In a recent blog entry iRex announces that in the fourth quarter of 2009 they will provide support for Adobe PDF and epub. iRex currently supports mobipocket on their devices.

The twist however is that ebook readers today can only support one DRM technology on a device, either Mobipocket or Adobe. So the consumer have to make a decision of what DRM technology to use on their device, and it will affect all book purchases. People usually don’t care who publishes the books they read, or what type of paper is used on a paperback. Choosing what DRM to use is in the same category, a decision most people have no knowledge or interest in taking.

Furthermore, if one already have purchased books in one format and suddenly switch to another format, it will leave the previously purchased books unreadable.

This brings the issue of DRM and ebook formats even closer to the consumers, and how it limits the access one has to purchased goods. It’s a bold move made by iRex, and it certainly is interesting that they try to satisfy “everybody’s needs” by leaving it to the consumers to choose which DRM to use. But, will it be a positive change in the long run?

I don’t think so. Most people don’t want or need to consider what DRM they use on their purchased books. I can only see that this will generate more questions and uncertainty to people (that makes them even more uncertain to purchase an ebook device). On the bright side, DRM will continue to be a hassle for consumers, and may be the publishing houses in the end will learn something from the music industry – DRM don’t work!

The display have become bigger, transfer of documents have become easier and according to iRex, and most importantly the chargeable built in Lithium Ion battery has sufficient power to last for days.

Now that last bit I loved to hear. I have asked myself the question if I would purchase an iRex reader in the future, and the battery capacity had made that answer into a big NO. Since it seems like iRex have improved the battery capacity, the chances have improved a bit.

The prices begins from 419 – 503 euros (prices from iRex Shop).

Just by looking at the picture, I already seem to miss one thing: the page bar for turning pages which one can just flip with the thumb. On iRex iLiad the pager is a stroke of genius I love. On the Digital Reader however it seems like they have gone for the button approach. The second objection I have is design. On iRex iLiad it’s a classic and stylish design. The Digital Reader seems just… well, a bit ugly. Since iRex’s target consumers is business professionals I would have expected a bit more from the design (or at least the same classic one). Just by looking at the pictures, there’s also a lot of other buttons missing (news, books, docs, device manager). This implies that they have at least change something about the interface, and I would really liked to know what.

The stylus seems to have been improved into one that is easier to use and more solid.

As you can see from the image below, the reader is quite slim as well.

To make it work on the iliad is easy – as long as you follow the rules.

Install the dictionary

1. Purchase one or more dictionaries from your favourite store.
2. Connect the iliad to your computer so you have access to its internal memory or MMC card.
3. Enter the book folder
4. Enter the “Mobipocket” folder. If there is no “Mobipocket” folder there, create one and enter it. Ensure that the first letter is a capital letter.
5. Copy one or more dictionaries into the folder.

Word of caution: Do NOT open the dictionary in another way than through the book itself. You can see if the dictionary have been opened when looking into the directory tree. If the dictionary is listed as a directory, delete it and install the unopened dictionary again.

The reason for this is a bug that lets you search for words when reading a book, it list matches, but when you choose a match and expect to get a description, nothing happens.

If you want to search the dictionaries without going through an existing book, you can copy the dictionary to another place/directory in the book folder.

Use the dictionary

1. Read a book.
2. With the stylus, press the icon on the bottom left of the screen that has a magnifying glass. Ensure that the icon goes from white background to black background.
3. With the stylus, press the word you want to lookup.
4. If any word matched it will be shown. Select the word from any of the matches by pressing the stylus on the word. This will result in the description of the word will be shown.
5. To exit the dictionary, press the arrow pointing leftwards twice.

Another entry about iliad stands:

http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=99

Pictures:

I woudn´t read programming books on it if I was reading it for reference. Iliad is well made for reading from page to page, but when I look up computer books, I mostly need to flip through the book in 2 minutes to find what I´m looking for. The iliad spends about 1 second to change page. It´s not enough time to loose interest, and one get´s used to it when reading (I don´t percieve it as big enough to be a drawback).

Since I have been reading up a lot when it comes to iliad, I will share what is my (and others) experience is in regard to it:

+ Good contrast
+ Wireless connectivity
+ Linux as operating system (but only hardcore people will know and use that)
+ Many applications are ported to the iliad. It has an active (but small) developer community. I do have some objections to how they release the software, but that is another discussion
+ The update facility (software and firmware) worked like a charm and required almost no user actions (except getting the internet connectivity to work). I could only wish that it would give more information so that people could get a clue what went wrong if something went wrong.
+ Easy user interface, easy access to settings, books, newspapers, documents, notes (the works). The handle for flipping pages is a work of genius.
+ You can make notes in the documents, and save (and delete) those notes.
+ For scientists/researchers, I have heard it´s a gold mine when it comes to storing documents, references, having a bibliography etc.
+ It takes CF and MMC cards, and USB.
+ You can bring your (and your neighbours) whole library with you.
+ Sound, you can play your mp3′s on this baby

- Flipping a page takes about 1 second
- 44 second bootup time
- Price
- Getting the wireless to work, can be a real hassle
- I´ve heard the irex support is really bad and can be expensive as well.
- Many people have experienced screen issues, and had to deal with the irex support.
- Battery works for about 15 hours.

I love my iliad and I´m hooked! I will most likely always have an ebook reader with me for the rest of my life.

So, what is this new love object of mine? An irex iliad which is an ebook reader. I love reading books and recently I have been reading a lot. So much that it affected my budget. When I can read between 2 – 3 books a week, then it gets expensive. So that´s why an ebook reader is a perfect gadget for me:

1. Ebooks are a lot cheaper
2. Ebooks require no bookshelves space
3. Wherever I go I can bring with me a LOT of (digital) books and they weight next to nothing.

Downside is that ebook readers are expensive, especially the iliad. So I bought mine on ebay. It´s new (never been used), the downside is that it´s first edition which means less battery capasity (20%) and larger battery charger than the second edition.

I didn´t really have many requirements for the ebook reader, except that I didn´t want any WinCE stuff. I used this a ebook comparison matrix when I chose what I wanted.

iliad have linux, wifi and based upon what I have read, the best for reading pdf´s, so it´s a winner. It also have a lot of development happening around it, 3rd party applications etc. It´s gonna be fun exploring the thing, if it can just get here !

I´m impatiently waiting…