With this price tag at £599, it won’t appeal to most but the iRex 1000s does have a heap of attractive features. Probably more appealing to the busy business user, the 1000s is a large screen 10.2 inch, 1024×1280 px resolution. It has 16 levels of grey scale which make images stand out well on this large screen. The main feature of this ebook reader is it’s writing capability, hence why the business user will be it’s main customer. Viewing and marking up professionals documents in a multitude of file formats that are supported will be welcomed. It is also the only ebook reader in the market so far that can render PDFs efficiently to their native size for which iRex has to be applauded.

The iRex Digital reader is not for the casual evening and weekend reader. Far from it as you’ll see by it’s butch and bulky casing and no nonsense design. It’s out to do a job and will turn its nose up at someone that simply wants to be flicking through a Robert Ludlum novel.

It’s hard to compare the set of features to anything else in market because it’s simply a very different beast. In the 1000 series you have 3 models – the 1000, the 1000s being reviewed and the daddy – the 1000SW with its additional Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 3G capabilities. Of course the number on the price tag increases quite a bit with each one so you’ll have to ask yourself a few questions around your realistic usage before choosing.

The handwriting functions aided with the included stylus means that this is more than just an ebook reader. It’s an endless notepad too, accept all those trees will be spared. The touch screen is also the main centre of navigation too, rather than a 4pointer nav wheel and buttons but don’t go losing that stylus because you’ll find that your finger just won’t cut it.

Against the iRex 1000s is the battery life. Just a measly 10-15 hours that will prove to be costly for those using it for essential business matters. Also, it’s been talked about that there are some bugs and glitches present -from overly long boot up time to unplanned shut downs and frustrating navigation unresponsiveness.  I’ve yet to witness much worth talking about though. What I see when comparing this to the iRex Iliad is faster page turning. It’s about twice as fast as anything else I’ve messed around with which is a great leap forward in my mind.

IRex are up there as one of the leaders in the field at the moment but they still don’t seem to be capturing the attention of the everyman on the street. With this iRex 1000 series they’ll have a market but you won’t be seeing it on the bus on the way to work. It’s a serious bit of kit for those serious work-a-holics who demand the latest techie stuff to make them even more efficient. A good buy if you’ve got the reasons to need it and the cash in your pocket.

iRex 1000s Specifications

Input and output
Capacitive buttons with optical feedback
Mini-USB connector
Wacom® penabled® touch sensor input with Stylus

Media formats supported
Unsecured Text: Adobe® PDF, TXT, HTML
Image: JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF and BMP
DRM Text: Mobipocket PRC

Storage Capacity
1GB Removable SD card (replaceable with larger SD cards)
Holds over 1000 documents or pictures

Display
10.2 Inch (diagonal) electronic paper display
1024 x 1280 pixel resolution at 160 pixels per inch
16-level grey scale

System requirements
Windows® XP or Vista®
USB Port (optimal with USB 2.0)
800MHz processor
128MB RAM minimum
25MB minimum available hard drive space

Power
Built-in rechargeable lithium ion battery
Recharging time 5 hours with USB charging from powered computer

Languages
German, Dutch, English, French (with more to come in the future)

Box contents
iRex Digital Reader 1000S
Stylus
USB cable
Quick start guide