When it was unveiled back in January , the tale HD, iRiver’s first entry into the U.S. e-reader market, boasted all manner of exciting technologies, including an “HD” display and a souped-up (in e-reader terms) processor. Things have changed previously six months, thanks partially to new Nook and Kobo devices. The alternative week, however, iRiver pulled out a pre-release surprise that turned quite a lot of heads: a partnership with Google Books . Are these features enough to make the corporate competitive in an already crowded market dominated by the Kindle ? Discover the solution to all that and more inside the review below.
Hardware
Make no mistake: the tale HD doesn’t score any points for looks. Perhaps we’re just spoiled having played around so extensively with the newest Nook and Kobo readers, which adopt seamless displays, not unlike smartphones and tablets. But iRiver’s device looks downright ancient, bringing to mind the primary-generation Kindle, whose own design was already dated when it debuted long ago in 2007. The device’s case isn’t helped along by the inclusion of a miniUSB port (not micro) or the coffee-colored rear and matching pill-shaped buttons at the front, which seem misplaced with the device’s white face.
Some users will surely welcome the inclusion of the 38 button QWERTY keyboard over the type of infrared touchscreen present in many other e-readers, though with the device’s relatively limited functionality, the necessity to type doesn’t extend too far beyond attempting to find titles in its book store. The keys themselves are small, uncomfortable slivers that make us long for the Kindle’s more well-off round keys.
A spokesperson told us that touch is a feature the corporate is thinking about adding sooner or later — one gets the sensation that iRiver just type of missed the boat on it this time around. Oddly, the corporate also opted to not include page buttons at the bezel of the reader, instead requiring the user to flip throughout the pages with a big, loose button beneath the screen or arrow buttons located within the bottom left-hand corner of the keyboard. Neither option is especially ideal.
The inclusion of the keyboard also requires a bigger footprint. The iRiver measures 7.49 x 5.02 x 0.37 inches, putting it at the larger side of the present generation of readers, making it thicker and wider than the third-generation Kindle, which also crams in a QWERTY keyboard. However, iRiver did knock the burden all the way down to 7.3 ounces, beating out the Kindle and Nook WiFi. The device feels solid and is straightforward to hang with one hand, though toggling between pages is frequently a two-handed task for many people.
The tale HD packs an 800MHz Freescale i.MX508 processor — the identical chip contained in the Kobo eReader Touch Edition, and an identical clockspeed because the TI OMAP 3 powering the most recent Nook. Also like those devices, the iRiver has 2GB of built-in memory — half what the most recent Kindle offers. However, the inclusion of an SD slot (no, we do not mean microSD), renders any quibbles over built-in storage moot.
In line with iRiver, the device’s battery should last around ten weeks, assuming you read for approximately an hour every day. That seems like greater than most of its fellow readers’ claims, but there’s really no standardization for measuring e-reader battery life. In point of fact that the majority of those E Ink devices last long enough as a way to forget the last time you charged the article. Not surprisingly, there isn’t any 3G option here, which likely won’t bother most shoppers, but it’s worth noting, considering the fact that Amazon just started selling the Kindle 3G (with ads) for $139.
Display
Here’s where the full HD thing is available in. No, the iRiver Story HD doesn’t do 1080p playback, and it doesn’t hook as much as your Blu-ray player, but so far as E Ink displays go, the device packs lots of pixels into its six-inch screen — a incontrovertible fact that was certainly one of iRiver’s primary selling points because it announced the device back in January. The display has 768 x 1024 resolution — that’s higher than the Kindle and Nook’s industry-standard 600 x 800. The result’s undeniably sharp, but given the truth that most readers could be using the device primarily to view pages comprised entirely of text, it’s hard to assume that creating a huge difference within the lives of most of its users.
When the device was first announced, iRiver also talked up the tale HD’s page refresh speed, expecting it to be the fastest of its kind when it hit the market. The tale is unquestionably fast, but can not claim the title of “fastest,” with a rate that’s now on-par with that of the then unannounced Nook and Kobo. Unlike those readers, however, the tale HD tends to do an entire flicker refresh between each page, just like the Kindle.
Software
Just because it was looking just like the Story HD would come to market as a mostly unremarkable device, however, something happened: the corporate announced a partnership with Google, making it the primary e-reader to give out-of-the-box integration with Google eBooks, giving users access to the software giant’s library of three million free titles and tens of millions of paid books
iRiver has made no bones about its pride in that fact, making Google a centerpiece of the device’s software, both through pre-loaded public domain titles like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Great Expectations and during the usage of the Google eBookstore as its primary marketplace.
The reading experience is stripped to mostly all but its most elementary functionality. The default screen page is monopolized entirely by the text, without title at the top and no page at the bottom — though numbers do sometimes appear in incredibly small font within the right margin. Your progress also flashes at the screen each time you switch the page or click the choice button.
That button also allows you to buy the book (in terms of a sample), skip to a particular page, bookmark, search for a word within the including Collins dictionary, view the book’s table of contents, and adjust the font size — there are eight font sizes in all.
Like most other current readers, the tale HD can display PDF files, and in contrast to a few of the ones we’ve tried out (cough Nook) it does so effectively. Just like the Kobo, the tale HD may also zoom in and pan PDFs — the method is a bit tedious, but it is a handy feature nonetheless.
The UI is incredibly barebones, with a homepage such as a simple list of the reader’s contents. The titles may be sorted by name, date downloaded, favorites, and author. Toggling through all of this using the device’s buttons made us really miss the touch functionality at the Nook and Kobo. Above that, you will discover a column showing the title you’re currently reading, in conjunction with a small thumbnail of the duvet. The head of the screen, meanwhile, is devoted to a Google eBookstore link, which looks quite a lot a banner ad.
Clicking at the eBookstore column will prompt you to hook up with a wireless network — the device seemed have some trouble maintaining a connection, even if the network was strong, prompting us to log in multiple times. The shop itself can be fairly bare, offering a straightforward search box on the top and defaulting to a listing of best sellers below. The types feature offers up some more options, if top selling books aren’t your thing.
Wrap-up
Were it launched in place of just announced back in January, the tale HD could were a contender. Because it stands, however, the reader is a victim of its own timing, having been eclipsed by both the Nook and Kobo — and we still haven’t seen what Amazon has up its sleeve for the subsequent generation. The device’s “HD” display is a pleasing feature, but it’s hardly enough reason to recommend it over the contest. The Google partnership is neat besides, but again, it’s just not as compelling is it will probably sound at the start, because the software giant’s content can already be loaded onto most readers, and from the sound of it, here’s the 1st of many such partnerships to return. The essential nature of the software, meanwhile, will not be a deterrent from users seeking an easy e-reader, however it really just underscores one of many Story HD’s biggest shortcomings — there’s just nothing all that compelling about it.
It’s worth mentioning that we noticed some disturbing distortion around the display after per week of use, with E Ink lines running lengthwise, rendering the midsection of the text largely unreadable. Gently shaking the device only exacerbated the difficulty, creating new vertical lines that increased in darkness even once we placed the reader down. iRiver assures us that here is the results of impact at the screen, though we weren’t capable of detect any trauma to the exterior of the device and cannot point to an incident that may have caused such a difficulty — the reader went in the course of the same paces because the Nook and Kobo before it. Either way, this relative fragility doesn’t appear to bode well for the device’s build quality. That said, even taking this issue off the table, the tale HD’s features don’t really add as much as a reader that we are able to recommend.
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