iriver Story unsheathed, still looks remarkably like a Kindle
By Vlad Savov 
posted December 1st 2009 9:33AM
posted December 1st 2009 9:33AM
posted December 1st 2009 9:33AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
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Somebody's getting sued!
@EddieN
While I don't know if the iriver poses similar enough to the Kindle for a lawsuit, Amazon does have a design patent, D601559.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2FD601559
@EddieN
Why? If you compare pictures side by side, they look similar, but different enough to tell they're different devices.
If Amazon sues, they'll lose.
Well, this looks quite nice. I think I should get one of these (or any ebook, for that matter) soon.
I need to see some marketplaces offering ePub as the standard format before I even take my eyes of the Kindle/Nook ecosystems.
Anyone?
@duprejohn Basically everyone except Amazon, B&N and eReader offers ePUB. For example eBooks.com, diesel-eBooks.com, partly Fictionwise.com, and many others. And since Amazon is a US company, ePUB's population outside the USA is even higher.
@Yoshi1080 Just had a look at the prices on ebooks.com. Nope!
At the Instutute, we prefer the Amazon Kindle.
is sony the only company making an ebook reader that's not white?
@krosref
White sorta goes with everything. But, a variety of colors would help them market this to more than just the people that don't care.
@HardToBelieve White casing (perceptively) increases contrast and makes text look darker.
@krosref I have a metallic purple astak ez reader pocket pro
Is sony the only company making an ebook reader with out a keyboard?
@Eric H astak is making the ez reader series w/o keyboard, I have a pocket pro- it is nice and faster than the sony
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
What makes a KIRF a KIRF?
but can I get it to automatically sink every morning to my newspaper or Engadet for easy reading over breakfast or the morning ride to work?
Hit the read link? Do you mean source or am I missing something?
@(Unverified)
It because they started doing read links, source links, more on this topic links, continue reading links. Easy to mix up
@decypherSMC But they said "Read Link" NOT source link which is listed below the story. They need to straighten that out. Mad confusing.
Sweet book.
+1 astaroth: that's a great book. anyone who didn't read it yet should =)
I still want a simple small backlit ebook reader. I just want to read books. No wifi, no keyboard and handsize not like these giants. Why someone hasn't taken the ancient tech used in PDA's and come up with a sub-$100 device is beyond me. My PDA is going on 6 years old and there's nothing to replace it with when it dies. Sad.
Oh for god's sake. What Amazon did was not censorship. Why they hell would Engadget keep promoting that fallacy?
@BluegrassGeek What Amazon did was no different from actual censorship, and it was actually worse in some aspects.
It's quite obvious that this wasn't the government telling Amazon to remove "1984" from people's devices, because that particular book is quite old and available from many different sources of which Amazon is just one. But what if the book was new? What if it was about current politics?
"Amazon censorship"
"authoritarian hardware"
You really meant to write that? Seriously?
I won't be purchasing any product that has starts with an "i", nor from a company with so much unoriginality as to start it's name with one. Enough already.
@sweet greggo That's a rational justification. I heard they won't accept orders from anyone with a name ending with the letter 'o'
@sweet greggo: The product doesn't start with an 'i', it's called Story. And iriver have been using that brand name for quite a long time now; according to Wikipedia, since before the iPod was launched. Think they're going to sue Apple?
As for this device though - I have to say, I've come to expect quality and sometimes original industrial design from iriver (never owned one of their products, but they usually look good - especially those old Toblerone mp3 players really caught my eye). This is not only not original (duh) but it also looks... well... I guess it's okay... but not as good as Kindle. Okay, looking worse than Kindle isn't as much of a challenge as it was in Kindle 1 days, but still, looking *better* than Kindle 2 shouldn't be that hard.
Also - keyboards in ebook readers? Just say no. I know touch panels over the eink screen suck as well; that's why, hello, Nook. And without wifi (so no inbuilt shop on the device), frankly you could do without any kind of keyboard or advanced input anyway.
@cherryboom Physical display providers are limited, Taiwan has a national objective to own the eBook market. Industrial design is something different, there's no reason two devices from the same manufacturer can't look completely different.
I've never owned a bad iriver product. So this is actually catching my interest :ID Especially with it being compatible with PDF!
I played with one of these at the Kyobo book store in downtown Seoul the other day and they're not particularly exciting. The whole thing has this matte plastic-y feel to it, you just know that it's gonna get really dirty and/or break within months of owning it. I mean, you can old the thing and flex it and it goes, "creeeaaaaaak."
I don't know if that's the norm as I haven't put my hands on any other ebook readers on the market.
@taefoto My Sony PRS-505 has very solid hardware.