The iriver Story HD will retail for $139.99 -- the same price as the Kindle and the Nook Simple Touch Reader -- at the chain July 17, according to a blog post from Google. The device sports a qwerty keyboard and a black-and-grey screen similar to the Kindle. It also can access more than 3 million free Google eBooks and hundreds of thousands of paid ebooks in the system. The device is the first to be able to download the eBook titles via a Wi-Fi connection. Previously, users had to download the titles with a PC and then transfer them to the ereader.
Google entered the ebooks market in earnest in December with its Google eBookstore. Since then, the company has been expanding distribution for the format -- it added its 250th independent bookstore partner in May.