Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions

[Dulin's Books]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

What's missing?
- I for one absolutely miss the "intelligent" zoom. I hope, they re-integrate it, as 1000S and iLiad did have it which made them the best PDF units in the market (IMHO). But it's a feature, only Sony 600/700/900 can offer. And they only do it for a single page, which isn't really helpful in my opinion.

Boox has selection zoom(and panning) which is the same as intelligent zoom and it is also persistent. PocketBook also has various zoom functions which are persistent and they will have selection zoom on their touch models. I expect to see more of this with other models as PocketBook integrates its software into the Netronix clones.

Originally Posted by mgmueller

- Folder support. Personally, I don't need it.

The good thing about folder support is that people don't have to use it if they don't want. Not having them available is difficult to justify.

Originally Posted by mgmueller

- Zoom in general. Not only is it missing the "intelligent" zoom of former models, it's lacking zoom in total. For PDFs, that's really a huge step backwards. But again: Kindle doesn't have it either. Do you consider Kindle "half-finished" as well?

Yes, in fact I consider Kindle to be somewhat less than half-finished. As an ebook vending machine it does its job admirably. As reader of digital files I think its no where near well done.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Dulin's Books

Yes, in fact I consider Kindle to be somewhat less than half-finished. As an ebook vending machine it does its job admirably. As reader of digital files I think its no where near well done.

Here I HAVE to contradict you. No one seems to have exact figures. But it seems to be common understanding, that Amazon so far is beating all competitors hands down. In my opinion, they gave the market exactly what has been asked for.
I'd like to compare it to Hollywood. I consider Brad .... a crappy actor and Qu... T... a horrible director. I've been bored to death in I... B...
But still: The movie and those guys commercially are successful, even Academy Awards are expected. Obviously, the "tin drum" (as another movie circling around WW2) has way more substance, superior character studies, ....
But still: It's all about being the blockbuster.
It's business. If you "sell like hell" you've done it (everything) right.
In German we say "to die in beauty". Meaning: You've done it all right, but nobody cares. And I guess that's the problem of most readers/manufacturers.
For example, I've been impressed by BeBook's OS one year ago. But it was so ugly/poorly designed (visually, not feature-wise) (in my view), that I've never used it. Kindle on the other side may be far inferior for the power user, but one really has to admire Amazon's business model, strategy and success...And of course it's about the 90% of "mass consumers", each spending about $ 200 per year for eBooks and not about the 10% of enthusiasts, who maybe even download their books from the web and don't bring any recurring business.

[badbob001]

I know this device does not have a headphone jack, but does it have a speaker at all? I remember the original ipod with the physical scroll wheel and how it made a generated clicking noise when moved. Wouldn't it be a nice option to have the device make a slight noise when tapping with the stylus so people KNOW that it registered the tap and just needs time to process... no need to stab it a second time and harder (it's glass, remember!).

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

But it seems to be common understanding, that Amazon so far is beating all competitors hands down. In my opinion, they gave the market exactly what has been asked for.

Amazon had a technical reason for not including folders (they were not available for MobiPocket Reader, which was their starting point). Also, pre-processing all ebooks for search on the Kindles implies a preference for a smaller number of ebooks and therefore less need for folders (and a need for limits on storage). In the case of iRex, they blindly copied the Kindle even going so far as to remove features they already had (like folders and zoom for PDFs). In the mean time, competitors such as PocketBook and Onyx (and even Sony on the PRS-900) are adding features rather than removing them. Even Amazon has announced some folder-like solution in the future (perhaps folders, perhaps tags, but at least something).

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by badbob001

I know this device does not have a headphone jack, but does it have a speaker at all? I remember the original ipod with the physical scroll wheel and how it made a generated clicking noise when moved. Wouldn't it be a nice option to have the device make a slight noise when tapping with the stylus so people KNOW that it registered the tap and just needs time to process... no need to stab it a second time and harder (it's glass, remember!).

I haven't found any speaker.
But actually, the clicking sound usually is the first thing I turn off. Did so with iRex iLiad.
But I agree: Given the screen refresh, a Windows-like animation doesn't make any sense. So an (optional) Audio-feedback would make most sense.
I guess, it's a minor problem, as the screen is very fast and responsive. Before you'd get the feedback, you probably already see the result of your action.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Amazon had a technical reason for not including folders (they were not available for MobiPocket Reader, which was their starting point). Also, pre-processing all ebooks for search on the Kindles implies a preference for a smaller number of ebooks and therefore less need for folders (and a need for limits on storage). In the case of iRex, they blindly copied the Kindle even going so far as to remove features they already had (like folders and zoom for PDFs). In the mean time, competitors such as PocketBook and Onyx (and even Sony on the PRS-900) are adding features rather than removing them. Even Amazon has announced some folder-like solution in the future (perhaps folders, perhaps tags, but at least something).

