I have an iLiad, and basically I purchased this device to lessen the amount of documents that I carry with me. I am one of the early adaptors and as such in purchasing the device ahead of time (I received the iLiad one day after the eFlybook was released) I "signed" a waiver stating that I understood that the device software/hardware was not fully developed.
Right now people can get by not carrying lots of books/manuals with them just by loading the pdf's onto a laptop computer. The reason that I purchased this device is that everytime I want to view something on my laptop I have to pull it out, start it up, and wait for the extensive boot time, then navigate to the document, wait for the adobe acrobat/reader to start up and then view the document. Now my laptop is a little older and slower so that takes a bit more time. Additionally how long does the average battery last on a laptop? 3 hours at best maybe 4, and then your running in low power mode which makes startup even slower.
The idea about getting the iLiad was that it's boot time and viewer start time would be lower and that the battery life would be substantially greater.
To some extent this is true even at this point in time. The device firmware is still in it's infancy and iRex Technologies has been promising that things will be substantially better later in the marketing process. There are a number of people over at mobileread.com that are part of the early adaptor beta test group that have been posting their experiences. You can get a lot of insight on the iLiad there.
Overall I like the device and it is my sincere hope that the promised functionality will be realized. The iLiad has a lot of potential only if you realize what it's purpose is.
The few people that I have shown the device were overwhelmingly impressed. That surprised me.
Waiting for the next generation devices is probably a good thing to do in some aspects. The thing is that if these are not adapted to some extent R&D costs will not even be partially recouped, a further market for the device will not be developed and then there will be no 3rd generation devices.
With a bit more development I see these devices becoming a something that could possibly compete with a PDA. PDA's are great but in one aspect are just too small to read documents on. Overall I think the ereader device will still always be a niche device, it just might become a bit bigger of a niche if implemented correctly.
"I'm a college student looking for a new laptop, but almost all of my media I receive digitally. I'm looking for a laptop, not a netbook, without an optical drive, and budget sensitive. The optical drive will just be a waste of space, when I can have thinner laptop. What's out there?"
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I have an iLiad, and basically I purchased this device to lessen the amount of documents that I carry with me. I am one of the early adaptors and as such in purchasing the device ahead of time (I received the iLiad one day after the eFlybook was released) I "signed" a waiver stating that I understood that the device software/hardware was not fully developed.
Right now people can get by not carrying lots of books/manuals with them just by loading the pdf's onto a laptop computer. The reason that I purchased this device is that everytime I want to view something on my laptop I have to pull it out, start it up, and wait for the extensive boot time, then navigate to the document, wait for the adobe acrobat/reader to start up and then view the document. Now my laptop is a little older and slower so that takes a bit more time. Additionally how long does the average battery last on a laptop? 3 hours at best maybe 4, and then your running in low power mode which makes startup even slower.
The idea about getting the iLiad was that it's boot time and viewer start time would be lower and that the battery life would be substantially greater.
To some extent this is true even at this point in time. The device firmware is still in it's infancy and iRex Technologies has been promising that things will be substantially better later in the marketing process. There are a number of people over at mobileread.com that are part of the early adaptor beta test group that have been posting their experiences. You can get a lot of insight on the iLiad there.
Overall I like the device and it is my sincere hope that the promised functionality will be realized. The iLiad has a lot of potential only if you realize what it's purpose is.
The few people that I have shown the device were overwhelmingly impressed. That surprised me.
Waiting for the next generation devices is probably a good thing to do in some aspects. The thing is that if these are not adapted to some extent R&D costs will not even be partially recouped, a further market for the device will not be developed and then there will be no 3rd generation devices.
With a bit more development I see these devices becoming a something that could possibly compete with a PDA. PDA's are great but in one aspect are just too small to read documents on. Overall I think the ereader device will still always be a niche device, it just might become a bit bigger of a niche if implemented correctly.