iriver Story HD

Often dismissed as just a Kindle Keyboard clone, the Story HD still caused quite a stir with its higher-resolution display.

At a Glance

The iriver Story HD was introduced at a time when the US eBook market was experiencing explosive growth. There’s a reason the device’s design closely resembled that of the already available Kindle 3, also known as the Kindle Keyboard—a similarity that drew a fair share of criticism.

But the Story HD was by no means a simple copy of Amazon’s competitor; rather, it aspired to be perceived as a technically superior and more open alternative. It featured the first E-Ink Pearl display with a resolution of 1024×768 pixels. As a result, the text clarity was noticeably sharper than that of the competition. The adoption of this resolution sparked hopes among many digital readers that major manufacturers like Sony and Amazon would follow suit with similarly high-resolution screens in subsequent models. However, that didn’t happen until two product cycles later.

The software on the iriver Story HD was rather rudimentary and lacked much of the functionality found on the Kindle. Nevertheless, due to a lack of technically equivalent alternatives, the device became quite popular. This led some content providers (in the US) to offer the Story HD with their own built-in stores, with Google supplying the eBooks. However, after a short period, this initiative faded away, likely due to limited commercial success.

In Germany, the Story HD was also briefly offered with WiFi and an integrated store. But here too, it quickly disappeared from the market. Originally, iriver had planned to introduce a new eReader with a touchscreen the following year, but this never materialized. The reason is presumed to be low demand for the previous model, as well as the fact that the eReader market’s rapid growth was beginning to slow down at that point.

KNV recalls all iriver Story HD WiFi devices

Report from November 28, 2011: In the United States, the iriver Story HD appears to have enjoyed a solid launch, thanks in part to the available Google Books integration. The device was positioned as a competitor to the visually similar but technically inferior Kindle 3. The situation wasn’t quite as rosy for the Story HD’s sales in Germany.

As reported earlier, book wholesaler KNV had just recently begun shipping the 1024×768 pixel reader. The KNV model, like its US counterpart, included WiFi connectivity—a feature missing from the basic version sold in Germany, which meant eBooks could only be loaded via sideloading (USB or memory card).

The main advantage of the Story HD WiFi, much like with the Kindle 3, is the ability to purchase eBooks directly on the device through the integrated bookstore. Books can be bought and downloaded right from the reader, significantly lowering the barrier to entry and making the process much more user- and beginner-friendly.

Custom Shops for Bookstores

For direct eBook sales, KNV offers participating bookstores a customized shop featuring the store’s own logo. A portion of the revenue from a Story HD purchased locally goes back to the bookstore.

Unfortunately, this is exactly where a problem has surfaced. Story HD devices shipped so far suffer from a software bug that can sometimes redirect the user to the wrong shop. This, of course, is less than ideal for participating bookstores, and customers may be left confused by such misdirection.

As a result, KNV is recalling all Story HD WiFi devices sold or delivered so far, and replacing them with new units where the bug has already been fixed. The second batch is expected to reach bookstores by the middle of the week.

Despite the impressive hardware, it’s likely that only a relatively small number of these eReaders have been sold so far, meaning only a handful of retailers and customers will actually be affected by the recall. This is thanks to both the short sales window up to this point and KNV’s quick response. Affected customers should contact their local bookstore—in fact, it’s best to call ahead before visiting to check if the replacement devices have arrived.

There’s no rush to exchange the devices, as aside from the shop redirection issue, there appear to be no other software problems.

Has iriver exited the eBook reader market? 2012 without the iriver XGA Touch

Report from January 4, 2013: The eBook year 2012 was especially turbulent towards the end. Numerous new eBook readers across all price ranges were vying for the attention of booklovers. High-resolution, illuminated readers from Kobo, Amazon, and Bookeen were evidently quite successful—at times, all three were sold out and unavailable for purchase.

But one device was missing last year: the iriver XGA Touch. Iriver had introduced its new eBook reader at CES 2012, promising a display with the same high 1024×768 pixel resolution as its competitors, positioning it as the successor to the iriver Story HD.

But it never came to be. The year 2012 passed without a new iriver eBook reader. This leaves us to wonder: has the Korean electronics maker bowed out of the eReader business for good, or are they simply waiting to see how the market develops?

The iriver Story HD was the first 6-inch eBook reader with an XGA display, intended to compete with the Amazon Kindle Keyboard, particularly in terms of hardware design. The device made quite a splash in the media when it launched, but ultimately couldn’t gain traction due to lackluster software and no integrated bookstore. Although the device did eventually integrate Google Books, this did little to help its sales in the United States. In 2011, the reader remained a niche product in the highly successful US eBook market.

