iRiver Story

The basics

The iRiver Story is a new eBook reader that's looking to compete with the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle. Like the Kindle, it sports a full QWERTY keyboard, but it doesn't offer wireless downloading

The good

Like the Kindle, the iRiver Story manages to stand out due to its QWERTY keyboard and also a handy SD card slot. You can fit roughly 25,000 books on a 32GB card, plus there's another 2GB built-in for any books or MP3s you want stashed on the device.
The 6-inch e-ink display is as clear as the Sony Reader or Amazon Kindle, displaying text and images incredibly sharply.
eBook readers are only as good as the content, and with support for ePub, you’ve got access to all of Waterstone’s ebooks, as well as Word and Excel, PDFs, PowerPoint and TXT documents. That’s the kind of flexibility we like.

The bad

The build feels a bit plasticky, and it’s so slim that when you press the page turn buttons it makes worrying cracking noises.
Sound quality of MP3s isn’t bad, although the delay between button presses and something happening means it’s not going to replace your iPod. But it’s fine for audio books. It’s also slightly sluggish when turning pages, but no more so that the Sony Reader PRS-505.

The bottom line

A solid eBook reader. The only real downer is the price – just £20 more gets you the Sony Reader Touch Edition. If the price comes down then this could be a real contender.