Storytel is a subscription service best known for audio books. However, the service also offers regular e-books. Until now, you used a smartphone to listen or read. With the Storytel Reader you can now also read on a device with an E Ink screen. How do you like the Storytel Reader?
Storytel Reader
Price € 129,-
Screen size 6 inches (758 x 1024 pixels)
Weight 192 grams
Dimensions 17 x 11.7 x 0.9cm
Storage area 8 GB (5 GB actually available)
wireless 802.11b/g/n, bluetooth
Connections USB-C, 3.5mm Headphone Jack
Battery 3000 mAh
Website www.storytel.com
6 Score 60 
- Pros
- Lighting with color temperature
- Browse buttons
- Integration e-book and audiobook
- Storytel itself has a wide range
- Negatives
- No functionality without a subscription
- No own books via PC
- Sometimes slow
- Search function on Reader clumsy
- Not enough storage for audiobooks
The design of the Storytel Reader is not very special, although the housing is white where most e-readers are black. The device is made of white plastic with the orange Storytel logo prominently displayed on both the front and back. On the front, this logo serves as a button that opens the reading settings while reading. The device does look a bit old-fashioned because the touch screen is recessed into the housing with a higher screen edge around it. Some e-readers, just like a smartphone, have a completely flat front. Striking in a positive sense is the presence of physical leaf buds. A sleeve is available to protect the reader, unfortunately there is no foldable cover for sale.
Specifications
In terms of specifications, the Storytel does not offer very striking options for what the device costs. The reader is equipped with a 6 inch E Ink Carta touch screen with a resolution of 758 x 1024 pixels, also expressed as a sharpness of 212 PPI. That’s not the latest screen technology on the market. Both Amazon and Kobo offer a resolution of 1072 x 1448 pixels (300 PPI) with the Kindle Paperwhite 4 and the Kobo Clara HD respectively for a comparable price. All modern e-readers are equipped with lighting. Storytel has opted for backlighting with a pleasantly adjustable color temperature. That is something that Amazon does not offer on the 6-inch devices, the aforementioned Kobo Clara HD does have an adjustable color temperature. Kobo offers the Kobo Nia for 99 euros with the same E ink Carta screen as the Storytel Reader, but with a backlight in one color. Another notable feature of the Storytel Reader is the ability to listen to audiobooks. Kobo does not support audiobooks, on a Kindle Paperwhite 4 and the cheaper normal Kindle (10th generation) you can connect headphones via bluetooth for audiobooks from the Audible service. Only Audible is not available in the Netherlands. In short, the ability to use audiobooks is unique.
Only works with subscription
The hardware is therefore in line with the price that is being asked. The most remarkable feature is that this e-reader without a subscription to storytel (from 12.99 euros per month) does exactly nothing. Without an active subscription you cannot log in to the device and the Storytel Reader, unlike any other e-reader, is not detected by a computer. You cannot add your own e-books via your computer. You can upload unsecured ePubs to Storytel’s cloud service via the Storytel website, after which those books can be downloaded on the Reader. You cannot use books with drm. If you have a suitable ePub book, a book will appear quickly on the Storytel Reader. When uploading books, you agree that you have the necessary rights to upload documents to the Storytel cloud and that Storytel can share the documents further. That also does not seem ideal for books that you have bought neatly without DRM, after all, many books purchased without DRM do have ‘social DRM’ that can be traced back to you. There is no bookshop to buy titles that are not on Storytel. Despite the fact that some manufacturers also offer their own bookstores or subscription service, you can use other e-readers without a subscription to read your own (purchased) books. In short, this Reader is really a ‘walled garden’.