Things didn’t go much better in Germany, either. The Story HD was sold in various shops, and KNV even supplied an integrated shop WiFi version to interested booksellers, but there were no success stories—even during the 2011 holiday season, just as the German eBook market was beginning to take off.

It remains to be seen whether iriver will unveil another eBook reader at this year’s CES. If not, it’s fair to assume that iriver has truly left the eBook reader market behind.

CES: New iriver eBook reader with touchscreen; iriver XGA Touch?

Report from January 11, 2012:

A few days ago, we reported that iriver would not be unveiling a new eBook reader at CES—contrary to rumors circulating a few weeks earlier. Yet it seems those initial rumors were true: as Nate from The Digital Reader discovered at CES in Las Vegas, the new eBook reader was indeed on display at the iriver booth.

The yet-unnamed eBook reader is slated for release in March. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll call it the iriver XGA Touch (as noted on the back of the device), since it combines tried-and-true iriver technology with a touchscreen.

The device once again features a 6-inch E Ink Pearl display with XGA (1024×768 pixel) resolution, the same screen used in the Story HD. The display’s clarity is noticeably better than competing devices from Amazon, Sony, and Kobo, all of which use lower-resolution 800×600 pixel screens.

As you can see, the device has only a single button on the front, located just below the display—there are no page-turn buttons. Navigation will be handled via the touchscreen. Which technology is being used for the screen hasn’t been revealed—Nate was unable to get specifics at CES, and the demo device wasn’t functional in this regard, as it lacked a working touchscreen.

A unique feature of the XGA Touch is its built-in speaker, something rarely found on an eBook reader. However, the device isn’t running Android, as one might expect given the upgraded hardware, but another Linux-based operating system. Oddly enough, the device has a mini-USB port on the bottom—already dated when the Story HD was released, and by now, it’s just careless not to use the more common micro-USB standard, which is adopted by all major electronics manufacturers.

The user interface was one of the main drawbacks of the Story HD, but iriver seems to have addressed this—the homescreen already looks more organized.

“XGA Touch” is visible on the back, which likely serves only as a working title. As with the overall design, it’s best not to assume the final device will look exactly this way—the iriver staff on hand at CES couldn’t confirm the reader’s official name. However, with launch so close, chances are the design won’t change much at this point.

Video Review

iriver Story HD: Full Review

In January 2011, the iriver Story HD was unveiled at CES, creating quite a buzz with its 6-inch, high-resolution XGA eInk display and its striking resemblance to the Amazon Kindle.

Though the eBook reader market has been booming like never before, news about the Story HD remained scarce for a long time—only the occasional rumor hinted at an imminent launch.

Now, the wait is over—iriver has quietly released the Story HD, with barely any publicity at all. There was no press release, the manufacturer’s homepage wasn’t updated (it’s since been updated!), and there weren’t any slick marketing campaigns either. The device simply appeared in stores at buch.de, bol.de, and Thalia, priced at €149. This begs the question: is the Story HD as reserved in practical use as it was at launch, or can it hold its own against the competition? You’ll find out in the following review.

Unboxing

Unboxing the iriver Story HD brings no big surprises. The eReader comes in a plain, brown corrugated cardboard box, and as is typical for the eBook reader segment, the included accessories are kept to a minimum: a mini USB cable for data transfer, a multilingual quick start guide, and a warranty statement. That’s all. You get just as much from Amazon or Sony, but it would be a pleasant change to find a case or power adapter in the box again one day.

Build Quality

iriver really did its homework when it comes to build quality: The Story HD is made entirely of plastic, but feels solid in the hand, the seams are even, button presses are consistent, and even the SD card cover fits flawlessly.

Build quality and feel of the iriver Story HD are excellent

The white front of the device is dominated by the display. Just below are the navigation buttons (Home, Back, D-pad, Enter, Option) and the QWERTY (!) keyboard. All the buttons are easy to find by touch. The centrally placed D-pad tilts smoothly up and down, clicks left and right, and hardly wobbles at all, making for precise operation. The other buttons are equally crisp, with a clear tactile click at every press.

There’s one minor weakness on the back: The brown rear cover sounds a bit hollow when tapped—probably because it’s only attached around the edges. Incidentally, Sony’s exceptionally well-made PRS-650 has the same “issue.” It doesn’t really spoil the overall great impression. Thanks to the Story HD’s curved, rounded shape and light weight, it’s very comfortable to hold—even for long reading sessions. On the back (next to the mini USB port) is also where the power toggle is located.

