fantastic plastic

MobileRead compares the specs of the recently announced iRex Iliad (December 2005) and the Sony Reader (January 2006, successor to the Librie):

Dimensions:
Sony: 6.9″ by 4.9″ by .5″
iRex: 6.1″ by 8.5″ by .63″

Weight:
Sony: 8.8 ounces
iRex: 13.7 ounces

Screen:
Sony: 6-inch SVGA 800X600 4 grey scales (same like the Sony Librie)
iRex: 8.1-inch XGA 1024×768 16 grey scales

Internal memory:
Sony: ? “approximately 80 unillustrated books”
iRex: 64MB RAM, 224MB FLASH

Expansion slots:
Sony: SD, Memory Stick
iRex: SD, CF II

Support e-book formats:
Sony: BBeB Book (Sony Librie), Adobe PDF, JPEG, MP3
iRex: Adobe PDF, XHTML, TXT, MP3, others in near future

Others interfaces:
Sony: headphone jack
iRex: headphone jack, WiFi 802.11b, 10/100Mb Ethernet

Price:
Sony: USD $299-$399
iRex: ?

The iRex packs more features into a slightly larger device and supports more formats. Seeing as it has WiFi and can render HTML, I hope they include a web browser. E Ink will be perfectly adequate for mainly text-based pages, such as news sites or webmail. Animations or scrolling are not really essential anyway…

Note: iRex is a Philips spin-out. The first electronic ink ebook reader, the Librie, was a collaboration between Philips, Sony, and E Ink.

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UPDATE: the iRex Iliad went on sale in June 2006 for EUR 650; the more affordable/basic Sony reader in September 2006 for USD 350.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 5th, 2006 at 7:56 pm and is filed under mobile, display, electronic paper. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.