iRiver Announces Price Cut on Story HD eReader Ahead of Kindle Touch Release

October 4th, 2011 by Dan Howley, LAPTOP Staff Writer  

Just in time for the holidays, iRiver has announced it is cutting the price of its Story HD from $139 to $99. But only through Oct. 15th. The move is, no doubt, meant to draw as many people to the Story HD as possible before Amazon unleashes its $79 Kindle and new $99 Kindle Touch upon the eReading masses. It’s a wise decision and one that could help iRiver capture at least some new users, before Amazon all but devours the eReader market when the Kindle Touch hits Amazon’s website on Nov. 21st. The $79 Kindle is already on sale.

We reviewed the Story HD back in the July, and praised it for its ability to support multiple document formats, crisp E Ink display, and slick user interface. But because of its poor ergonomics, lack of notes and highlights feature, and difficulty to hold comfortably we gave the Story HD 3.5 stars. One of the Story HD’s best features is its integration of Google eBooks, which provides users with access to more than 3 million titles, many of which are free, and hundreds of thousands of books available for purchase. Still, we didn’t like the lack of a recommendation feature.

System performance for the Story HD was also lacking a bit. Opening new books would cause the eReader to chug along for several seconds and turning pages resulted in occasional pauses. Despite that, getting a decent eReader like the Story HD for $99 is a pretty good deal. It just doesn’t look as good when there is a $79 Kindle out there.

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2 Responses to “iRiver Announces Price Cut on Story HD eReader Ahead of Kindle Touch Release”

  1. joke Says:
    October 6th, 2011 at 12:57 am

    Kindle Fire doesn’t have microSD slot that Nook Color has thus it is stuck with 6 GB usable internal storage unlike Nook Color that can get up to 32 GB card in. Kindles are made to be almost like a “dumb terminal” of the past to make sure you’re tied up to Amazon’s storage on the web (for which you need Wi-Fi connection to get to.) and you can only store content you get from Amazon there, not other files and they can spy on your web activities through the new cloud-integrated web browser. Also, VERY IMPORTANT – lack of microSD slot means that if you decide to root your Kindle Fire, you’ll have to root the actual device thus there will be no coming back. On Nook, you can make it boot from a “rooted” microSD card and if you want to get back to the original Nook you can just take out the card and reboot. Nook Color still has the best on the market anti-glare coated screen that is better for eading/viewing outside.
    B&N is rumored to be coming out with Nook Color 2 shortly that will sure to have Netflix app among others (you won’t find it on Kindle). Nook Touch is still better designed than even the new Kindle Touch with battery lasting two months with ONE hour reading a day with Wi-Fi off thus it’s still twice as long as new Kindle’s two months with HALF and hour a day with Wi-Fi off. It looks like Kindle didn’t get any battery improvement in the new model, they only changed the test condition. More, Kindle Touch still flashes black on each page turn while Nook Touch reduces the flashing by 80%.

  2. jun Says:
    October 14th, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    “Kindles are made to be almost like a “dumb terminal” of the past to make sure you’re tied up to Amazon’s storage on the web”

    You can sideload .mobi ebooks purchased from anywhere. You can also convert HTML to .mobi with various programs and sideload them. By sideload, I mean plug the Kindle into your computer with a USB cable and copy them over. And nowadays, Project Gutenberg offers its free ebooks in Kindle format, which again you can download and sideload. You can also sideload PDFs, and if you really want to, .txt files.

    “More, Kindle Touch still flashes black on each page turn while Nook Touch reduces the flashing by 80%.”

    Because the Nook isn’t a true eink screen. I would never buy one.

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