Features

As mentioned in our news coverage, iriver is planning to launch the Story HD as a WiFi model in partnership with Google for the US market. Unfortunately, things look different for German-speaking customers: There’s no WiFi or 3G (although there are rumors a WiFi version may launch in Germany/Austria in September), no built-in store, and in general, the Story HD is rather bare-bones. There’s no text-to-speech or any audio output. The 2GB internal memory (about 1.5GB usable) can be expanded using an SD card (up to 32GB). You use the mini USB port for data transfer. The choice of mini USB seems a bit dated, as nearly all of the electronics industry has switched to micro USB by now.

So, the Story HD is clearly a pure eBook reader—completely free of extras.

Display

Now, to the heart of the device. The Story HD is the first (and so far only) eBook reader with a 6-inch XGA display. Until now, the race for ever-higher display resolutions was mostly seen in PCs, TVs, and smartphones—but now it’s come to eBook readers, too. In simple terms, the Story HD delivers 1024×768 pixels—about 64 percent more than standard SVGA eReaders (800×600 pixels). Unlike Amazon, Sony, & Co., iriver is not using an eInk Corp. display, but rather one made by LG Electronics.

But the real question is: does all this make a difference in daily use? The short answer—absolutely.

The text is razor-sharp; individual pixels are barely visible to the naked eye.

Right now, the Story HD outperforms any other 6-inch eBook reader in terms of screen quality. The display is exceptionally sharp, and when it comes to black levels, it easily keeps up with top competitors like the Kindle. For reading plain text, the unrivaled clarity of the font makes it especially easy on the eyes.

Reading & Usability

The display leaves nothing to be desired—but of course, several other factors affect the reading experience on an eBook reader. Fonts are one of them. The Story HD comes with just one font (like Sony readers) and eight font sizes. The steps between font sizes are consistent, so everyone should be able to find the perfect size. The only drawback: the largest font isn’t quite as big as what you get with Sony or Amazon. So if you have severe visual impairment, the maximum font size on the Story HD might not be large enough.

The maximum font size on the Story HD compared to the largest setting on the Sony PRS-650

Pressing the “Option” button (when available) always brings up the options menu at the bottom right of the screen. By default, the following menu items are available:

• Go to page: This is your regular “jump to page” feature—just enter the page number you want (oddly translated in the menu).
• Add/remove bookmark
• Look up in dictionary: Look up a word in the dictionary/thesaurus.
• Bookmark/Word List: See all bookmarks set in the book or words you’ve looked up.
• Table of Contents
• Dithering on/off: For smoother gradients in color images.
• Reflow on/off: PDF reflow (see below).
• Bold on/off: Raises image contrast (useful for comics and manga), creating an impression of higher sharpness. In our tests, it slightly reduced overall image quality, but readability wasn’t meaningfully affected.
• Set as idle image: Available for images—you can set an image to show while the device is in standby mode.

One real asset of the Story HD is its handling of PDF files. The reader supports both traditional zooming and text reflow. Magnification always works the same way—press the AA key. In zoom mode, use the “i” and “o” keys to adjust the zoom factor and the D-pad or arrow keys to pick your view area. In reflow mode (enabled in the options menu), you can choose from the same eight font sizes as with regular texts. The text automatically restructures to fit the screen. As usual, PDF reflow only works perfectly on PDFs that are pure text—if there are images or diagrams, they often end up misplaced. Larger PDF files opened with no issues.

Further notes on PDF viewing: Since some readers have asked—it’s our view that the Story HD’s PDF display is not really suitable for reading technical documents in DIN A4 or similar formats. While zooming and view selection work well in principle, the zoom function doesn’t go far enough, making it hard to read such documents. For technical PDFs, in general you’re better off with a tablet (What is a tablet?) or a larger eReading device like the Amazon Kindle DX.

The font size adjustment menu appears on the right edge of the screen

The Story HD can also open images inside ZIP files—a feature comic and manga fans will appreciate. Thanks to the higher resolution, displayed images are much smoother and more detailed than on other eBook readers. Page turning works just as quickly and easily as it does with standard eBooks.

Pages turn fast, and you can use either the main D-pad or the arrow keys on the QWERTY keyboard. Each page is fully refreshed after turning, so we didn’t spot any ghosting effects at all.

