MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

MacEachaidh · 04-21-2010, 02:29 PM

Hi Afa,
I'm new to these forums, but thought I might have a bit of information here that may be useful to you.

I'm currently considering buying a Story myself. I have another iriver device - the B30, which is an iPod-sized MP3 player and digital radio - and there is a local company that provides free support for iriver products. They're called C.R. Kennedy, and they have local phone numbers for support in all capital cities of Australia. You can find their contact details on the website, which is at www.iriver.com.au

If you do go to their website, and look up the Story, you'll see that iriver has just released a firmware update for the Story, which introduces a few new features and some updates, as well as the Story now supporting the DJVU format as well. (If you haven't come across it before, it's a compressed image format that is used a lot for documents that include graphics like charts and diagrams, so for those people who want to have a reader so they don't have to lug textbooks and suchlike around, this is very welcome. Far as I can see, none of the other readers available in Oz -- including the Sony and the blasted Kindle -- support this format.)

I know you said you only want a device to read novels with -- to be honest, that's pretty much what I want mine for, as well -- but I still think it's worth considering your needs carefully before laying down your money and leaving as many future options open as you can. I personally like the support the Story gives to reflowable formats like DOC and ePub, because I've read it doesn't reflow PDFs -- so you're stuck with either reading them at the size and shape they were formatted for, or else zooming and manually panning all over the page, which is pretty clumsy. And I've read the Story does some inscrutable things with displaying TXT files -- breaking lines of text mid-screen for no apparent reason, or hyphenating some words weirdly and other words not at all. (And I'm a bit puzzled that neither the Story nor the Sony reads HTML files.)

For me, some down sides to the Story are that it has no touchscreen, and so has to do everything via its buttons -- though that may not be such a bad thing, to be honest, because the touch screen on the iriver B30 is actually a bit bodgy and often misreads your actions -- and I don't actually understand why it gives so much space over to a full keyboard, since it seems, from the features the Story provides, it will go virtually unused. From the reviews I've read, the Story doesn't let you annotate text or add custom bookmarks to files; there's an option to make notes in a separate notepad app, but not connect it with anything. Not having a touch screen means the screen surface can be far more friendly -- no glare or reflections -- but it also means that there's no backlight, so while you can reportedly read it in the full glare of sunshine, it's useless in low-light situations. (I'm looking for something I can read in bed, as well!)

Either one, the Sony or the iriver, is (I think) simply too expensive. But it's not going to get any better. Sadly, I'm suspecting the whole eBook Reader class of devices is going to get bypassed in technical development; most people don't want to actually read anything, they want to be distracted by Flash animations and celebutantes Tweeting pointless opinions on things. Readers and the like are always going to be overpriced, until they simply get discontinued because tablet computers have dissipated their markets.

I'm edging towards the iriver, myself, but that's partly because I simply prefer the look of it, and partly because I often tend to go for what I perceive as the underdog (my first, and still favourite, computer was an Amiga). The main reason I haven't dived in yet, is simply that ... well, it's a bloody expensive way to read books.

04-21-2010, 02:29 PM	#15
MacEachaidh Browser Posts: 745 Karma: 578294 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Touch, Kobo Aura HD	Support for iriver Hi Afa, I'm new to these forums, but thought I might have a bit of information here that may be useful to you. I'm currently considering buying a Story myself. I have another iriver device - the B30, which is an iPod-sized MP3 player and digital radio - and there is a local company that provides free support for iriver products. They're called C.R. Kennedy, and they have local phone numbers for support in all capital cities of Australia. You can find their contact details on the website, which is at www.iriver.com.au If you do go to their website, and look up the Story, you'll see that iriver has just released a firmware update for the Story, which introduces a few new features and some updates, as well as the Story now supporting the DJVU format as well. (If you haven't come across it before, it's a compressed image format that is used a lot for documents that include graphics like charts and diagrams, so for those people who want to have a reader so they don't have to lug textbooks and suchlike around, this is very welcome. Far as I can see, none of the other readers available in Oz -- including the Sony and the blasted Kindle -- support this format.) I know you said you only want a device to read novels with -- to be honest, that's pretty much what I want mine for, as well -- but I still think it's worth considering your needs carefully before laying down your money and leaving as many future options open as you can. I personally like the support the Story gives to reflowable formats like DOC and ePub, because I've read it doesn't reflow PDFs -- so you're stuck with either reading them at the size and shape they were formatted for, or else zooming and manually panning all over the page, which is pretty clumsy. And I've read the Story does some inscrutable things with displaying TXT files -- breaking lines of text mid-screen for no apparent reason, or hyphenating some words weirdly and other words not at all. (And I'm a bit puzzled that neither the Story nor the Sony reads HTML files.) For me, some down sides to the Story are that it has no touchscreen, and so has to do everything via its buttons -- though that may not be such a bad thing, to be honest, because the touch screen on the iriver B30 is actually a bit bodgy and often misreads your actions -- and I don't actually understand why it gives so much space over to a full keyboard, since it seems, from the features the Story provides, it will go virtually unused. From the reviews I've read, the Story doesn't let you annotate text or add custom bookmarks to files; there's an option to make notes in a separate notepad app, but not connect it with anything. Not having a touch screen means the screen surface can be far more friendly -- no glare or reflections -- but it also means that there's no backlight, so while you can reportedly read it in the full glare of sunshine, it's useless in low-light situations. (I'm looking for something I can read in bed, as well!) Either one, the Sony or the iriver, is (I think) simply too expensive. But it's not going to get any better. Sadly, I'm suspecting the whole eBook Reader class of devices is going to get bypassed in technical development; most people don't want to actually read anything, they want to be distracted by Flash animations and celebutantes Tweeting pointless opinions on things. Readers and the like are always going to be overpriced, until they simply get discontinued because tablet computers have dissipated their markets. I'm edging towards the iriver, myself, but that's partly because I simply prefer the look of it, and partly because I often tend to go for what I perceive as the underdog (my first, and still favourite, computer was an Amiga). The main reason I haven't dived in yet, is simply that ... well, it's a bloody expensive way to read books.