iRiver Story HD Review: First E-Reader Tied to Google’s eBookstore Sometimes Frustrates

Google is everywhere right now. The fellowship has made a strong push with its Google Books throw, merely until now it hasn't had a ti to a stand-alone e-referee. That changes with the iRiver Story HD, which goes on sale this weekend at Target area for $140. The Story HD makes getting Google ebooks onto an E Ink-based reader reasonably unhurried; in my trials with the device, nevertheless, I saved myself frustrated by the Story HD's gaudy design, poky performance, and Google Books interface.

The Story HD does a great job of identifying itself in display quality. As its HD moniker implies, the 6-edge display carries a 768-past-1024-pixel settlement, the result of an improved electronics backplane. That higher-res backplane in turn helps the E Ink technology–which already uses scads of microcapsules per picture element to anatomy letters and images happening the silver screen–look better. IRiver is the first maker to ship this technology in the United States; Hanvon presently uses it in China.

The result: Text edition looks fulgurating and clear, with smooth rendering and nary pixelation OR artifacts. The show supports 16-level grayscale. Text appears better connected the Story HD than on the third-generation Amazon Kindle, only its black tones lack the contrast and perforate of the Enkindle (and the Barnes & Noble Nook, for that matter). The lower contrast may be, in part, an optical deceptio caused by the Story HD's chromatic bezel; the Inflame and Nook each use a dark gray, borderline black bezel. Personally, I opt the dark bezel to the cream-colored texture of the Story HD.

I routinely found the light schoolbook to be an outcome while reading. Although the sans serif fount–the Story HD offers merely one face choice–rendered smoothly and lacked pixelation, the faint counterpoint meant that my eyes had to play harder to read. Direct contrast improved dramatically when I bumped raised the baptistry size from the default third option to the larger sixth option (you scram eight in total).

Changing fonts is simple, at least: You press the dedicated font button (two buttons over from the spacebar), and so you use the sailing bar and enter significant to preview and prize a font size. The maximum font size should represent big plenty to accommodate anyone whose sightedness requires large photographic print, but Barnes &ere; Noble's Nook offers even larger text.

The typeface size is fixed, however, along the home screen. The text is adequate for book titles, just connected selective information at the right is surprisingly small, and could represent a challenge for some users to take. The reward is that you have a mete out of information available in one screen–the source of the book, the file away type, and the author name–and the information is pleasingly presented in a consistent layout.

Narration HD: Getting Started With Google Books

Right from the unboxing, the iRiver History HD shows that some thought was put into its execution. Not only does the cardboard boxful spread logically to break the ivory-and-tan Story HD at bottom, but iRiver also has a acquiring-started guide already showing on the E Ink display. This is a Isaac Mayer Wise and slick move, since most users mightiness skip over the enclosed six-Page leaflet that introduces the basic principle.

As the happening-screen guide promises, the Report HD starts upbound as soon arsenic you plug it into your computer. The Story HD issue to walkway you through the process of setting up the e-proofreader, providing ogdoad screens of gentle helping hand-holding that the technology-averse will find satisfactory.

Unluckily for the Story HD, this is also the point where the e-reader's physical design may comprise problematic used.

For starters, the Story HD has no foliate-turning buttons alongside the presentation; instead, those chores are left to the four-means navigation bar at a lower place the shield. Although that musical arrangement ISN't so bad for navigation, it is an awkward position for page turns, unless you're grasping the e-reviewer aside the lower third (merely then is it clear that the some 2-inch polysyllabic, centralized button is set sol that it's in reach of either your left-of-center or right pollex). The button does only four directions, and doesn't allow you to push in as you'd bear; to make a selection, you must move over to the dedicated accede button settled to the right. Travel between the nav bar and the enter and option buttons feels constitutional for sailing purposes, but I repeatedly expected the bar to push in to superior something, and I unlikable how stiff the buttons were.

Like-minded the nav bar and its enatic run-in of Home, Back, Enter, and Option buttons, the rest of the 38-key QWERTY keyboard's buttons are hard, plastic slivers that are remains and difficult to press. The keyboard is not conducive to typing at whol: The buttons pushed uncomfortably into the pads of my fingers, and made crunching noises as I ironed them. My fingers actually hurt just from the typewriting involved in the setup process. As a matter of fact, when I realized that I had to set up my Google Checkout counter for the account I used with the Storey HD, I electoral to do so happening my PC rather than suffer typing all of my information in on the Taradiddle HD's keyboard.

Physically, the Chronicle HD is mouse-sized likewise to the one-third-generation Amazon Kindle. It measures 7.5 by 5.0 by 0.4 inches, versus the Kindle's 7.5 by 4.8 aside 0.3 inches. By comparison, the Barnes & Grand Corner and the Kobo eReader Touch Edition each shave an inch off the boilers suit height; the Nook and Kobo both use an infrared touchscreen for navigation, instead of a keyboard and buttons.

The Write up HD is jackanapes, competitive with the recent Barnes & Nobleman and Kobo releases. IRiver's e-reader weighs 7.3 ounces, lighter than the 8.5-ounce Kindle, and soft in between the 7.5-ounce Corner and 7.1-ounce eReader Touch Edition. The weight made it pleasant to hold–until I had to switch my hand fallen to modify the page.

The Story HD uses a Freescale ARM CortexTM i.MX508 C.P.U., and has 2GB of built-in storage (of which only 1.4GB is substance abuser-accessible). Along the right side is a sturdy flap door covering the wide-size South Dakota Carte slot, which supports SDHC cards ascending to 32GB.

A couple of other natural science design points: I did like the unusual yet logical location of the power electric switch. The slider sits toward the bottom of the unit, along the back–a surprisingly convenient dapple, since my hand naturally ended up thither when I first picked up the e-reader. I didn't like the hard, tan, plastic backplate to the Story HD, which felt cheesy (not unlike the hard plastic keyboard buttons) and scratched easy. At the bottom is a Mini-USB port for connecting the reader to a PC for sideloading books and other files.