For all that’s great about the Story HD, unfortunately, a few downsides remain. The device’s software isn’t as refined as you’d hope. It starts with shoddy translations, continues with sometimes unintuitive menus, and ends with important features missing altogether.

The dictionary/thesaurus is available only in English—adding or installing a German alternative isn’t an option. That’s not particularly practical for German-speaking users. Word lookup (for dictionary searches) has to be enabled manually in the settings. Once that’s done, the feature proves nearly useless because it’s so slow. That’s probably why it’s switched off by default. Alternatively, you can enter a word in the search field using the QWERTY keyboard.

Another letdown is the home screen. The layout is simple and navigation is easy, but you can only scroll through the first four books, which makes it pretty useless. You’ll only see your full list of books by switching to the booklist tab. Even after setting the language to German, most of the home screen stays in English (and the clock remains in 12-hour format).

One of many small annoyances: The clock displays only in 12-hour format

Your font settings are saved only until you leave the book—open it again, and your previous settings are gone. Luckily, this doesn’t happen when you just put the device into standby.

Perhaps most puzzling of all is the lack of a notes function. It’s hard to understand why an eReader with a QWERTY keyboard would ship without this feature. As it stands, the keyboard is nearly useless—good for entering search terms, navigating pages, and (using the English-only dictionary) word look-up, but not much else.

Still, it’s worth emphasizing that, in principle, all these negative points could be fixed with a software update—so there’s still hope.

Compatibility

On to another plus point—broad format compatibility. The iriver Story HD supports DRM-protected EPUB and PDF files, as well as unprotected files in the following formats: EPUB, PDF, TXT, FB2, DJVU, PPT(x), XLS(x), DOC(x), and HWP. For images, JPG, PNG, BMP, and GIF are supported.

Like other eReaders, you can set a standby image for the Story HD, which appears when the reader is inactive. With other readers, this static image doesn’t draw extra battery; with the LG panel, this hasn’t been confirmed, but it’s likely the technology works in the same way. If the device switches off completely after 12 hours of inactivity (adjustable), the standby image disappears and the screen goes blank.

Battery Life

Since we didn’t have enough time for an extended test, we can’t yet provide hard battery life figures. The manufacturer claims six weeks of standby, or up to 14,000 page turns. We’d say these are realistic ballpark figures. In our usage, battery life was definitely very good, despite frequent page turning, use of PDF reflow, image display, and general tinkering. We’ll update with more detail once we’ve put in more hours with the Story HD.

You charge the device using the supplied mini USB cable connected to a PC. As soon as you connect, a prompt appears asking if you want to transfer files or just charge. You can also use any common mini USB wall charger. The battery status is shown with an icon only—there’s no status LED. When you connect the Story HD for charging, it turns itself on and can’t be placed in standby. If there’s no further activity, it’ll automatically go to standby after a short while.

Software & Syncing

When you connect the Story HD to your PC via USB, it shows up as a removable drive, letting you transfer files like you would with any USB stick—there’s no software required. Just copy your eBooks into the “books” folder; when you disconnect, they’re right there in your book list. It couldn’t be simpler or more reliable.

The full book list has a straightforward design

Conclusion

With the Story HD, iriver delivers a truly solid device. The new display technology and resolution are just as impressive as its build, handling, and format compatibility.

Yet, as so often, the devil is in the details. It’s pretty clear iriver cut corners on the final polish for the Story HD—there’s really no other explanation for the software issues and translation goofs. While each of these faults is minor on its own, together they add up. It’s doubly frustrating since the feature set is so basic to start with, and fixing these issues couldn’t have been that hard.

Much like the Amazon Kindle, it’s obvious iriver’s main focus is on the US market. Even though 17 languages are supported, the only dictionary provided is the Collins English Dictionary, and the labels on the keyboard are in English only. The 200 classic books preloaded in memory are also all in English.

But none of this really takes away from the simple joy of reading, because the incredibly crisp, high-contrast eInk display makes for a fantastic reading experience. Reliable PDF reflow, broad format support, and the sheer ease of copying content onto the reader all deliver real comfort and convenience.

Ultimately, the Story HD’s rough-around-the-edges software is all that keeps it from a top rating. Without these drawbacks, nothing would distract from that spectacular XGA display. So: If you can live with the software quirks and want the best eInk screen currently on offer, this is the reader to get. Otherwise, it’s worth waiting on a software update… or taking a closer look at the similar Amazon Kindle instead.

Tested firmware: EB07 B 1.00 EU

Photos

iriver Story HD: Technical Specifications

All information provided without guarantee.