Quite frankly, in most areas I go for the "big corporate". I still have Windows, Mac in reserve - not Linux.
I mainly watch movies from the big studios, rarely independent movies.
Same here.
I'll always check out the newest iRex unit. I'll definitely check out new contenders like Que.
But in my opinion, they aren't equal competitors.
For me, it comes down to Amazon and Sony. Given the rumors probably Apple will join the game. Maybe Samsung might become a "member of the club".
But brands like Onyx, iRex or Bookeen never can make it to similar level.
For one (and that's a biggy), they lack the additional revenue via content. Apple, if they join, certainly will compete with Amazon by expanding the iTunes plattform.
My thread about revenue seems to indicate, that most consumers spend about $ 300 per year for eBooks. That's obviously where the money (and of course the major portion of the profit) is.
I read very vague figures about Amazon's revenue with Kindles AND eBooks. Some state $ 200 million per year, but I've read $ 4 billion as an outlook for 2012 as well.
Whatever it may be: B&N, Sony and Apple may be able to compete. Most of the others will remain "niche providers", not real competitors...

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

For me, it comes down to Amazon and Sony.

To some extent I agree with this. Amazon has a vision of what ebooks should be, it isn't what I want but generally a clear vision of what is required beats no vision every time. So I was not arguing that Amazon was wrong to implement the Kindle as it did but rather that is it hopeless for small companies to copy its approach. They need to do something different, and one approach would be to add features that a large enough part of the reading community needs. Good PDF support and support for thousands of ebooks on the device are two examples. Another is support for multiple formats, even if they are DRM-free.

I'm not so sure about Sony. I think the alternative to Amazon is now Adobe, with Sony as its flagship device vendor but with many alternative devices. The problem for Adobe is they have way fewer ways to make money out of ebooks than Amazon.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I'm not so sure about Sony. I think the alternative to Amazon is now Adobe, with Sony as its flagship device vendor but with many alternative devices. The problem for Adobe is they have way fewer ways to make money out of ebooks than Amazon.

Depends on if we are talking devices or platform.

You've got plenty of ways to get MP3s played into your ears, but who wins? Apple because of the early polish of the device, and now simply because they are already the defacto standard.

On platforms, it really is Amazon vs Adobe... and Adobe has the advantage of selling server software to anyone who wants in, and SDKs to anyone who wants to make a device.

On the device side, I'd probably agree it is Amazon vs Sony for the most part. The iRex is tempting as heck, and I might wind up with one, but with the Sony line, they've got the most polished reader experience on the device itself. If they can figure out that the resistive touch screen needs to be replaced with some other touch tech, they've got it made, basically.

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

On the device side, I'd probably agree it is Amazon vs Sony for the most part.

It's only Amazon vs. Sony today. Tomorrow is another matter. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is simply going to destroy them even though the tablet will be LCD-based. I'm sad about that, because I prefer reading on e-ink vs. LCD by far, as does anyone who frequents this board, but the commercial fact of the matter is that Apple will completely dominate this market within just a couple of years, just like they wiped out all competition on the audio market. It's simply a matter of a short time. E-ink based devices will be super-tiny-niche based products that will appease the small user base that are e-ink fanatics, but Apple will simply wipe out everything else. And why? Paradoxically, precisely because it's LCD-based. Given the choice between a black and white device that requires additional lighting to read and screen response times that are so low as to make anything but simple text unavailable, and a device that is full-color, fast-response movie-capable refresh rate, can do anything under the sun including e-read books, and the vast, vast majority of people will head straight for that device every time. E-ink isn't dead - but Apple's tablet will ensure that it remains a niche product that very few people (relatively speaking) use to read books. It will completely revolutionize e-reading for the masses simply because it will draw in the masses in a way that even Amazon cannot hope to ever accomplish with the Kindle. I do find that disappointing, but unfortunately that is the way of commercialization, and my prediction is that the Apple tablet will effectively end any serious further development into e-ink based tech.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kolenka

Depends on if we are talking devices or platform.

You've got plenty of ways to get MP3s played into your ears, but who wins? Apple because of the early polish of the device, and now simply because they are already the defacto standard.

On platforms, it really is Amazon vs Adobe... and Adobe has the advantage of selling server software to anyone who wants in, and SDKs to anyone who wants to make a device.

On the device side, I'd probably agree it is Amazon vs Sony for the most part. The iRex is tempting as heck, and I might wind up with one, but with the Sony line, they've got the most polished reader experience on the device itself. If they can figure out that the resistive touch screen needs to be replaced with some other touch tech, they've got it made, basically.

Couldn't agree more with the "polished" part re Sony. When putting my iRex 800 "to sleep", I briefly checked my Sony 900 again. It's a beauty, period. Great touch and feel. What Sony (sometimes) lacks in Software development, they seem to compensate with their design.
And again, that's usually a difficult area for the small ones. Perfect example: BeBook/Hanlin: Some really interesting ideas in their OS. But the design of the housing couldn't be more ugly...

