iRiver knows what's up. They took a look at the Kindle and had the same problems with it as I did. 'Sure' they went, 'it can act like a book. But it doesn't have a cover, there's no opening or closing it. That's just not as satisfying.'

The new 'Story' e-reader from iRiver (via Gizmodo) was built with us old die-hard traditionalists in mind. The e-reader, which is slim, white, and packs a QWERTY keyboard, much like the Kindle, comes sandwiched within a thin case that can seal sort of like a ziplock. This e-reader can't do wireless downloads, but it supports SDHC cards and can handle PDF, E-Pub, txt, e-comic, and Microsoft Office files. That makes it substantially more versatile than the Kindle.

iRiver did make one mistake when designing this beauty; the price. $300 is just a little too high to give them a real shot at competing with the Kindle or Sony's new e-readers. The good news is, this baby is hitting Korea first. With any luck, by the time they get approval to sell over here they'll have knocked the price down another $50.