I really enjoyed the time I got to spend reviewing the iRex Technologies iLiad ebook reader. (InkShows 1 and 2)At the time of the review the iLiad 2nd Edition was the only available model, but today, iRex announced the new iLiad Book Edition, launching on May 9.

The new iLiad Book Edition shares all of the same features of the iLiad 2nd Edition with one exception - no integrated WiFi. And then there is the price. The iLiad 2nd Edition rang in at $699 in the US. They haven't announced US pricing, but the iLiad Book Edition was announced at €499, a €150 savings over the iLiad 2nd Edition. That's a big deal. It would imply a US price somewhere in the mid $500s. Still a lot more than the competition.

One important feature that stayed the same - it still includes a Wacom digitizer. Despite the rampant use of the words "touch screen" on many sites to refer to the digitizer, it is indeed a standard Wacom. It apparently still does all of the annotations and ink notes that I reviewed on the older model. It also still has the bigger, better screen than the Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader. The case was also changed from black to silver. Wow.

iRex has also announced that the iLiad Book Edition will be carried by Border UK. No word about the US, but that would certainly be an interesting development.

View the Press Release.

Other coverage on TeleRead, MobileRead, Engadget

After reviewing the iRex iLiad e-book reader, I have been really excited about the possibilities of combining the e-ink / e-paper display with touch and inking capabilities. InfoWorld is reporting from the Display 2008 exhibition in Tokyo on a new display "developed by E-Ink, Taiwan's Prime View International, and Japan's Seiko Epson. It combines a conventional electronic paper display with a touch panel and a newly developed control chip." E-Ink makes most of the e-paper displays with which we are familiar, including the displays for the iLiad and the Amazon Kindle.

The new control chip developed by Seiko Epson appears to be the key element of the new display. The chip can refresh the screen up to 50 times per second and can control a screen with four times the resolution of current displays, up to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels. This refresh speed increase should dramatically improve the writing experience, potentially eliminating the pen lag I saw on the iLiad.

The new display and chip are slated to release in August, so maybe we'll see devices built around this technology in the near future.

As promised, here is Part 2 of the InkShow. In Part 2, I cover creating ink notes as well as acquiring and syncing content.

As I warned you last time, when I got done shooting the full video, I had way too much material for one InkShow, so I divided it rather arbitrarily into two parts. If you haven't had a chance to view Part 1, that's where I covered the basics - form factor, e-book reading, newspaper reading and annotating books.

• Download the high res InkShow ( WMV, 20 min, 137 mb ) 
• Watch the embedded video below for Part 2
• Watch Part 1
• Visit iRex Technologies to learn more about the iLiad
• Price: $699 at eReader Outfitters, the US distributor

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, iRex Technologies loaned me an iLiad E-Book Reader for two weeks to do a brief evaluation. While the e-book reader is itself a very nice product, the exciting part about the iLiad is that it includes a Wacom digitizer.

I'll warn you, when I got done shooting the video, I had way too much material for one InkShow, so I divided it rather arbitrarily into two parts.

Part 1 (see below) covers the form factor, e-book reading, newspaper reading and annotating books.

Part 2 will cover creating ink notes and acquiring content. This should go up early next week.

• Download the high res InkShow ( WMV, 16 min, 110 mb ) 
• Watch the embedded video below
• Visit iRex Technologies to learn more about the iLiad
• Price: $699 at eReader Outfitters, the US distributor

Not that I'm trying to one-up Warner or anything, but I just received a sample of an iRex iLiad e-book reader with an integrated Wacom digitizer.

Although the iRex iLiad is not a new product, given the recent reviews of the Amazon Kindle and the video we did with the Kindle and the Sony Reader PRS-500, it seemed appropriate to look at the only real pen-based solution on the market. After all, inking is the way to go!

I'll be doing a full InkShow on the iLiad in the next couple of weeks, but to whet your appetite:

• Best screen visibility -  by FAR, over the Sony Reader or the Kindle. Totally subjective, but wow.
• Larger screen - 8.1" diagonal vs. 6" diagonal
• Digitizer - allows both book annotations as well as free-form note taking on blank sheets of e-paper
• Sudoku - 'Nuf said.
• WiFi - I connected to my WPA encrypted access point at home in just a couple of minutes. Transfer files, etc. Although the reader doesn't officially support web browsing, there are solutions for that available on the web (like enabling the browser that actually ships in the system but hidden/disabled).
• File formats supported : PDF / HTML / TXT / JPG / BMP/ PNG / PRC (Mobipocket)
• You can read the full set of product specifications on the iLiad website.

Before you ask, yes, all of this goodness comes at a hefty price. The official US sales portal is eReader Outfitters who list the iLiad at $699. Yes, for that same $699 I could buy a decent laptop. But for those people who really want a portable note-taking solution, this could be an interesting slate. I plan on checking this out as more than just an e-book reader so that I can see how far into the slate computer category this can stretch.