Offer Storytel
For the 12.99 euros that Storytel asks per month, the service is excellent in terms of offer, with Dutch and English titles being offered. It is a pity that not all titles are available as both e-book and audiobook. Personally, I prefer to read, but a few recent books that I would like to read were only available as audiobooks. With the default settings, the section where you can search the offer shows both audiobooks and e-books. It is not possible to quickly filter only e-books or audiobooks in this search environment. What is possible is to enable or disable the display of e-books or audio books via the general settings of the device. That is only fairly cumbersome and if you only select e-books, for example, your previously downloaded audiobooks will disappear from the menu. The same applies to the smartphone app, but it is more convenient to search for titles and also a lot smoother. You can choose books via the app, after which they also appear on the Reader. Ultimately, the web environment turns out to be the most convenient for searching books. Here you can quickly filter on e-books or audiobooks. You can then add a book to your bookshelf and the title will also appear on the Reader.
Use while reading
It takes quite a while to open a book compared to other e-readers. With the button on the front you open the reading settings while reading. Just like on many other eReaders, you can also open those settings by tapping in the center of the screen. If you keep the button pressed for longer, you switch the lighting on or off. The Storytel Reader offers plenty of options in the reading settings. You can choose from seven fonts, twelve font sizes and three levels of leading. You can adjust the background lighting almost infinitely with twelve steps, whereby you can set the light color of your choice from cold to warm in twelve steps.
The Storytel Reader offers physical browsing buttons, which I personally find useful. It would have been just a bit more convenient if there were buttons on both sides for the next and previous page, then you can always read a book with one hand. Now the button to turn a page is only on the right side. You can reverse the functionality of the buttons and luckily you can do that while reading. Then the functionality of the touch screen is also reversed. There are no further settings to change the touch zones of the screen.
The e-books themselves are clearly arranged. At the bottom of the screen you can see how many pages you have left in the current chapter and how far you are in the total book. You can always call up the table of contents via the reading settings. It is striking that once you have finished reading a chapter, it then takes two seconds before the next chapter appears. As a result, I regularly had the urge to press the browse button again, because there are e-books that occasionally contain a blank page. That action is then processed, so that you have to go back another page.
Use while listening
Besides reading, you can also listen to books with the Storytel Reader. You can connect a headphone via the 3.5mm jack or a headphone or speaker via bluetooth. Media controls are then shown on the screen with which you can play the book. Optionally, you can increase or decrease the playback speed. If there is also an e-book version of the book, you can switch to the e-book and continue reading where the audiobook left off and vice versa. Despite a small delay, this works remarkably well and if you prefer to read or listen in some situations, this is a really handy function. The smartphone app can also do this. If you use the app in addition to the Reader, your devices will sync where you left off. Sometimes this takes a while, but in general it works well.
One problem with audiobooks is that you have to download them and they are relatively large, about 300 to 800 MB per book. Downloading audiobooks is slow, but a more difficult problem is that the device has relatively little storage space for audio. The reader has 8 gigabytes of built-in memory, but only about 5 gigabytes are free. That’s no problem for e-books, those books are at most a few megabytes each, so you can store thousands of them. A maximum of 10 audiobooks can fit in more serious books, but that quickly takes the fun out of switching between e-book and audio if you read a few books together.
Conclusion
The Storytel Reader itself is an e-reader that does what it’s supposed to do. It is noticeable, however, that the device is occasionally a bit slow, both when loading a book and with chapters in between. The integration between normal e-books and audiobooks is well done and it is handy that you can switch between both variants if available. Storytel’s offer is fine, although of course not all books are on it and it is a pity that not the full range is available as both e-book and audio book. As an ‘audiobook library’, in our opinion, the device has too little storage space. Audiobooks take up a lot of space and there can be about ten of them on the device at the same time.
The biggest problem with the Storytel Reader is the need for a subscription. It is logical that you do not have access to the books that Storytel offers without a subscription. But the fact that the device does nothing at all without a subscription is too strong a limitation. Certainly because you do not see this limitation in the price, this Storytel Reader costs just as much with a price of 129 euros as other e-readers. If you stop the subscription, you simply have a piece of e-waste. In short, the Storytel Reader is only interesting if you are satisfied with the service and are looking for an e-reader to specifically read and listen to these books. This device is the only way to read the offer via E Ink and that is really more comfortable than on a smartphone.
You temporarily get two months of Storytel for free with the purchase of the Reader.
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