Archive for the ‘irex dr800sg review’ tag
Irex DR800SG Review Update – New Firmware no comments
Irex recently announced that a public beta of the 2.0 firmware update for the DR800 ereaders was available. I have installed it and have been using it for a few days. The fixes as reported on the Irex blog:
- 3G Connection Setup time improved by using Qualcomm Network Driver
- Show 3G signal strength on status bar while connected
- Add Notepad application
- Add Advanced Settings, allowing:
- Scribble on PDF documents
- Zoom in PDF documents
- Enable folder-browsing of your SD card
- Adobe 9.1 RMSDK based rendering of PDF and EPUB, including B&N EPUB support and image dithering
- Integrated B&N Creditcard input dialog into the document open flow (ask only if needed)
- Support EPUBs without embedded fonts for e.g. Greek, Polish, Russian
- Add “Go To Page” function to document viewer
- Move Continue Reading to the first position of the Home screen
- Automatic indexing of Thumbnails and Title/Author metadata (can be disabled in Advanced Settings)
- Added Time Zone selection to the Date/Time Settings
- View Book Information menu function that shows more details for PDF and EPUB
- Fixed issues with EPUB rendering when GUI language is non-English
- Fixed a bug where the Power Management would fail and the battery would drain quickly (related to pagination of PDB and TXT documents)
- Many other bugfixes
So far I have not encountered any problems using the new firmware. It was very easy to install – just unzip the download and you will have an Update folder which you place in your System folder on the DR800’s SD card. The ereader will find it when you disconnect it from your computer and the rest is pretty much automatic. The blog post linked to above has instructions and a link to the patch. Make sure you get the correct version for your ereader (DR800S for the European version or DR800SG for the US 3G version).
I have not seen a lot of difference with the 3G connection in my case. The 3G on the DR800SG ereader is only on when you open the eBook Mall, so each time it needs to find a network and connect which takes some time. Irex has not yet added any new ebook sellers to the “Mall”, so it is still rather empty, the only stores being Barnes & Noble, Newspapers Direct and Irex’s own periodical shop.
I just finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so I went to Barnes & Noble and purchased book two of the Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. No problems encountered here, but I had to input my info (making sure that I used the same credit card that B&N already associates with my account as that is the key they use for their DRM). Hopefully with the new firmware I won’t have to enter those details again.
Purchasing an ebook on the DR800 from Barnes & Noble is more complicated and has more clicks involved than buying and downloading a book on the Kindle ereader from Amazon. Maybe one reason for this is that Amazon has patented the 1-click checkout system, and in fact sued B&N for infringing this patent in 1999. At any rate the 3G does work, albeit not instantly, but I hope Irex will add more stores to the “Mall” as it is still rather empty, and it would be nice to be able to access more ebook stores from the ereader.
The note taking feature lets you make handwritten notes or draw pictures, 
and could be quite useful. There are five different pen sizes and an eraser. The eraser is a bit confusing at first because the erasure won’t take effect until the next screen refresh.
The problem with the note taking feature at the moment (keep in mind this is still a beta) is that if you are reading a book and want to make some notes, you will first need to open the menu, exit the book and go to the Home screen and then to the Notes screen. When you are finished and want to go back to your book you need to go again to the Home page, then to books and find the book you were reading. After using the note pad the Continue Reading tab shows your just opened notes rather than the book you were reading. Not very hassle-free.
To enable zoom and the scribble in PDF documents functions you will need to go to the advanced settings and check off the appropriate check boxes. To use the zoom you circle the area you wish to enlarge with the stylus. This works pretty well. When in this mode the flipbar advances you to the other parts of the enlarged page rather than turning the page. There is also a Fit To Page zooming option, but that feature seems to not be working yet.
In order to pan you need to again open the menu and select the pan option. The whole pan and zoom thing is a bit clumsy at the moment. I think it would really help if Irex were to put icons for the various operations on the status bar at the bottom of the page.
The Go To Page feature is much appreciated and works as expected.
The new firmware will definitely be a step in the right direction, especially if iRex uses the public beta to further refine the new features. But Irex needs to do more. While I have noted before how much I like reading on the DR800’s screen, Irex’s new ereader is still feature poor for the price, especially after the release of the iPad.
