Google launches first e-reader

12.07.11 | Bookseller Staff

Google has teamed up with iriver to launch the first e-reader to be integrated with the Google e-books platform.

The iriver Story HD will go on sale at Target on Sunday (17th July) priced $139.99, the same r.r.p. as the Kindle.
The device will have wi-fi and a six-inch e-Ink screen with a QWERTY keyboard. It will allow "over-the-air access to hundreds of thousands of Google e-books for sale and more than 3 million for free," with users able to store e-books in the cloud, according to Pratip Banerji, Google Books product manager.

On the Google Books blog, Banjeri wrote: "We built the Google e-books platform to be open to all publishers, retailers and manufacturers. Manufacturers like iriver can use Google Books APIs and services to connect their devices to the full Google e-books catalogue for out-of-the-box access to a complete e-bookstore.
"You can also store your personal e-books library in the cloud—picking up where you left off in any e-book you're reading as you move from laptop to smartphone to e-reader to tablet."
Google E-books launched in December 2010

And from Shelf  Awareness
On Sunday, July 17, iriver's Story HD e-reader, the first e-reader whose platform is the Google eBooks e-bookstore, goes on sale at Target stores and Target.com. The device will retail for $139.99 and offers more than three million free titles and "hundreds of thousands" of titles for sale. Story HD's arrival adds to the competition between Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook.

Story HD also has some of the features that are standard on the best e-readers: the ability to buy and download books directly via wi-fi and the ability to read the same title on different devices, picking up where the reader left off. Story HD has an e-ink screen and titles are stored in the Google cloud.

Since its launch last December, Google eBooks has been available as an app on most every computer, smartphone, tablet, etc., except the Kindle--and is available through IndieCommerce--but this is the first e-reader that is integrated with Google eBooks. Google said there are other integrated devices "to come."

TMCnet noted that Story HD "has 63% more pixels and faster page turns than its closest rival [and] is also expected to be lighter and have a greater battery life than the Kindle or the Nook. Unfortunately, Google's first entrance into the e-book space won't come on a touch screen device. The Story HD comes with a QWERTY keyboard positioned just below the 6-inch display."