Story HD for $49 in US target?

[ctjameson]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

On this point, I heartily agree. Even normal epubs look a lot better on the iRiver than on other e-ink readers (crisper text, whiter screen than any of my PRS-350's). Unfortunately, the firmware leaves much to be desired particularly when one has been spoiled by PRS+. It really is such a shame because the hardware is very, very good.

Oh well, folder view works well enough for manga so I'm content with that. *sigh* If only it's possible to get rid of the last page notice without needing to edit my CBZ files.

Just got mine and haven't been able to read a full manga yet. What are you talking about having to mod the last page for the notice?

[steven522]

When you get to the last page in a CBZ, a big square with the words "this is the last page" pops up for a second or two.

It's annoying. and the best way to deal right now is to add an extra jpg page to the end.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by steven522

When you get to the last page in a CBZ, a big square with the words "this is the last page" pops up for a second or two.

It's annoying. and the best way to deal right now is to add an extra jpg page to the end.

Happens to me with epubs as well. I think its more of a feature than a bug, but it is annoying.

[frostschutz]

I managed to hide it, but it still refreshes the last page twice since it still thinks it's displaying the popup window there.

What's more, the background image used for the last page notice is also used in other places, so those are also affected (they'll have the window missing but not the text).

If you're interested anyway I can make this into a mod.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by frostschutz

If you're interested anyway I can make this into a mod.

Yes, please!

[frostschutz]

Added it to the other hide mods here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=1957963

[twowheels]

I was fairly interested in this, until I saw this review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWKOoy20Rs

He does some nice reviews, though admittedly he didn't use it much in this review. Do you all feel that he has a point, or is he completely off?

[frostschutz]

I'm not going to rewatch a 42min vid now. Is there anything in particular you're concerned about? It's a fine reader, if you like to read regular books preferably in epub format. Display is great. Software is a bit on the simple side but usually stable. If you want Sudoku, get an android based touch device. If you want native mobi support get a Kindle.

[Ntsimp]

The basic point of the video seems to be that it's nothing but a reader. No sound, no color, no touch, no apps. That's OK; that's all I wanted. I love the high resolution, the support for the formats I use (mostly epub, pdf, and djvu), and the ability to do firmware updates over wifi. I don't want a tablet computer; I want to read books. And the Story HD is really good for that.

[twowheels]

I saw it as more of a complaint that it wasn't as polished as the K3 and that there was more ghosting and other artifacts than the Kindle screen.

[frostschutz]

For me it was the other way around, my K4NT had horrible ghosting (a software issue, either an option I was missing or something that was fixed shortly afterward), whereas the Story HD had no visible ghosting.

Going into the menu, and changing landscape orientation, are the two cases where the Story HD does not redraw the screen, thus you get ghosting... until you switch to the next page. Usually not a problem since you don't change orientation all the time.

At least it used to be like that until they added that hideous progress meter at the bottom. Hence the mod which hides most of it... that's where iriver's software is just too simple; they add this new progress bar, but they do not add a setting to switch it off.

[CJJ]

Originally Posted by twowheels

I was fairly interested in this, until I saw this review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXWKOoy20Rs

He does some nice reviews, though admittedly he didn't use it much in this review. Do you all feel that he has a point, or is he completely off?

The unit is better than his summation in my opinion. The Story HD got poor reviews in general. Some of it was justified. Some of the initial complaints have been fixed, especially in dealing with PDF's.

But in its defense their was a lot of nit picking. As an example many reviewers, including our Aussie friend here, made a big deal about it having a mini vs a micro USB plug. That's a 5K vs a 10K connect/disconnect spec. Do the math- it's irrelevant unless you think this device should be viable for 20 years.

I wouldn't defend it if it didn't work, but it works just fine.

[ilovejedd]

As others have mentioned, lots of nitpicking in that YouTube review. I found the default font used in the iRiver to be pretty nice and blocky unlike the defaults on the Sony PRS-x50 (those really needed changing) so I'm not bothered by the lack of font face options. The page numbering used on the side is based on ADE page numbering that's why it was jumping around and it's not even present in the new firmware now. However, the device is overly simplistic and that's not just with reference to the lack of audio and social media stuff (which I don't care about).

There's no support for user collections and the default Collection View is useless for large libraries (particularly since you can add up to 32GB storage). Thankfully, it does support Folder View so this is probably what you would end up using if you've got more than just a handful of books.

Given the presence of wi-fi, it's also a bit annoying that the device doesn't have even a user accessible web browser or an OPDS client for downloading books from the web. The web browser is limited to the Google Books mobile webpage (which is, unfortunately, optimized for devices with tiny screens such as smartphones). Thank goodness for frostschutz' mods. Haven't really noticed ghosting from my unit aside from the ones caused by the progress bar at the bottom so this might have been fixed by a firmware update or just something funky going on with his particular unit (there are slight variations on e-ink screens regardless of manufacturer).

At $49, though, you can pretty much ignore all the faults and complaints against the iRiver Story HD. It's a good epub reader, a pretty decent PDF reader and the resolution is excellent for its size. Text is very crisp. Letter-sized PDF documents and comics are readable without the constant need for zooming despite the small screen size. Really, at the current price at Target, it's a huge bargain. Well worth it if someone just wants a basic ebook reader. It gets even better if you install frostshutz's mods (particularly the Web Portal mod).

[bill_mchale]

Went to Target today and decided to check the Story HD out. I think its poor sales can be attributed to a couple of factors.

1. The story is just one of 5 reader brands that Target carries (The others being Kindle, Sony, Nook and Kobo), and in some cases carry multiple readers from the brands. This makes it hard for any reader to stand out... which tends to steer users toward the brands they are most familiar with (i.e., Kindle and Nook).

2. The target I was in did nothing to push this reader. Yes they had the reader out... they had let the batter go dead on the unit. There was nothing to indicate this was a Target exclusive and unless you had a working demo, there was nothing to indicate what made it unique (integration with Google Books or the high res screen). Add to that, that before the price was dropped, most of its direct competitors (price wise) had touch screens which many (myself included) don't care about but which many do... and well... It ends up looking like a Kindle clone.

--
Bill

[CJJ]

Originally Posted by bill_mchale

Went to Target today and decided to check the Story HD out. I think its poor sales can be attributed to a couple of factors.

1. The story is just one of 5 reader brands that Target carries (The others being Kindle, Sony, Nook and Kobo), and in some cases carry multiple readers from the brands. This makes it hard for any reader to stand out... which tends to steer users toward the brands they are most familiar with (i.e., Kindle and Nook).

2. The target I was in did nothing to push this reader. Yes they had the reader out... they had let the batter go dead on the unit. There was nothing to indicate this was a Target exclusive and unless you had a working demo, there was nothing to indicate what made it unique (integration with Google Books or the high res screen). Add to that, that before the price was dropped, most of its direct competitors (price wise) had touch screens which many (myself included) don't care about but which many do... and well... It ends up looking like a Kindle clone.

--
Bill

I would agree with all of your observations and add that the sales associates weren't even aware they carried the brand, let alone understand any of its differentiating features. Between Googles lack of promotion, and your succinct observations at Target, the Story HD never stood a chance.