My two cents about Storytel Reader

Storytel reader came under my radar in the last Christmas. I gave away my kindle to my sister, and happen to read when I go to bed. It’s not a rare occurrence for me to argue with my wife about the lamp on my bedside hampering her sleep. I tried using small lamps which can be attached to the book. It wasn’t quiet useful for me. Then I decided that it was time to buy an ebook reader.

Why I didn’t buy an iPad

iPad is fantastic for reading. It is to some extent underrated. It supports epub format natively, font and page rendering can never be smoother, the iBook and Kindle bookstore is one tap away. But I wanted a single purpose device. And the discount from Storytel reader seemed compelling. I tried Kindle paperwhite before. This time I wanted to give Storytel a shot.

Why Storytel

The Storytel app supports both ebook and audiobook. I often use audiobook when I do my chores. Simultaneouly listening to audiobook as well as reading help me to finish a book in shorter time. I also buy audiobook from Apple Books app. At the same time, I subscribe and unsubscribe to Audible from time to time. The reason I like Storytel is that I can read as many books or listen to as many audiobooks as I want. That is lucrative for people like me who reads multiple books parallely. Other than that, I have found that Storytel reader supports audiobook too. And the new version of the reader supports uploading own files to the device. Another motivation of getting an e-ink based reader is that it is a bit eye friendly. Storytel reader supports warm light too. And with the discount, it is almost half of the price of the competitors. I ordered a storytel reader.

I got the package and It was beautiful

What made me happy

1. The reading experience is good. The UI is pretty simple.
2. The range of books is really good. Specially the Swedish book collection is impressive.
3. Supports USB-C charging.
4. The battery support is satisfactory. I don’t need to charge the device more than once or twice a month.
5. The packaging and the case are neat. I loved the case.

What made me unhappy

1. The UI is slow. I know it is an ebook reader, but sometimes it is frustrating. Specially listening to audiobook from the reader isn’t that of a nice experience. Now I use Storytel iPhone app to listen to the audiobooks.
2. Font rendering breaks sometime. It can be fixed in the next software update. There are often unnecessary spaces which break words. I tried with the mobile app version, it renders the same text perfectly.
3. Importing a file to the device requires subscription. I rotate my subscriptions often. If I get a book in other service, I pause the subscription which I have been using, and switched to another service. Sometimes I prefer hard copy book and I pause my subscription for Storytel. The thing annoyed me most that when I tried to upload a file for reading it in my reader, it said that I needed an active subscription. That time I was in a country where Storytel was not supported. I paused my subscription for that. Importing a file to the device should not require an active subscription.
4. There should be a yearly subscription model, that way it would be cheaper.
5. And last but not least, where is the dictionary?

I love my Storytel reader. But I expect in the next few iterations I will see improved rendering and a better subscription options. And Storytel should be a bit flexible regarding file importing feature.