[MacEachaidh]

Thanks, folks!

I've put some books on there to try it out, so am about to settle down and have my first read (once Spicks and Specks is over, of course!)

One other thing I forgot to mention for prospective buyers: be *really* careful what claims you take on as factual from the salesperson. The one who sold me my Story, friendly and bright as she was, was convinced that the Story had Wi-Fi connectivity (I was wondering for a minute if that might be true, because I've read there has been a Wi-Fi-enabled model of Story tested in the Korean market, and the latest firmware -- version 1.71 -- has allegedly been decompiled to show the software routines for Wi-Fi are already part of the new firmware bundle, and are just awaiting completion of the hardware ... but it was not to be) and she also told me that it would *only* read books bought from Amazon. She would not be dissuaded from her claims, so I'm glad I'd researched the hardware carefully ahead of time, or I would have been seriously grumpy on getting the thing home.

But I've bought enough PCs and components in my time to know that I need to take a salesperson in a generalist electronics department store with quite a few grains of salt.

A few strange shortcomings I've already discovered in the Story, and would like to see addressed through firmware upgrades (if possible):

Firstly, there's no way on the device itself to initiate a USB connection. When you plug it by USB into a powered-up PC, it recognises the link and asks if you want to connect, but if you're not quick enough moving the cursor down to the connect option and saying yes, that possibility goes away ... and can't be recalled, by either a menu option or a hardware button. The only way to bring it back is to unplug the device and plug it back in and wait for it to recognise the PC again. USB connections are prone to damage and degradation of data throughput rates by frequent plugging and unplugging, so this is not an ideal arrangement.

More significant, I think, is the so-so support for memory card expansion. The card has to be formatted (in FAT-32) before it can be used in the Story, but unlike iRiver's other memory-card-enabled devices, the Story doesn't have the capacity to format the memory card itself. The company's suggestion is that you buy an external memory card reader for that purpose. Completely unrealistic, methinks.

Third issue (for a device I haven't actually used yet!) may seem a small one, but in one word it's: folders. On my PC I like to store my e.books in folders according to genre, and then within that folder by author. It's my file-management equivalent of the Dewey system. But the Story doesn't do folders. You have one folder on the device -- prosaically titled "Books" -- into which all your e.books get loaded, and then the Story will sort them alphabetically for the menu. To sort them by any other method requires any genre coding or keyword to be included in the title of the file itself; but if you include the genre and author in the file name, the actual name of the book likely disappears off the right-hand end of the menu item, never to be seen again. A little primitive, I'm thinking, especially in a device dedicated to making books accessible.

Am I asking too much? I often do, but perhaps most e.Readers have similar issues.