iRex announces 3 new ebook readers priced from $649 to $849

I was just reading Mitch's post on ebooks this morning and stumbled across the Engadget post announcing three new iRex Digital Readers. These ebooks readers are very high priced at US$649, US$749, and US$849 so you need to be a serious ebook fan to want to fork out this much for a reader.

The entry level model, the 1000, has a 10.2 inch display and looks to use the same kind of 16-level grayscale display seen on the Sony Reader FRS-505. It has a Secure Digital slot for storage and supports the Mobipocket DRM book format along with Adobe PDF, txt, and html. Image files are supported, but I don't see anything in the specifications about audio format support. The 1000S has the same specs with a Waxom penabled touch sensor display and stylus for note taking capability. The 1000SW has the same specs as the 1000S with WiFi and Bluetooth radios for wireless connectivity. I don't see any details on wireless access to an ebook store or an internet browser, but there has to be some kind of intent for the wireless feature other than connecting to your PC to transfer documents and books.

I am very happy with my Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader and won't be jumping on these expensive models anytime soon. I think the handwriting could come in handy for the educational market, but the price is quite high and I would like to see more details on transferring notes back to a PC for archiving and usage off the device. Does anyone plan to pick one of these up and for what purposes?