iriver Story reviewed, incites rebellion over price
By Vlad Savov 
posted December 2nd 2009 8:37AM
posted December 2nd 2009 8:37AM
posted December 2nd 2009 8:37AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
@nsawork
Very interesting post
www.pissoffwithyourfakeposts.cn
@nsawork
"the amount of data to be carried is also reduced significantly."
What does that mean?
Am I the only one that is getting a bit tired with all these bland eBooks?
@designfabulous
I'm certainly not tired of NORMAL BOOKS. There's something about holding and reading from a real hardcover book that trumps any technological advances these devices will ever make. Viva la paper.
@Parias Until we get the prices of e-ink displays down with a faster refresh rate, I don't think I'll ever be interested. With the current technology, it's just too uncomfortable to quickly flip through pages.
@Parias Isn't it viva el papel?
I don't speak spanish, but paper can't be right
@Wwhat
I mix and match languages as I see fit. As well as words.
@Parias the tech. will get better - you clearly don't see the environmental benefits, ease of use/transfer of books in electronic format.
@(Unverified)
If you think BOOKS are a major environmental concern, think again.
I agree with the price issue, I would sooner have a Sony Reader Touch for an extra £20. Although similarly, I'd sooner wait for the iRex DR800SG once it is:
a - released in the UK
b - supports note taking
The Sony Touch should have used a Wacom stylus touchscreen for better contrast, especially when the Touch and the Pocket are always next to each other in shops where you can clearly see the (negative) difference!
@GlynC You don't have to pay an extra twenty, the Sony Touch reader is 219 pounds at WHSmith.
What the what?
I cannot believe anyone would pay nearly $400 for a book that plays music and does nothing else.
@Sean O If you read a lot, your eyes will tell you why it is worthwhile.
@chancekang
It's not. The price is too high for an iriver. You might as well grab up a Sony pocket Reader for almost half that price.
If I were only reading books I would go for the best contrast screen at the lowest price, and I don't think the iriver Story meets that need. In my case I bought and use the Sony Touch for annotating, correcting and rereading my own manuscripts on the fly (for later reference when I come to add the edits with the netbook). The contrast is fine for my purposes, and in natural daylight is excellent. In my opinion, physical keyboards take up too much room on the Kindle and the Story, and tend to make them look like props from Space 1999.
*Keeps playing the waiting game...*
After all, how long can they artificially keep the prices of e-book readers which are cheap to make up? Sure, there is the initial development cost, but I'll give it two more Kindle generations before its an impulse buy price (100 dollars ish)
@Nitesh
Considering how many chinese off-brand e-readers there are out there for similarly high prices, I think you're really underestimating how much it costs to manufacture these things. If it was realistic to make one for under a hundred bucks, somebody would have done it by now.
What the hell is it with all of these e-books.
I didn't know this many people are reading these days.
Do these things do College Textbooks? I dont think so.
It should at least be a netbook if it is around $400.
@(Unverified)
They're cropping up everywhere because the e-ink screen technology has just recently become affordable and book readers are the easiest product to make with that tech. They've been out long enough now that I'm forced to conclude that there is a market for these things or else the fad would have died out by now. I'm sure that in a few years when e-ink is old news you won't see as many book readers popping up all the time, but it's starting to look like the product category is here to stay.
@(Unverified)
I'm sure it is a relatively small market. Most people do not read. The people who do read tend to read a lot and most of the time they're not hurting for money. It's a very good demographic to market a product to.
Honestly, I think a stylus-compatible touchscreen is an absolute requirement for these devices. I have a Sony Reader Touch Edition, and despite the glare issues I think it's an indispensable feature. It's got some gimmicky stuff like totally unnecessary page-turn gestures, but also some really convenient features like double clicking on a word to read its definition. It's also nice to have an on-screen keyboard so you don't have a giant, rarely used physical keyboard on the front of the device.
But what really makes the touchscreen a must-have feature for me is the ability to take handwritten notes on it. It has a reasonably large 6" screen that I can just use as an endless notebook to jot down ideas for projects I'm working on. Unfortunately Sony doesn't consider this to be a key feature so their software isn't really designed around that feature (I'm using some minor hacks like loading in blank books for each subject and annotating the pages, otherwise there's no way to separate your notes into folders) but the hardware gets you close enough that it's still extremely valuable. I wish more of these book readers would embrace that idea and really get a well rounded note-taking product out the door.
Since my nook is still "shipping on Nov. 30," this is starting to look better.
Problems to consider:
1. The Zoom with the four steps, should be possible to customize in settings, so I would be able to have it on medium/sec.medium/high as my own customized standard.
2. Zoom in both versions does not work in landscape mode. Why?
3. The corner Zoom has to be easier in functionality, (sorry but to 80es software engineer loves his idea)
4. When I have a book on my SD card and read in it, the Story does not save my Reflow and Zoom settings, this means that i every time I read a book from my SD card have to inter the settings once more. (sorry but that's really crappy)
5. Why does the Story not recognize any book in the book section when i only have my books on a SD card, should recognize them. (have my books on diffrent SD cards, categorized)
This means that each time re-inter another SD card it shall remember where i was in the book and what Reflow/zoom i had, otherwise it wont be real to call it an expansion possibility.
6. The Reflow display some pdf, very weird, exampled under:
Fred is fat and lives in a shel
ter while eating fish with his toes, and usually he sleeps with fresh herring under his pillow.
Unfortunate for the other resi
dents in the shelter, he is resisting any fish related arguments.
So it breaks the lines in some words, this is really not acceptable, please fix it.
7. Must agree with critics that it is cheap not to deliver a cover with the story.
8. There should be a possibility to set the story, to re-inter directly into the book you just read last time, so you dont have to g0 through the menu every time.
9. I can not bookmark pages in pdf's.
10. Recent book, should be resent books, if you are reading several at the time.
Oh by the way, send this as an email to Iriver, no answer, ist been 3 weeks, sorry but another crap company.