[remer]

Originally Posted by DeReader

I filed a support ticket on the new support.irexreader.com site and asked about future support of PDF Zoom and annotation.

The answer was a bit shocking for me, the nice support guy explained that there is no zoom function (I knew that, otherwise I would not have asked), and I should use the "font size" setting (but that will reflow the document and destroy the layout, I do not want this in most PDFs).

Further, he wrote, there are no plans to enable annotations on the DR800.

I also sent an email to iRex regarding annotation and zoom and specifically referred to the earlier press regarding adding annotation functionality. Their reply was a follows:

"The decision to put the option for annotation or zooming has not been taken."

Seems like they are backpedaling from their earlier promises.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

It's only Amazon vs. Sony today. Tomorrow is another matter. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is simply going to destroy them even though the tablet will be LCD-based. I'm sad about that, because I prefer reading on e-ink vs. LCD by far, as does anyone who frequents this board, but the commercial fact of the matter is that Apple will completely dominate this market within just a couple of years, just like they wiped out all competition on the audio market. It's simply a matter of a short time. E-ink based devices will be super-tiny-niche based products that will appease the small user base that are e-ink fanatics, but Apple will simply wipe out everything else. And why? Paradoxically, precisely because it's LCD-based. Given the choice between a black and white device that requires additional lighting to read and screen response times that are so low as to make anything but simple text unavailable, and a device that is full-color, fast-response movie-capable refresh rate, can do anything under the sun including e-read books, and the vast, vast majority of people will head straight for that device every time. E-ink isn't dead - but Apple's tablet will ensure that it remains a niche product that very few people (relatively speaking) use to read books. It will completely revolutionize e-reading for the masses simply because it will draw in the masses in a way that even Amazon cannot hope to ever accomplish with the Kindle. I do find that disappointing, but unfortunately that is the way of commercialization, and my prediction is that the Apple tablet will effectively end any serious further development into e-ink based tech.

I find Apple extremely interesting. Steve Jobs certainly is a visionary genius.
But to me, Apple is not the 800 pound gorilla. It's more of a 50 pound chimp with the roar of an entire jungle.
Their marketing definitely is brillant.
They really understand, to explode minor marketshare to market domination in the customer's perception.
Perfect example: iPhone. As a business phone it's a joke - a very bad one. Even NYT defined it as the worst phone ever. Their market share and profit margins surely are acceptable, but that's pretty much it.
Their sole advantage is iTunes. And that's certainly a cashcow. But still: Their product is mediocre and their market share absolutely tiny. I read on iPhone as well when on the train or waiting inline.
But I could do this on my UMPC in the same quality, if this would be my instrument of daily usage.

Let's just check some details:
Boot time of iPhone is what? 50 seconds or something like that? Lots of members claimed, iRex iLiad wouldn't be acceptable because of lack of standby.
So users wouldn't leave their iSlate (or whatever it may be called) off, but in standby.
Battery duration of iPhone is what? To me, it seams like 3 hours. I can watch my battery getting drained.....
So we'd need 2 battery modes: Multimedia and reading. Doesn't seem to be that easy, else they'd have implemented something like that into iPhone already.

Basically, it comes down to two simple questions:
- multifunctional device (movies, music, surfing, reading) or dedicated eBook reader. Probably this mainly will be about costs. Lots of members state, they have a budget of $ 200 to $ 250 reserved for their reader. If the iSlate is $ 600 or even more, it won't compete to that market, but to the netbooks.
- How much and which content will Apple be able to deliver? Amazon as the main distributer for "almost everything" should have an advantage here. I don't know how licensing for books works. But I guess, Amazon will combine their wholesales (paperbooks + eBooks) and should have a cost advantage over Apple.

To me, the iSlate makes sense to strengthen Apple's plattform to compete with netbooks and convertibles. eBook reading will be a nice add-on. But its main purpose will be multimedia ("bigger iPod touch") and mobile computing.

BTW: I'll most likely end up buying it. But I'll probably take 2 units with me then: One of my readers for ...exactly... for reading. And the iSlate for watching movies, surfing the web, checking my Excel-Sheets, maybe even replacing my UMPC. But my next purchase still will be Que I guess.

[MikeOnyx]

What I have realized, especially in the US market, is that most Americans usually only care about 2 things: Price and Brand.

For example, say you walk into a drug store for some headache medication. If Advil and the store brand comparable to Advil is the same price, you would more than likely choose Advil because of the brand even though they are exactly the same. In fact, many people are even willing to pay more for the Advil over the store comparable.

