iriver Story startup

[Namekuseijin]

hello, got home and tried my newly acquired iriver Story, the original from 2009. It's not second hand.

Shows nothing on screen, which BTW looks intact. Plug it to the PC: shows nothing, no message, no LED light, no USB connection on PC, nothing. Tried with a different cable too.

Is it expected for a first charge? Or may I assume it's dead and contact support?

*edit*
forget it: after about 10 minutes of charging, just the time to come here and whine a bit, it showed the opening menu. It's now working very fine.

impressions soon.

[frostschutz]

If it was manufactured well over a year ago and never used (original sealed packaging), the battery probably went flat (self discharge over time). Unfortunately these batteries age even when not used...

[Namekuseijin]

It's working fine as in the edit. I'm also using my smartphone's memory card (packed full with ebooks) with it. Next I'll try caliber to convert my kindle purchases into ePub. Also gotta get a few comics for my daughter (oh, who am I kidding).

I have to say I feel like a giggly little girl with my first e-ink reader.

[Namekuseijin]

Loving it so far. Today I experienced e-reading under the sun for the first time. A tear of joy rolled down my cheek. Been reading "The riddle of the sands".

However, is it common to have a few tiny spots of what looks like "dead pixels" here and there on the screen? Perhaps some black particles from e-ink get glued to it and never go?...

[frostschutz]

Each pixel is made up of several particles, so if you get a bad one here or there it should be smaller than an entire pixel and not really noticable. If you have large spots then that's bad luck I guess...

[Namekuseijin]

They are not very noticeable at all, less than a pixel I guess. You can see them when looking for them, but while reading they don't stand out.

Today I experienced the screen fading while under plain bright sun. No doubt the strong light and heat interfere with the electric field underneath? But as I've said once: even kindle users prefer to read under the shade of a tree as its iconic image suggests.

I'm enjoying it very much and went so far as stripping the DRM off my kindle ebooks through calibre and now am reading them properly on e-ink. There's more to read per screen and eyes are very relaxed indeed when compared to smartphone small screen and backlit text...

[frostschutz]

Sun is a hazard to any device. I had plastic things melt in the sun when I forgot it there by accident - and Germany isn't the hottest country on earth. If you see fading screen under normal conditions, it may be the battery going low, or going bad. Pray it's not the screen itself - battery is easy and cheap to replace, screen is not.

[Namekuseijin]

As soon as I dropped out of the direct sunlight and page turned, it went normal. I've heard of the issue before so wasn't startled.

Battery is fine. Almost 2 days since first charge, 2 bars left. It's certainly no Kindle's new insanely long 8 months battery time, but it's much better than my power hungry smartphone.

[8andout]

This happened to me too with my original story, in bright sunlight. As long as you shade the screen during the actual page turn (easiest with one of those folding covers), you should be fine.