We've seen a flurry of new eBook readers hit the market in recent months, and there's now a new name to add to the list: the iRiver Story.
It's a serious contender too, for unlike the army of rebadged, cheap-feeling clones, the Story is an attractive piece of kit.
It's an unashamed Kindle tribute, with its matte-white body and integrated keyboard, but that's no bad thing.
Alas, it isn't quite a carbon copy. There's no lustrous aluminium panel at the rear, for instance, and the build quality isn't quite up there with that of the Kindle either. Give the Story a tweak and it creaks worryingly.
The 6in E Ink screen can't match the luxuriousness of the Kindle's 16 grey level display either, but the iRiver's eight different shades make it readable. And, crucially, the Story isn't hobbled by a limited library as the Kindle is.
You can read PDF, ePub and plain text files as we'd expect, but also - unusually - Microsoft DOC, PPT and XLS formats. Admittedly, implementation of these last three is patchy. The zoom control doesn't work on Excel or PowerPoint files, rendering some files unreadable.
Performance is decent, with snappy page turns on even image-heavy PDF files. The keyboard is spacious with large, comfortable keys and the controls are sensibly laid out, with page-turn buttons set subtly into the front edge of the device on either side.
The Story is also replete with extra features, with a built-in speaker, a voice recorder, 2GB of integrated storage, a 3.5mm headphone socket (sound quality is good), plus diary and memo facilities.
Bizarrely, though, you can't link memos to pages in a book, or simply add notes: a big limitation for students.
But the critical issue isn't linked to the features, the quality of build, or file format support. It's the price, which is higher than other current offerings.
Don't get us wrong, we do like the iRiver Story; it's better than most readers we've seen. However, it doesn't quite do enough to justify that price premium.