Some other features I would like to see: how about being able to scribble on ePubs? and a dictionary would be nice as well. Right now when I need to look up a word from something I am reading on the DR800 I use the Dictionary.com app (free) on my iPad, which I keep close at hand for that reason, as well as to listen to Pandora Radio while I am reading. After all, life is not just about finding new books to read – discovering new music is important too!
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Irex Releases Public Beta of DR1000S 2.0 Software no comments
Irex has just announced the release of a Beta version of the promised software update for the DR1000S ereader.
Some of the changes:
- Completely new DR800-style GUI, including new Menu
- Many performance improvements making the GUI much more responsive
- Minor improvements to Power Management have been made
- DR800-style views (Books, News, Images, Personal Documents) in Content Browser in addition to “SD Card” folder browsing
- ‘Recently Added’ view in Content Browser
- Search in Library (to locate a file) based on metadata
- Documents are shown with their Title and Author in the Content Browser (instead of filename), except in the “SD Card” folder view
- A dedicated Notepad Application which adds the possibility to insert pages and rename the Note. This replaces the old Templates.
- Adobe RMSDK 9.1 EPUB and PDF rendering engine, including B&N EPUB support and PDF reflow
- Selection zoom in PDF
- Scribble (note taking) on top of PDF documents
- Switch between 4 open documents using tabs on the side of the screen
- Support for opening password-protected PDF documents
- GUI localized in English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Greek
- Automatic indexing of title, author and thumbnail when a file is added to the device
You can read more on the Irex blog. Hopefully this will mean that we will soon also see the promised update for the DR800SG ereader.
Firmware Update for the DR800SG to Follow?
Irex has said that it will have a firmware update for the DR800SG ereader ready this month as well. Some of the improvements are said to be:
Note taking application1 PDF document zoom and scribble functions1 “Go to page” menu function Faster 3G connection setup time² Barnes & Noble EPUB file support Automatic indexing of title, author and thumbnail when a file is added to the device Ability to import Settings and Accounts information (MYIREX, Adobe) from MYIREX sign-up webpage on PC “View Book Information” menu function that shows file details for PDF and EPUB
I would also like to see Irex add a dictionary, highlighting and folder support.
I’ve been using the DR800SG ereader for over a month now, but until Irex updates the firmware I really can’t add too much to what I’ve said about this ereader already. At $400 the DR800SG is very light on features – hopefully Irex will remedy this at least to some extent soon.
The DR800SG does have the best looking e-ink screen I’ve yet seen, and this is why I’ve decided to keep this ereader rather than returning it as I expected I would be doing when I first received it. I love reading books on the DR800, though at the price it is a bit of a luxury.
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Irex DR800SG Ereader Update – First Impressions no comments
I love reading books on the DR800SG. The e-ink screen with its 16 grayscales and 768 x 1024 resolution is gorgeous. I also find that I much prefer reading on the 8.1 – inch screen to the usual 5 – 6 inch ereader screens. The larger screen does add a little width to the device though, which may impact portability for some.
I am also a fan of the minimalist design of the DR800SG ereader which does not waste space and which is devoted to and complements the display screen. I hope other designers of new ereaders will take a close look at Irex’s design choices here and maybe stand on Irex’s shoulders, as Steve Jobs would say. The DR800SG definitely has some qualities worth emulating. I would like to see some more ereaders with this screen size format for one thing. That being said however, the DR800SG’s design as executed does lead to some control awkwardness that I think could have been avoided by Irex.
Page turning and menu navigation are accomplished via the flipbar on the left
side of the bezel and the Menu button underneath it. If you hold the flipbar to one side for a longer period it will turn five pages at a time instead of just one.
To use the DR800SG with one hand you will need to hold your ereader in your left hand and use thumb power to turn pages. This works fine, unless you want to shift hands for awhile. This control scheme will also not work if you are left handed and want to hold the ereader in your right hand so you can have your left hand free. Adding a couple of small page turning buttons on the right bezel might have impacted the aesthetics of this ereader, but it would also have greatly increased its functionality.
You can navigate through most menus and make selections without the stylus by using the flipbar and menu button, but sometimes it does feel a bit awkward. Since there is no docking bay for the stylus on the ereader it is good to be able to do as much as possible without it.