But keep in mind, that Amazon and Sony were small once too. If the bigger brand always win, how did they get their start? In 1998, a small search engine started to compete with Yahoo, MSN, and at the time, so many other huge search engine companies. Today, Microsoft and Yahoo both continue to get frustrated with the sure dominance of this company. Of course, this company is Google.

Or another example, when Mozilla came into the picture, Internet Explorer held 90% of the market share. Now more and more people are making the switch to Mozilla Firefox. Also remember, Apple iTunes were once the small underdog in the music industry. All they did was utilize a niche of creating an desktop application that made buying music and putting it on their device as simple as possible. Now they are a powerhouse.

Amazon were a lot more successful than Sony at the start with their eReader simply because Amazon had the niche of adding 3G which gave people the ease of buying the book directly on the device, despite the fact that Sony was in the industry first.

All I'm saying is never underestimate the underdog and a potential niche. Because as history as spoken, a good niche is sometimes all you really need.

Also, to respect to LCD screens. LCD with a backlight cannot support prolonged reading. How long can you stare at an LCD screen before you eyes start watering and hurting? Or how long can the battery on it last before needing a recharge? And to say that the iSlate will dominate the entire eReader industry is like saying the iPhone will dominate and control the entire cell phone industry.

I'm also curious to get your opinion on why you think the iSlate will take over? Do you believe that the Brand alone will be much more important than the price and will make everyone pay that much more to have the device? What about the iSlate do you believe will give it the competitive edge that other eReaders will not?

I am not trying to be condescending. I am just trying to keep an open mind and to satisfy my mere curiosity on the matter.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by MikeOnyx

What I have realized, especially in the US market, is that most Americans usually only care about 2 things: Price and Brand.

For example, say you walk into a drug store for some headache medication. If Advil and the store brand comparable to Advil is the same price, you would more than likely choose Advil because of the brand even though they are exactly the same. In fact, many people are even willing to pay more for the Advil over the store comparable.

But keep in mind, that Amazon and Sony were small once too. If the bigger brand always win, how did they get their start? In 1998, a small search engine started to compete with Yahoo, MSN, and at the time, so many other huge search engine companies. Today, Microsoft and Yahoo both continue to get frustrated with the sure dominance of this company. Of course, this company is Google.

Or another example, when Mozilla came into the picture, Internet Explorer held 90% of the market share. Now more and more people are making the switch to Mozilla Firefox. Also remember, Apple iTunes were once the small underdog in the music industry. All they did was utilize a niche of creating an desktop application that made buying music and putting it on their device as simple as possible. Now they are a powerhouse.

Amazon were a lot more successful than Sony at the start with their eReader simply because Amazon had the niche of adding 3G which gave people the ease of buying the book directly on the device, despite the fact that Sony was in the industry first.

All I'm saying is never underestimate the underdog and a potential niche. Because as history as spoken, a good niche is sometimes all you really need.

Also, to respect to LCD screens. LCD with a backlight cannot support prolonged reading. How long can you stare at an LCD screen before you eyes start watering and hurting? Or how long can the battery on it last before needing a recharge? And to say that the iSlate will dominate the entire eReader industry is like saying the iPhone will dominate and control the entire cell phone industry.

I'm also curious to get your opinion on why you think the iSlate will take over? Do you believe that the Brand alone will be much more important than the price and will make everyone pay that much more to have the device? What about the iSlate do you believe will give it the competitive edge that other eReaders will not?

I am not trying to be condescending. I am just trying to keep an open mind and to satisfy my mere curiosity on the matter.

"Google" certainly is a great example for "new economy taking over from establishment".

Just some brief calculations: If I remember correctly, the global market for PCs is about 200 million units per year. Thats probably about $ 150 billions. Apple's market share [I'm to lazy to "GOOGLE" it ] probably is about 3%.
On the other hand, figures for ereaders are highly speculative. For example https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...47&postcount=1 states just $ 115 million (US market only) through October 2009. Amazon is claimed to have 90% market share in this article.
If that's true (personally I don't believe, that the market for eBooks/eReaders really is that small. And I don't believe 90% market share for Amazon - not even close), market for PCs (including Laptops, Netbooks and the likes of course) is 1000 times as big as the market for eReaders. Even including eBooks into the calculation, the picture is quite obvious.
For Apple, the iSlate will be the bridge to low end computing. Competing with netbooks and other units in the range of $ 300. Being Steve Jobs, I'd introduce 2 kinds of iSlates. A low-end-version aiming for significantly below $ 500. And a high-end-version in the range we've heard in various articles = about $ 800.
The "niche" of netbooks certainly is way bigger for Apple than the highly specialised niche of eReaders.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by rfog

What about battery duration?

Thanks a lot.

So far, I can't complain about the battery. I didn't have time yet to use it intensively. Just about 2 hours per day. After (rough estimate) 15 hours of usage, battery shows drain of 40%. My gut feeling says, about even with Sony 900.