iRex Iliad Review

Nice review mat and I think I even get the gist of what you're saying about the kernel. Can I ask a couple of questions?

How much did you pay for it?

How do you turn the pages, so to speak? Is there an icon you need to touch/click or is there a way of doing it without sticking a digit into your eyeline?

Can you use it to read in the bath?

I paid around £450, 'cos I wanted a fancy case for it too. Buy them here, but don't - whatever you do - buy books from there.

You turn the pages with the flipbar, the long silver bar on the left hand side. The default is to flip left to turn a page, but it's configurable. Left feels correct anyway - think about the action of turning a page... There is about a 1.5s lag while you turn as the screen refreshes, but I'm so used to that now it doesn't bother me.

No reason you can't read in the bath. You'd have to be VERY sure you weren't going to drop it though. :)

Thanks mat - I see the bar you mean now.

£450 seems a little steep, I have to say. I see why you think that buying the books for the same price as paper books is taking the piss now.

And I was sort of joking about the bath. Sort of. Reading in the bath is a great pleasure but at that price I wouldn't risk it!

It is pricey, but then that's what you expect with early technology - five years ago, this display tech didn't even exist! In a few years time, I fully expect to be able to buy a full-colour, high-dpi version of the iliad for half the price.

The Bookeen CyBook is a bit cheaper, has much better battery life, but it's much less clever (and it's smaller).

oh, and 100 points for anyone who can name the book I'm reading in these photos. :)

Asimov? But I don't know which one without googling.

Will it run Doom?

sorry

good review Mat - the last sentence almost made me giggle like a girl. almost
With regards to the book, is the fact Air is spelt with a capital 'A' any kind of clue, or a typo?

Sorry, not Asimov. You're in the right genre, but out by quite a few years. I don't think this author is quite as famous either.

JBL - er, maybe. it'll probably help with googling, if nothing else.

Oh, okay I googled and I'm wrong.

ES - Fucking doom. With a screen refresh rate of around 1Hz?

Yes, of course it'll run Doom. Duh. Everything with a screen will run doom. It's a linux device, and framebuffer is framebuffer. Might need a bit of hacking to compile right. I'll ask the porting guy. :)

Great review, cheers mat.

How long has this version been on the market? in other words, how long is it likely to be before it comes down to iPod-type prices?

Well, there's a question. This is v2, which will be superseded by v3 probably some time this year. V3 wil have more battery and a higher dpi screen. I have no idea if they are planning to keep v2 in production and drop it's price, but that kind of thing is often asked in the user's forums, so maybe. The iPod comparison is interesting, as the iLiad will actually play mp3s and has a headphone jack on the base. Seriously though, it's a BOOK.

See the link above to the CyBook, which is already cheaper than a top-end iPod (and it plays music too).

And they're not paying you (or at least giving you discounts) for these reviews?
Get me the PR department!

It's just a case of sitting back and letting Google do it's job. They'll know about it within six months, top.

Also within six months: Lots of unregistered comments "how i maek porn go on iLiead plaz halp"

Porn on the iRex iLiad eReader?

(for added google juice, hehehehe)

amazing series, the first one of these I have seen up close.

the 1/2 second pause between pages really doesn't bother you?

it really doesn't. half a second isn't all that long - only ever so slightly longer than the time it takes me to blink, then move my eyes back to the top left to start the next page. Also, think about how long it takes to turn the page on a print book - it takes me at least half a second until I'm reading again. :)

there's some rather poor video I shot of it in action here, but YouTube has plenty more.

actually, after I wrote that I thought about how long it takes to turn a page & realized it's probably just a bit shorter. Plus the handiness of just pushing a button sounds superb.

I think I like the looks of that better than Amazon's Kindle. But I like the 'whispernet' idea on Kindle. Being able to download wherever you are.

the Kindle is rubbish, from all I've heard. Smaller, uglier, way worse screen - and Amazon want to lock you into their formats.

