ILiad FAQ - Look&Feel
[edit]
I will have to show pictures, but this laptop doesn't have a card reader so it will have to wait maybe tomorrow my connection will be ok. Also, any picture that i show of the menus will be temporary because they are being updated for the "final" version. I can already input the page number using the screen keyboard, and in the "final" OS version use character recognition. They have also arranged an ingenuous way for the problem of page numbering in various zooms. Basically you have a "fixed" numbering. When you zoom in/out the program breaks the page in various sub pages. You can still say go to page 244. if it is zoomed you start at the first part of the page, and you can go to the following parts, and the following "page". The reader shows an icon representation when a page is broken in subpages.
[edit] Screen quality
I can see a big difference when reading on the Iliad. It has much better contrast between the black and white. It is also quicker changing pages (after the caching delay). This is because the Iliad and Sony reader use the "second version" of eink screens. I don't know about Jinke, but it probably also uses the same.
The iLiad has slightly fewer ppi (158 compared to 167 of 6-inch screen devices). But I guess from your account that this doesn't have a visible negative impact.
Unless you are using a microscope it should be negligible. Just the fact that the background is "whittier" in the Iliad improves the reading. Add to that the 16 grays and you have a much better legibility than the Librie.
[edit] I looked at all the photos, and on most of them I noticed, that the text wasn't really black! The device can display black quite well as far as i can tell from the comics, but the website looked very gray, especially in comparison to the LCD.
Some of the text on the website weren't black, and if you have really thin text, it get's some "interference" from the white background. This also happens on my Librie and probably on every eink display. You can see that happen in the "fonts" pic. All the text is Black, but the courier appears almost gray.
[edit] How is the feel factor of the device? It looks a lot bigger than the other readers, and I wonder if your arm gets tired from holding it for a longer time.
I find it as easy to hold as the Librie and not heavy at all. 390 grams might seem a lot but compared to Davinci codes...
[edit] Also, how easy is it to "flip" pages? I remember fondly back in the past the good old scroll wheel of my Sony Clie.
With the flipbar it's very easy to flip pages, even with only one hand (use it almost all the time). The only doubt i have would be for left handed users...
[edit] How does the Iliad feel to sit and read with it for several hours? Are the pages as comfortable to read as a paper book? Is it easy on the eyes in good lighting?
So far i have only read “Flag in Exile” (Hornor Harrigton from BAEN). I'm used to the contrast of the Librie, so the Iliad is even easier to read. When i showed the device to friends they agree it is as easy to read as paper. The more light the easier it is to read, that's the great advantage of eink.
[edit] What is the feeling for reading pdf files in a4 format?
Actually the screen is A5. Just print the pdf to the screen size of the Iliad to see how it would go.
[edit] Can you use your finger for the touch screen, or do you have to use the stylus?
One has to use the stylus.
[edit] I downloaded some videos of page changes on the Illiad. There were fantastically slow. Will this improve with software updates?
The screen refresh rate is a function of the e-Ink tech itself, and is common to all the current batch of e-Ink devices. The display itself refreshes at one of two speeds: 1 second, and .5 seconds (the faster rate leaves ghosting on the screen, though most report it's not any more bothersome than ghosting on a paper page).
The other component to display change is the file itself, that is, how long it takes to create the image from the file and pass it to the screen before the screen can even start to refresh. That's where a big PDF file will slow things down.
