iriver wades into competitive e-reader waters

by Sarah Griffiths on 7 July 2010, 17:45

Tags: iriver

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Entering stormy waters

iriver has unveiled a slim line Wi-Fi e-reader with a QWERTY keyboard positioned to sit between simple viewer-only readers and multitasking tablets in the already crowded e-reader market.

At under 10mm thick and weighing 291.5g, the Linux-based iriver Story has a 2GB memory and can download titles on the go via the device's embedded connection to the WHSmith online book store.

It launches at a difficult time in the e-reader market, where tablets are competing with ‘pure' e-readers and Amazon is looking to improve its Kindle, which could have serious implications for similar rivals such as the popular Barnes and Noble Nook. 

The lightweight device boasts a 6 inch electronic paper display screen and makes use of a Linux platform called iriver Flow to render documents quickly.  It also shares a horizontal-viewing option with the ubiquitous iPad tablet.

Impressively, the e-reader also borrows a little of its pricier tablet peers' functionality, letting users work on Microsoft Excel, Word and Powerpoint documents.  The Story has a QWERTY keyboard under its screen to make taking notes and managing an in-built diary possible.  With a built-in microphone, speaker and headphone socket, it also allows for music playback as well as acting as a dictaphone.

A SDHC card slot also allows users to boost the e-reader's memory, while one charge supports 9,000 page turns.  The iriver Wi-Fi Story will be available from WHSmith for £250 ‘soon'.

 

 

Specs 

Screen Type

EPD

 

Microphone

Yes

Resolution

600 x 800

 

Network

WiFi(802.11b/g)

Color Depth

16 greyscale

 

OS

Linux 2.6.28

Key Structure

Qwerty, cursors, Next,Prev x 2, Power

 

UI Framework

iriver Flow

Product Color

White

 

Supported Files

EPUB, PDF, TXT, FB2, DJVU

Internal Storage

2GB

 

 

ppt, pptx, xls, xlsx, doc, docx, hwp

External Storage

SD [SDHC/32GB]

 

 

ZIP(JPG,BMP,PNG,GIF)

Product Size

127 x 203.5 x 9.4

 

Audio

MP3, WMA, OGG

Product Weight

291.5g

 

Recording

MP3

Operating Temperature

0~40 'C

 

Memo Function

Yes (Using Keypad)

Storage Type

mobi NAND

 

Diary Function

Yes (Using Keypad)

SDRAM

1Gbit (mobile/DDR)

 

Viewer Function

Move to page, Table of contents, bookmark, Landscape mode, PDF reflow, Zoom in/out, Font Change, Text search function

Battery

1800mAh (9000 pages)

 

Supported host OS

Window XP, Vista, 7, OS X

Connection Type

mini USB 2.0

 

Accessory

USB Cable

 

 



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