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An Irex Iliad Review

The Irex Iliad occupies a position at the higher end of the e-book-reader market. Carrying a hefty price tag, and boasting features that most other e-book readers don't, it's clear that the Iliad is aimed more toward the business end of the market. So just how viable is an Irex Iliad for your average e-book reading person?

My Impressions

The first thing you notice with the Irex Iliad is the size of its screen, it's a lot bigger than that of it's main competitors, the Sony Reader and the Amazon Kindle. It's build however leaves something to be desired. Unlike the Sony Reader which has a metal shell, the Iliad is cased in smooth plastic that as some have suggested; from certain angles looks more like a prototype. Running down the length of the Iliad is a flick bar for moving back and forwards through the pages, this is quite a nice feature and makes the sensation of flicking pages quite like that of an ordinary paper book. All interaction with the Iliad can be done through it's touch-screen facility with the use of the provided pen. The touch screen is perhaps what sets the Iliad apart from its competitors. Such features as making handwritten notes on top of e-books while reading give the Iliad a more sophisticated air than perhaps other e-book-reading devices. The Iliad also comes with a WiFi ability but with fairly limited functionality. There is no internet surfing option.

One very annoying trait of the Iliad is it extremely long boot-up time. After flicking the power switch, you can expect to wait around 40 seconds before the machine is fully functional. Its boot up time is comparable to that of a modern PC. This is troublesome in light of the fact that other systems such as the Sony Reader only take around 3 seconds to boot.

Supported Format

The Iliad supports the usual array of e-book formats:

PDFXHTMLTXTMobipocket

The support for Mobipocket was a later addition to the Iliad software in response to a high demand for this media format. Mobipocket gives Iliad users access to a plethora of materials usually distributed though various websites. Mobipocket books are usually purchased online from where they can be downloaded directly to the system. No e-book reader would be palatable without support for PDF documents. There are some considerations to take into account however. The PDF format is designed to display contents on screen exactly as they will be displayed on the printed page. This means that materials produced for A4 page sizes will not display perfectly on the Iliad screen which is considerably smaller than A4. There are things that you can do to make viewing these kinds of documents better however; one such "fix" involves putting the Iliad into landscape mode which effectively splits the page in two and gives a large viewing size. Although not perfect, in comparison to other e-book-reader products, the Irex Iliad does offer better handling of PDF files due to its larger viewing area.

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- Feb 28, 2009