{"id":1395,"date":"2009-05-15T12:34:07","date_gmt":"2009-05-15T10:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tokao.com\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2009-05-15T12:34:07","modified_gmt":"2009-05-15T10:34:07","slug":"cool-er-ebook-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/15\/cool-er-ebook-reader\/","title":{"rendered":"COOL-ER Ebook Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Jason Kincaid from crunchgear.com<\/a>)
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We\u2019ve gotten our hands on the\u00a0COOL-ER<\/a>, a new Ebook reader coming out in two weeks that\u2019s sporting a (relatively) low $250 price tag and a case that looks like an over-sized iPod Nano (it\u2019s also coming in 8 Applesque colors).\u00a0Interead<\/a>, the small startup that built Cool-er, is obviously trying to bring Ebooks to a new market, shunning some of the features seen on the Kindle in favor of a lower price-point and a broader appeal. And it just might work.<\/p>\n

Unlike Amazon\u2019s device, Cool-er has no wireless connectivety, so you can\u2019t buy books online or browse Wikipedia, nor does it have Amazon\u2019s oddly controversial text-to-speech functionality. But it\u2019s also over $100 cheaper than the Kindle, and while some other devices (like the Sony Reader) are in the same price range, Cool-er also has a very unique look – I\u2019m sure many people (especially younger crowds) would rather sport a colorful Ebook reader than the beige and black color schemes that currently dominate the market.<\/p>\n

The device is quite light, weighing in at around 6.25 ounces (the Kindle 2 weighs in at a comparatively hefty 10.2 ounces). Cool-er has 1 GB of integrated memory, which you can expand with up to 4 more GB through the SD card slot. Battery life on a single charge is around 8000 page turns, which the company says should last around three weeks. And the device supports JPEG, PDF, EPUB, and TXT files, as well as DRM for PDF and EPUB. You can find full specs\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"coolershots\"<\/div>\n

So how does the Cool-er work when it comes down to actually reading?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been using the original Kindle regularly for a few months now, so any gripes I have with Cool-er may have more to do with what I\u2019m used to rather than what\u2019s actually\u00a0wrong<\/em>\u00a0with the device. That said, I\u2019m not a big fan of the navigation wheel. It\u2019s nearly flush with the device case, and while you can still feel for it with your fingers without looking, you\u2019re going to have to apply some force to the button to change the page. Not\u00a0a lot<\/em>\u00a0of force, mind you, but coming from Kindle\u2019s massive shoulder buttons I could see it getting frustrating. Aside from these issues, the device works perfectly well for reading. You can change between a number of different fonts and sizes, the device supports eight different languages (including Chinese and Russian), and you can easily rotate text if you\u2019d like to switch to a portrait mode (you\u2019ll have to press a button, but seriously – do you really care if your E-reader has an accelerometer)?<\/p>\n

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The biggest issue I think new Cool-er users will face at this point is actually getting books onto the device. The process is actually quite simple: drag the book from your computer desktop onto the Cool-er using Windows Explorer or Finder on the Mac. It\u2019s very easy if you\u2019re comfortable around computers, but many people would likely prefer some kind of content manager connected to the Cool-er book store that they could sync to their device, so they wouldn\u2019t have to worry about drag-and-drop. For the same reason Apple\u2019s iTunes played a key role in making the iPod popular, Cool-er will need a similar application if it wants to appeal to a broad audience.<\/p>\n

\"coolerbookshot\"<\/p>\n

The company is also launching an Ebook store alongside the device at\u00a0CoolerBooks.com<\/a>, which has over 750,000 available books. Anyone can buy books at 20% off list price, but Cool-er owners will get an extra 5% off across all books. This is a fairly good price, but when it comes to New York Times Bestsellers, Amazon leaves it in the dust – on the Kindle, a bestseller costs $9.99, while CoolerBooks appears to charge anywhere from $3-10 more per book. That said, CoolerBook does have significantly lower prices on some books that are not bestsellers, and the Cool-er\u2019s initial sale price is obviously much lower.<\/p>\n

Another factor that will play an important role in Cool-er\u2019s success will be its availability. CEO Neil Jones says that deals are currently in the works to sell the device in retail stores, which could be a huge boon for the company. Cool-er may not have all of the features of some of the other Ebook readers, but if its eight colorful models are sitting on the shelf next to the Sony readers and other less striking devices, it could do quite well regardless.<\/p>\n

\"picture-110\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Jason Kincaid from crunchgear.com) We\u2019ve gotten our hands on the\u00a0COOL-ER, a new Ebook reader coming out in two weeks that\u2019s sporting a (relatively) low $250 price tag and a case that looks like an over-sized iPod Nano (it\u2019s also coming in 8 Applesque colors).\u00a0Interead, the small startup that built Cool-er, is obviously trying to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[55,5],"class_list":["post-1395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-gadget","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}