I bought myself an I-river Story e-reader on the weekend. I wanted an e-reader with a qwerty keyboard because particularly when I’m doing “work” reading, I take notes- usually on a piece of A4 scrap paper that I fold in half and insert into the book, adding extra pages as I go. With a keyboard, I thought, I could take notes as I go- albeit probably shorter than I am used to, as the keyboard is very small- but it would mean that I wouldn’t have scribbled A4 half-pages scattered around the place. I didn’t want to be tied in Kindle’s publishing format- it seems that EPub is working out as the common format, and I resent that the Kindle doesn’t support it. I was hoping that I-river would reduce its price in competition with the Kindle, but no such luck. I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t buy it until August, in the vain hope of a price-reduction, and last weekend I finally made the purchase.
So far, I’ve been really disappointed- so disappointed that I can hardly bear to look at the thing. The instructions are HOPELESS- barely one paragraph on a fold-out sheet with every other language known to mankind. There’s a manual on the I-river itself, which is perverse as you need to be able to use it to read the manual. To be honest, I just don’t get how to use the wretched thing. The opening screen gives you 2 options: 1. Charge battery 2. Connect removable disk. What disk? The little card that came with it? Do I need to charge the battery first? Stuffed if I know. But I do know that to make your computer recognize it, you have to select “Connect removable disk”. The I-river is the “removable disk”. Is it just me, or is this a rather obscure instruction? Then, about 40 pages into the manual, I learn that I need to download software from the I-river site. Would it not have been useful to have that information up front? What ever happened to Step 1, Step 2, Step 3. Sometimes I can get my computer to read it; other times I cannot- is it faulty, or am I faulty?
Along with Tony Abbott (shudder), I am not a tech-head (nor do I aspire to be Prime Minister), but I’m not an absolute dunce with technology either- although I suspect that my children would beg to differ. I am the only person in the house who can programme the video, for example. But this I-river has me stumped. I think I’ve been sold a pup.
I shall let you know if I ever get to like it.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 