The reviewer supports PDFs and EPub files (including invulnerable Adobe Digital Editions), as fountainhead A text files, FB2, and DJVU formats. It too hind end show Microsoft Office Excel, Word, and PowerPoint documents.

Navigating the Story HD Reader

According to iRiver, the interface for the Story HD is built inside a WebKit browser. Once in a while during my tests, information technology seemed as if Google forgot to change things from a standard Web page, as several screens I navigated direct felt like Web pages–roughly and blandly designed.

Overall, though, I liked where Google was going with this, the first loop of Google Books on an e-reader. The Story HD's dwelling sort is non as graphical as the front page of the Nook or the Kobo, but it is more appealingly organized than that of the Kindle.

At upside sits a banner for the Google eBookstore. Beneath that are the cover and title of the book you'rhenium currently reading material. And below that is a sort bar that lets you unionize your book collection by your Google Library, fresh opened, favorites, rubric, or author. The tilt of books or files displays the title of respect at left, and and then, in littler eccentric (equally noted earlier) the source, file type, and source. Only eight titles look on a page.

As you navigate this screen, a bolded bracket travels along the left over sidelong of the display, indicating your selection. This approach felt vaguely reminiscent of how Amazon's first-multiplication Kindle operated years ago (although on that e-lecturer, the selector was reprint from the display).

From the home blind, the alternative clit–at the furthest right beneath the display–produces a start-up fare with a fistful of useful features. You give the sack switch wireless off and on, jump to the Google eBookstore, view your bookmarker list, remember the built-in Collins English Dictionary, sign over out of Google, and access the settings.

Critically, this options menu is where you can prefer to download all of your ebooks in one click–an important point since it is contingent to purchase a Book either through the device or from another Google eBookstore portal, and non have IT stored locally. You rump also refresh your library manually, and call up the title search bar (which then appears at the derriere of the abode screen).

For additional options, you can drill deeper into the settings menu. For example, you can change your library reckon to a folder-driven view, password-protect the entire device, and configure the radiocommunication and power settings.

The Google eBookstore has a clean, text-driven, minimalist design. The main screen shows the top-selling books; six books are listed, to each one with a uselessly miniaturized cover, plus the title, author, Leontyne Price, and user rating. At the top of the foliate sits a search Browning automatic rifle; next to IT is a categories button for browsing books aside literary genre. Bizarrely, when you enter the shop from the home screen, the Story HD pauses with a message saying 'Connecting,' equally if it were reestablishing the Badger State-Fi link when you click on the shop, and then necessary a moment for the handshake to hearty and the storefront to load. The delays happen on the outward direction, as well: To each one time you go back from the shop to your home screen, the Story HD pauses to refreshen your library.

Once I elect a Holy Writ to purchase, I was prompted to augury in to my answer for. My Gmail username was prepopulated, but I had to enter my word. This screen's design looks like a remnant from a Browser: The sign-in school tex is so small that you power question your 20/20 vision, and IT's inexplicably squished heavenward into the upper-leftfield corner of the test.

If you don't already have Google Checkout configured for your Google account, you'll be prompted to allow your credit card information. (Tip: IT's easier to enter this selective information on a computer, operating room even on a tablet.) If you have Google Checkout time, you'll skip directly to a verification screen showing the Word of God buy, any tax owed, and a drop-down menu with your payment options. Select Complete your purchase when through, and the book is yours.

Nevertheless–and this is a big however–your Quran isn't downloaded. For that, you need to return to the home block out and download the book locally.

All of this adds adequate a few more steps than you need to go through happening rival e-readers. And if you'ray buying multiple books in a row, IT's annoying to have to sign in to your account to each one and every time.

Another temper is the seemingly lengthy (though really only seconds-long) delay when the Tarradiddle HD is opening books, during which a book-flipping indicator appears. The loading process is longer than on any of the competitors I've mentioned here, though non unexpected given that I've experienced a replaceable delay when using the Google Books app happening my iPhone or even happening an Android tab.

Reading books went smoothly sufficiency in my tests, with page-turn flicker seeming minimal but still present. I found that a lot of books had issues with the presentation of, say, the contents, and jumping round within a book's chapters was awkward. Plus, the Story HD gives you no way to make annotations–something that the e-readers from Virago, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo all do.

Google has already aforesaid, though, that it plans to add an annotations feature later this year through and through an over-the-air update. And the ability to execute terminated-the-air updates means that the rough patches in performance and usability that I've notable can likely be addressed in the in store. For that matter, given the occurrent Google+ surge, I wouldn't be surprised if Google eventually added support for social networking, very much like Amazon, Barnes &adenylic acid; Princely, and Kobo all have on their e-readers.

The Big Quran Picture

iRiver says that the Story HD's 1800mAh lithium polymer battery takes about 4.5 hours to charge, and that it butt last for up to 14,000 page turns, operating theater capable six weeks connected standby. That puts it around, but not quite an at, the longevity of the competition.

Frankly, that the Coupled States market has gotten the IRiver Story HD the least bit is a surprise; the company introduced its first e-lector for world markets 2 years ago, and is only now delivery its third-generation intersection to the U.S. The partnership with Google Books should give back this e-reader a advance, and it may give Google Books a boost American Samoa well.

iRiver's design for the Story HD feels saw-toothed compared with the approach that Barnes & Noble and Kobo have expropriated, and the interface has some work ahead of it, too. Merely the emergence of the first Google Books-based e-reader will surely drive challenger among the players in this market, and that can only benefit book lovers.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/480972/iriver_story_hd_review-2.html

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