Unlike most ereaders that come with a stylus, you cannot turn pages with a swipe or touch of the stylus on the edge of the screen. There are a couple of small arrows at the very bottom of the screen (you can just see them at the bottom of the picture) you can touch with the stylus for page turns, but they are quite small and inconvenient. It feels as though the Wacom digitizer is minimally implemented at best.
There’s Not Enough “There” There
The DR800SG has five four different font sizes to choose from, but only one font style. The
pic shows the largest font size, which is about 3/16 inch height for capital letters. You can also set the page margins from 0 to 1/2 inch.
The search function so far seems to work quite well. You will need to use the stylus for this. It would have been nice if Irex had added a Go To Page function as well.
You are able to sort through your library or documents by Name (title), Author, Date Added or Recently Added. It is also possible to delete content from the ereader itself without connecting to a computer, which is nice.
With its larger screen, Wacom digitizer and $400 price tag you would assume that Irex is targeting users who need to handle a lot of PDF or other documents with this ereader. Judging by what is missing you would be making a wrong assumption. There are no annotation, note taking or even highlighting functions. Bookmarking is as good as it gets. It kind of makes you wonder why Irex bothered to use Wacom technology on the DR800SG at all. At the moment it seems like the digitizer is wasted.
PDF zooming is unavailable on the DR800SG as well. Even viewing a PDF in landscape mode does not seem to achieve any magnification – you just get the same size doc with very wide margins. With PDF’s made up only of text you may be able to enlarge the font as long as there are no graphs, schematics or tables, etc.
So far my take is that the DR800SG is a wonderful ereader for general book reading. But is that enough to justify paying $400 for it – especially in view of all of the soon to be released competition? True, Irex will hopefully have a firmware update soon that will add some of the missing functionality to their new ereader, but I can not recommend buying one based on that expectation/speculation alone.
If there were a dictionary on this ereader it would probably have a picture of the DR800SG next to half-baked.
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Irex DR800SG Unboxing no comments
I just received one of the Irex DR800SG ereaders from Best Buy. I hesitated to order this one as quite frankly, it just does not seem as compelling as it would have been if released four months ago as originally announced by
Irex. There does still seem to be quite a bit of interest in Irex’s newest and greatest ereader though, so here it is.
As you can see in the photos, inside the box is a wall charger, USB cable, slipcover, quick start guide and of course the DR800SG ereader itself. And a loose stylus. That’s right, the stylus does not have a storage slot in the body of the ereader . There is a place to put it into the sleeve. We will have to be careful not to let the stylus become a chew toy for the household zoo as a new EMR stylus would have to be ordered from Irex (or perhaps another supplier) for $24 and up depending on the model.
I’m also wondering if this will affect the battery life? The Bebook Neo, which also has a Wacom digitizer, senses when the stylus is in its slot and turns the digitizer off to extend the battery charge. Not sure how much effect this will have. I have not seen any estimated battery life numbers for the DR800SG; Irex just says things like their new ereader has “longer battery life”.
I have just been able to play around with the Irex for a few minutes while I
get it charging, so I only have a few first impressions to give so far. The Dr800SG is a handsome ereader and I do like the larger screen. The 8-inch screen feels more like viewing an actual book page. Text looks very nice and I think the e-ink screen is enhanced by the color Irex chose for the bezel.
I’ve also been able to conduct a small test of Irex’s customer service already. When I got home last night the package was waiting for me so right away I opened it up so I could get the DR800SG charging. Unfortunately it seemed DOA and would not charge. Nothing I did seemed to help. Thinking to myself that things were already off to a lovely start indeed, I tried calling the Irex customer service number shown on the startup guide. As it was already 10 PM here on the West Coast I did not really expect to find anyone home. In fact, after only about a minute and a half on hold a friendly CS person came online and got me sorted out. He had me reset the ereader while it was plugged in to the charger and everything was fine. I had tried the reset, but not with the reader plugged in.
I’m sure I would have been able to revive the Irex after more futzing around on my own, but it was encouraging to know customer service was there when I was in need. This is always a worry when purchasing a new device made and primarily (until now at least) marketed overseas.
I’ll be able to spend some more time with my newest friend this weekend and will have more to report – stay tuned.
£149.00
£109
