Hi All,
Wanting to ask if I was to get one which is better?
Thanks

Hi Renji,
There are some specific hardware/OS differences between the two, but largely I think the choice comes down to personal taste.

Screen: The screen is the same 6" size on both versions. The Cover Story has a touch-screen, the Story doesn't. The Wi-Fi version of the Story has 16 greyscales in the display; all the others have 8 greyscales.

Hardware: Both the Story and the Cover Story come in both stand-alone and Wi-Fi-enabled models. The Cover Story has an accelerometer that auto-rotates the screen display; the Story doesn't. The Cover Story comes with a cover; the Story's cover has to be bought separately.

Software: The Cover Story comes with essentially the same OS as the Story, the same features, and support for the same document types. A couple of differences: The Cover Story can also read FB2 and Docx format; the Story can't. The Cover Story also provides access to POP3-based e.mail accounts, and an inline dictionary for the book reader.


Personally, I bought the Story specifically because the size of its case fits my big hands more comfortably. I wanted an e-ink screen rather than a touch-screen, because touch-screens on any brand tend to get obscured by reflections and fingerprints. So even though the Cover Story's extra features are nice, I don't think they're enough to be worth an owner of an original Story upgrading for. And I'd probably always choose a regular Story over the new Cover Story. But as I said, I think it's a matter of personal taste.

I hope that helps. Most of all, I think the choice depends on which features are the most important to you.


Edited to add:
Renji, I read on another thread that you like the iRiver because of its CBZ support. If that's a major appeal for you, I would think the 16-greyscale screen would probably matter, which might mean your best choice from iRiver would be the Wi-Fi-enabled Story. But where are you? The Wi-Fi-enabled model isn't available everywhere.

The CBZ format is mainly for comics. Strangely though, iRiver hasn't done a good job of supporting comics-reading. I've yet to come across a mini 6" comics. Even a small manga book is much larger than 6". You really have to squint hard or use a magnifying glass to read the words.

What iRiver could have done is to allow zooming. But this feature is completely absent. Zoom isn't available for the original and the new Cover Story (for viewing jpg, cbz, pdf).

Back to the question by Renji. Cover Story is much faster when you flip the pages, and when you navigate around, probably because iRiver has installed a better chip in the newer Story. It's also a lot more comfortable to hold in the hand. But the reflective screen is pretty horrendous. If the price is about the same, I'd say go for Cover Story.

Software: The Cover Story comes with essentially the same OS as the Story, the same features, and support for the same document types. A couple of differences: The Cover Story can also read FB2 and Docx format; the Story can't. The Cover Story also provides access to POP3-based e.mail accounts, and an inline dictionary for the book reader.

Edited to add:
Renji, I read on another thread that you like the iRiver because of its CBZ support. If that's a major appeal for you, I would think the 16-greyscale screen would probably matter, which might mean your best choice from iRiver would be the Wi-Fi-enabled Story. But where are you? The Wi-Fi-enabled model isn't available everywhere.

Renji, I think Bran has hit the nail on the head here. It depends what you want to read on it more than anything else. Personally I decided before I bought that it was epub, the open format, that I wanted to read and by implication support, and that immediately eliminated the Kindle from my reckoning. It could be nice to read .txt files also: I made a list of the order in which the Barchester Chronicles were written and stored it in the same folder as the books. And one always has the thought of .pdf's in the background, although since they aren't re-flowable, one can have a problem with them on an e-reader that doesn't scroll.

Dictionary? Maybe. A diary? What on earth for? One has one's diary on one's laptop and a paper copy in one's pocket, and it's hard enough to keep the two in sync without adding another one. Games? With a whole library on one's e-reader, one plays games? I think not! Note-taker? You've got your cellphone for that, or the spare pages in your pocket diary. All this stuff is like changing the price of a new fridge from $600 to $599. It's marketing, and you're probably not going to use it. You bought an e-reader to read e-books. You have a laptop or pc for all the other shit.

So keep focussed on why you are buying an e-reader, and I think a lot will clarify. And if it is comics you're most interested in, as Bran says, THAT can be a good reason to go for the 16 grey scale screen.

Hope this helps.

Edited to add:

And BTW, welcome to MR and the Iriver forum, and not the least as (soon-to-be) owner of an e-reader.

Thanks to you both James and MacEachaidh, Well I do have the iRiver Cover Story WiFi, I think yep the speed is great and reading books are somewhat good however the reflective screen is kinda a downer and 8bit greyscale as well! At the moment I have both the IRiver Cover Story and Sony PRS650 and can notice the big difference between the 2 for greyscale. In speed it actually seems that they are on par with each other and reading ebooks is good enough on iRiver however Manga is heaps better on the Sony. Now the only problem is since I got as Cover Story as a xmas gift do I keep the Sony or the iRiver when the main thing I do read more are ebooks?
Also the advantage of iRiver is it does support Korean and other asian language text encoding so I can upload to the reader without having to convert to PDF

My story came with a cover.

My story came with a cover.

Is that your story? And are you sticking to it?

Is that your story? And are you sticking to it?

:rofl:

Is that your story? And are you sticking to it?

I guess that got it covered.

(Oh, sorry. No really. Don't know what came over me.

Anyway ... Happy New Year !!! :D