We can't fault
iRiver for striving to beat
Kindle at its game, but to
be Kindle is a different story altogether. A Korea-based
MobileRead forum member posted a trio of pics that apparently show off the company's up e-book reader, aptly titled the Story. Here's the scoop as "dasony" tells it: the talented Mr. Ripley here sports a 6-inch screen, physical QWERTY keys, up to 32GB expandable memory, 9,000 page turns (per charge, we presume), a comic viewer, and support for PDF, EPUB, and a number of word / document files. Its local affiliation includes book store chain Kyobo and pre-orders will launch September 16th for around 350,000 to 400,000 KRW, or $282 to $322 in US currencies. Apparently iRiver's looking to expand it to other countries and is in talk with US and Russian retailers, although with that price, it's gonna have to pull out some surprise features and dark magick to compete with what Sony and Amazon are dealing. More pics of the book and its not-quite-svelte case in the gallery below.
[Via
Engadget German]
posted September 2nd 2009 3:43PM
While it's good that so many features are being thrown in, I'd almost rather have a double screen side by side like an actual book, that folds. Two, 7 inch screens that flip open like a book with touch navigation (think flicking pages) and good format support for under 500 I would count as a win.
Funny, I was just thinking it would be neat to have the screen "back-to-back" and with the "binding" just like it is in the picture there but when you physically flip the unit to the other side like a page it shows the next one!
could even build in some sort of friction generator that uses the "page turn" energy into battery juice, the more you read, the more you flip, the more you flip, the more juice you send into the battery, the longer your battery lasts!
interesting... the more you use it, the longer the battery lasts!
@#$%...anyone know a patent lawyer that owes a favor?
How about an e-reader with 500 double-sided e-ink screens?
kumquat
I see what you did there.
Where's the KIRF label that this would get if it was made by a Chinese company?
Good point.
Along those lines, what's a Workwork group?
Just because it's white is a copy?
why isnt this a KIRF?
Have you seen the specs and pictures?
Open formats, SD card slot, folder organization structure; where's the copy cat ???
Can it zoom all formats, especially pdf's?
Can I open books I have in html format? (this almost certainly means it has to have wifi)
Can you actually open the file types you list natively, without conversion?
Will you be more than $200? (hence you couldn't even compete with Sony's new PRS-300)
That looks so much better than the Kindle and its at a more affordable price with features that I would expect. What's wrong with it?
People seem to be attached to popularized brand names. However stupid that is, it's usually true.
I am happy to see more companies get into the ebook market. We'll have to wait to see an official price and all of the features. It looks nice.
However, there is only so much you can do with an ebook and I don't think it's fair to say that they are copying Amazon. It's essentially a giant screen. If anything, this device is more similar to the Sony Librie. Both are white, both have expandable memory, both have tiny keyboards and both are ebooks.
R.I.P. Kindle
iPhone killer!
I dig the expandable memory option. That's one feature that's sorely missing from the Kindle.
Does it play Crysis?
The iRiver iKindle
Get rid of the keyboard (or make it a slider) and then we're talking... maybe. (Still don't see much reason to pick this ahead of a Sony.)
Please don't take design cue from kindle. It just too hideous.
Iriver is the best!That's all I can say!They have been on the market for a while not necessarily with e-readers but with audio (mp3) players and the quality of those is amazing!!!I have had 5 various models of Irivers and all of them were fabulous and I never had any ossues at all!Now I possess Iriver Spinn 8gb and I'm happy!;))))