In theory, there's nothing stopping you putting a mobile modem card in the iLiad and downloading from anywhere (it has wifi anyway), but how often do you actually run out of book mid-anywhere? Not forgetting to allow for the fact that you can carry tens of thousands of pages at once? I currently have six unread books on my iLiad, plus the one I'm reading - that ought to see me through.. (if I wanted to carry more, I could take up to 4GB on memory cards/sticks too - 4GB is a LOT of text!)

I wonder if it is scannable with my reading pen?! or it would be even better if dictionaries are built-in, so I can easily check meanings.

I think there is in-read dictionary support for certain ebook formats. Don't quote me on that though.

It sounds like the kind of feature that may come in a later firmware update, if not available right now.

the book: diamond age by neal stephenson?

great review, thanks. actually I bought an iliad myself a couple of weeks ago, and I am very pleased with it. pretty much the same as you say, mat.

and I also would never want a kindle. same reasons as stated here, plus: I live in europe.

i@m partially-sighted but can read large print books. These are very restricted in the range available. I'd love to use an Iliad but what is the largest font size available?

If you're making PDFs, there's nothing to stop you making the font as large as you like.

Mobipocket books - as far as I know - you can turn the font up as far as you like.

Thanks Mat

My wife has just pointed out that Borders are demonstrating Iliads at a branch not far away so I'll go and try one.

Mat,

Thanks for the review. As an avid reader, but with arms/ wrists developing arthritis, I'm sure that a lightweight eBook reader like this may help ease my reading enjoyment, and I'm thinking of treating myself to one for Xmas (not so far away now I'm afraid!!) One q at this stage:

- I use Mobipocket on my windows mobile ppc phone(Samsung i780). This allows page srolling, which I find useful (Samsung screen OK for reference stuff & rss summaries, but too small for sustained reading). You've mention page turning, do you know if the version of Mobipocket on the Iliad supports scrolling? (I'd like to be able to automate the reading experience as far as possible.)

NB The mobipocket version (6.2) I have on my Samsung does support dictionary look up(and seems to work OK)- but I don't know if the software version is the same on the Iliad

Thanks

PK

As far as I know, Peter, it doesn't allow scrolling in the sense I think you mean. The screen refresh wouldn't allow scrolling, as such, anyway. The pixels need 'flushing' (flash page all white, then black, then new text appears) between page turns to avoid ghosting, so continuous scrolling isn't really possible.

That said, if you have the technical ability (or know someone who does), you could create a modified version of FBReader (free mobipocket/epub/etc reader) which auto-page-turns after a specific period of time. That will mean you can't read DRM'd mobipocket books, but a quick google for MobiDeDRM.py should solve that annoying little problem. (please note, stripping mobipocket's DRM may be illegal in your country. it certainly is in mine, otherwise I'd be hosting a copy of mobidedrm).

I believe dictionaries (both in-book and offline) are available for the iLiad, I personally haven't installed one. The following link might be useful for you: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15934

Andy - not the Diamond Age, no. Good guess though.

Mat> What do you think of the Sony equivalent?

Never seen one, to be honest with you. But, I have heard a few things.

- it's an 800x600 display to the iLiad's 1024x768.

- Sony require you to use their "Store" to buy your books and put them onto your reader. Classic Sony lock-in tactics apply. There are workarounds, but they aren't too easy right now.

- Their preferred format, LRF, isn't very widely supported - lots of converting will be needed. Although I think it does support ePub, which is apparently the next big thing in eBook formats.

- I can't install 3rd party applications on a Sony Reader, I can on my iLiad.

If I were buying a new reader today, I'd still buy an iLiad, although I would probably take the Bookeen CyBook under consideration as the cheaper option. I wouldn't bother looking at the Sony.

There was a lot of advertising for the sony one in metro today, which is sadly the way a lot of the time - the better product doesn't have the marketing power of the lesser, and loses out accordingly. Boo.

Here's the sony link, for comparison:
http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/reader-ebook

Fine review.Some comments about SONY.
Yes,it's screen only 6", and .pdf documents seems very unreadable.So Iliad seems very attractive.
Yes,SONY native format is .lrf and there is many free converters for this format.Google's it easy.So,it is no problem.