A new e-reader entrant is pitching itself as cheaper, lighter and more open than Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader, and with a larger selection of titles.
The Cool-er is the brainchild of Neil Jones, an avid reader and entrepreneur, whose company is based, appropriately, in Reading, in the UK.
(This review was first posted on May 14 2009)
Mr Jones says the device will have taken less than six months to develop from its conception in January to its planned availability in the first week of June.
The idea came after he began an online digital bookstore and had quickly sold out of a batch of Sony Reader devices. He realised there was demand for the e-readers but could not get Sony to guarantee supplies. He also thought he could improve on the design.
The result is the Cool-er and Coolerbooks.com, an online store for the US with 260,000 paid-for titles at launch from all the major publishers, compared to around 250,000 on Amazon. Around 60,000 titles will be available in the UK and Europe initially.
The Cool-er’s price of $249 in the US will undercut the Kindle by $110. At 5.65 ounces it is 40 per cent lighter than the Kindle and, having compared the two devices side-by-side, the Cool-er looks about half-an-inch shorter in length and width.
Coolerbooks will sell titles in the open EPub standard, compared to Amazon’s proprietary .azw format, with prices expected to be comparable.
There are eight different colours and eight different languages available for the device, giving the Cool-er more international appeal. The screen uses the same E Ink technology as the Kindle and looks slightly larger. There is a rechargeable, removable battery, a memory card slot and a gigabyte of onboard memory. A headphone socket allows music and audio books to be enjoyed, just like the Kindle.
“My own view is that in the next 12 months we will be the number-three player in the e-reader marketplace,” Mr Jones told me.
“I would sincerely hope to be giving either of the other two a good run for their money.”
I tried out the Cool-er next to the Kindle, and while designed as a smaller, lighter, more simple device for users, some aspects of it seemed a little too rudimentary.
The controls and build seem flimsier than the sturdy Kindle and it takes a trip through the menu system to change font sizes or try to zoom in on a pdf, a format that can also be uploaded from a PC or Mac, along with books, through the USB connection on the device.
There is also no internet connection or built-in dictionary, or keyboard to add annotations and carry out easier searches.
The Cool-er is also similar to the $280 BeBook, the $350 Cybook and iRex’s Iliad Book Edition, all of whom use the Mobipocket Reader software.
At $249 it would be the cheapest of those available, but Mr Jones recognises prices will still have to fall considerably before the devices can become mass-market ones.
That could happen with LG becoming a second source for the E Ink screens, bringing down the cost of the most expensive component.
“I would love the opportunity to go below $199 in the next 12 months,” he said.
