwagon get driven off. In the long run it hurts everyone, because those who are left don't really hear differing opinions/ideas anymore, which is how we learn.

It's always good to look for opinions from others online when making a decision, but it's usually also a good idea to take them with a grain of salt. The number of people posting online is almost always a very small fraction of the total customer base, and the percentage of the ones online tends to lean heavily towards those who are complaining because of human nature.

Good points. Any purchaser should make the decision based on what they need and what the product delivers. Some of the early frustration with iRex had to do with commitments they were never able to fulfill such as iLiad power management.

Unfortunately these boards can tend to be impersonal and the vocal minority wins. Even if they have valid points, it gets lost in the noise and rhetoric. I think iRex has come a long way, although they could still use quite a bit of help in the marketing area and probably planning, but they generally make a really nice product. You also can't argue that they've been at the cutting edge of this market since day one. A little more focus on the user experience in their process and the market today would be quite a bit different.

Personally I can't wait to get my hands on the 800. When I look at that big screen in a package the same size as the K2 I'm like one of Pavlov's dogs!

[curbarthedog]

I would like to put another point of view on this. This view is very likely to be seen as "rhetoric" but.....

Just consider that perhaps there is the possibility that over exuberant defense of iRex rather than allowing genuine concerns to be aired and discussed causes firstly the escalation of the anger and then those who would contribute to a discussion decide it is not worth it.

This may be because negative points are put down in such a determined and fanatical manner that frankly there is little point posting as it always turns into "iRex are right, negative comments are from an angry and vocal minority that must be made to understand how wrong they are".

Just because people are silent, it does not mean they are happy with the product or the fact that a promise or commitment has been missed.

They may actually just not really fancy getting into a detailed semantic dissection of the original post to justify how they personally feel about the service / product.

Of course, on the other hand, I may be wrong.

Just a thought for discussion.

[superhero]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

I'm sure the complaints are genuine, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. I'm just saying that people are a lot more likely to post if they are upset than if they are happy, it doesn't mean that what you see online reflects the total customer base. Seeing a large percentage of upset people like that isn't necessarily an indication of a pervasive problem. It's just that people who are happy and don't have any complaints aren't going to be as vocal.

There use to be a a lot more of them. One of the problems you sometimes see is that the people who are angry and have a negative opinion of a company may tend to get upset when there are others who disagree with them. It's very noticeable over on the iRex forums. In years past the tone of the discussions on there was much different, and you did see counterpoints and opinions from both sides. Over time though, a lot of the people who had positive attitudes ended up leaving because they got sick and tired of an upset vocal minority that would attack anyone who had differing opinions. I don't think most of them really did it on purpose, they were just frustrated and lashed out, but it got bad enough a while ago that most of the people making the type of counterpoints you're asking about gave up and left. It's all part of the same human nature. People who are happy aren't as motivated to stay when their opinions are met with criticism.

I've seen that happen with other forums as well. It's unfortunate, but sometimes that's just the way it turns out. People who don't jump on the bandwagon get driven off. In the long run it hurts everyone, because those who are left don't really hear differing opinions/ideas anymore, which is how we learn.

It's always good to look for opinions from others online when making a decision, but it's usually also a good idea to take them with a grain of salt. The number of people posting online is almost always a very small fraction of the total customer base, and the percentage of the ones online tends to lean heavily towards those who are complaining because of human nature.

Again, I totally agree and I did not mean to imply that I take everything said as genuine fact. When I first started my search for an e-book reader I REALLY liked the specs on the Iliad to the point that it was my first choice so I did quite a bit of research on it and while there are certainly those that love it and those who are frustrated with it, there was enough commonality to the complaints that I could see a pattern involving, among other things: firmware issues, promises regarding functionality that was never implemented, battery life, etc. Those put me off enough to reconsider when the Sony PRS 505 was getting pretty standard positives across the board. Also, I knew this was such a new technology that better and better readers would be released and I think the first wave of those are here with more coming. The surprising thing to me is how much I like using an e-book reader now. I never thought I could give up the feel of a book in my hands but now, I prefer the convenience and e-reading experience.

It is discussions like this--civil, respectful and more importantly intelligent that encourage me and keep me coming back. All that being said, I still REALLY want the DR800

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by curbarthedog

I would like to put another point of view on this. This view is very likely to be seen as "rhetoric" but.....

Just consider that perhaps there is the possibility that over exuberant defense of iRex rather than allowing genuine concerns to be aired and discussed causes firstly the escalation of the anger and then those who would contribute to a discussion decide it is not worth it.

This may be because negative points are put down in such a determined and fanatical manner that frankly there is little point posting as it always turns into "iRex are right, negative comments are from an angry and vocal minority that must be made to understand how wrong they are".

Just because people are silent, it does not mean they are happy with the product or the fact that a promise or commitment has been missed.

They may actually just not really fancy getting into a detailed semantic dissection of the original post to justify how they personally feel about the service / product.

Of course, on the other hand, I may be wrong.

Just a thought for discussion.

Valid points. It's sometimes tough to sort through the "fanboys" versus those with legitimate issues to gain a balanced view. Trends usually come out over time and the extremes balance out. I would tend to agree that some people may not be happy, but choose not to engage in the conversation. They will typically just vote with their wallet the next time around by buying another vendors product.

[TomK]

Just caught a vague update on the iRex DR800SG...
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-i...-amazon-brags/

"... iRex Technologies execs have declined interviews or detailed comment but a company rep told paidContent today it “has experienced unexpected delays” and isn’t issuing a new delivery date yet. That will have to wait until early January—at the earliest."