Screen Size Diagonal:
6inches
Style
7.0
Show what experts say (5 sources)
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"While the Cool-er looks fairly attractive on the surface and is indeed lighter than the Kindle 2 and the Sony Reader, its build quality doesn't inspire confidence. It's not poorly built, but it does feel a bit too plasticy for a $250 device…. Feels a bit too much like a "budget" e-reader."
"Skinny (0.43 inch thick), lightweight (6.3 ounces), and available in eight cheery colors, this e-book reader resembles an overgrown iPod--not a bad role model for industrial design."
"As if it wasn't obvious enough from its appearance, the Cool-er is designed to be the iPod of eBook readers. It succeeds in looking like an iPod and being available in a lot of colors, but fails in usability and design."
"Svelte, lightweight and snazzy-looking new e-book reader.... The Cool-er beats the Kindle on style, at least on the surface. It comes in eight colors: hot pink, racing green and the ruby model I tested, among them. The fact that these bring to mind colorful iPod Nanos is no accident. Cool-er creator Neil Jones says his goal was to create an "iPod moment" for e-books."
"Light, Pocket Friendly, Attracts attention, and Cooler-looking than Sony Reader…. If you prefer the bright coloured, funky design of the Cool-er over the sober, grown-up look of the other devices out there, then this one is for you."
Build and Ergonomics
4.0
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"Its build quality doesn't inspire confidence. It's not poorly built, but it does feel a bit too plasticy for a $250 device…. Feels a bit too much like a "budget" e-reader."
"Feels plasticky, lighter build means easier reading…. Cheap in every sense of the word, but usable…. It's quite a bit lighter than the Kindle 2, so you can easily hold it with one hand while you're brushing your teeth, lying in bed, or using the bathroom."
"The Cool-er feels a little bit plasticky and cheap, when compared with those other devices."
"The Cool-er is a competent device, but we do have strong concerns over it's built quality. For nearly £180 it just feels "cheap", especially when compared to the similarly priced Sony Readers made from brushed aluminium."
"Flimsy buttons. Plasticky-construction."
User Interface
4.0
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"The bigger problem with the Cool-er is that its interface lacks polish…. Navigation is a bit cumbersome.... Hopefully, Interead can tweak some of the interface issues with a firmware upgrade or two, but as it stands, the Cool-er still feels like a first-generation product that has some kinks to work out."
"Navigating the menu is horrendously difficult…. Adjusting the font size had us stumbling through the menu, even restarting the device twice because we couldn't figure out how to change the font or increase the size. And there's no search feature so if you have, say, a dozen books stowed, be prepared to go clickety-click chronologically to find the publication you want."
"The Cool-ER could use a little polish (and a better four-way navigation wheel) to elevate its usability to the level of its chic appearance. But its user interface is serviceable, if not elegant, and its text display options are solid."
"The problem comes from the interface—it feels very much like a Chinese knockoff. The giant iPod design, with the D-Pad scrollwheel acting as both a menu selector and a page turner, isn't the best way to read a book."
"Any comparisons to the iPod quickly end the moment you peek at Cool-er's pedestrian software interface. Bopping around menus is a chore."
"Unfortunately, it's not just the construction material that's at fault - the main directional pad - used for selecting pages, menu items or playing the built-in Soduku is really not very nice to use."
Reading Experience
7.5
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"The text didn't always display correctly--or the font was too small on some occasions--but we found a lot of good free material to read and the E-ink text on the Cool-er appeared sharp, with good contrast; it looked just like it does on the Kindle 2."
"Thanks to a satin finish to the screen, it even copes well in direct sunlight, as the (non-touch) Sony Readers do, and it has the standard 800 x 600-pixel resolution."
"The Cool-er has the same 6-inch screen as the Kindle 2, but renders text with a proprietary computer-screen-esque font face instead of the more "print"-like Kindle 2 typeface. It is, of course, size-adjustable. You can also flip it 90 degrees to read in landscape mode."
"The "page turning" on the device--when you move back and forth in a document--has a slower refresh rate than rival readers from Sony and Amazon."
"The $249 Cool-er uses similar black-and-white E Ink technology as its rivals. All of these devices, Cool-er included, do a fine job of replicating the paper experience on an electronic screen."
"Those minor gripes aside, once you have spent a few days reading on the device you really do warm to it. Ardent traditionalists that are quick to declare ebooks "a passing fad" are soon won over when they realise that e-ink really works – and is a very similar experience to reading a paperback."
"Page turns are on a par with those of most other current readers--sluggish, but not painfully so."
"If you're progressing at a normal reading pace, the delay of moving between pages is not really noticeable as the screen refreshes. E Ink displays are inherently slow to refresh due to the way in which they work, so if you planning scanning through a book, you'll soon get frustrated."
Battery Life
8.5
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"Battery is removable and replaceable…. Decent battery life."
"You use a USB cable to charge Cool-er's battery. The company says a single charge will last about 8,000 page turns — about equal to reading War and Peace five times."
"The Cool-er will apparently last up to 8000 screen refreshes before needing charging via the USB port."
Size
3.0
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"While I have been able to jam my Kindle 2 into an inside suit pocket, the Touch Edition slides in much more easily. "
"The metal chassis does add weight making it heavier than competing devices like the Bookeen CyBook. Whereas the similarly sized Cybook Gen3 weighs 174g, the Touch Edition is heavier at 286g and certainly feels more weighty when you hold it in your hands."
"Measuring 6.9 inches tall by 4.8 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick and weighing 0.63 pounds, the PRS-600 has a 6-inch screen (diagonal) and looks to be about 20 percent bigger than the 5-inch Reader Pocket Edition PRS-300."
Multimedia
5.0
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"We were also slightly disappointed that the audio jack for MP3 playback isn't the standard 3.5mm plug, but is instead a 2.5mm jack that requires an adapter (one ships with device). That's not a big deal because chances are you're not going to use the Cool-er as an MP3 player, but it's just one of those annoying design flaws we have to point out."
"The Cool-ER's MP3 player is about as bare-bones as possible: I couldn't find an on-screen volume indicator (to reflect adjustments I made using the buttons on the right side), and the volume was rather low, even when turned up all the way. Still, you can set the player to repeat all songs or a specific song, or to play songs randomly."
"Being able to play audiobooks in MP3 format off the SD card is better than straining to understand text-to-speech with the Kindle 2's robotic voice.... Listening to music while reading is good, but you have no playback controls unless you get out of your book and into the file. It's really mostly intended for audiobooks, I believe. And it's more half-baked than anything."
"It supports PDF, EPUB, FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPG and MP3, so you'll be able to view images and listen to music if you choose. Annoyingly, the Cool-er uses a 2.5mm headphone jack instead of the standard 3.5mm jack - although an adapter is included."
Storage Options
5.5
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"It has 1 gigabyte of memory for storing hundreds of books, half the memory of Kindle 2. But it comes with a slot for an SD memory card to bolster storage, which Kindle doesn't have."
"1GB of internal memory with an SD card expansion slot that allows you to add up to 4GB of additional memory."
Library
6.0
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"Interead has created its own online store called Coolerbooks.com, which the company says has about 320,000 books now, on the way to a million or so. Unfortunately, you won't find a lot of bargains, at least on best sellers. Elmore Leonard's Road Dogs costs $21.59 at Coolerbooks, John Sandford's Wicked Prey $22.36. Both cost $9.99 in the Kindle Store."
"CoolerBooks doesn't have a huge library.... And the best-sellers that are there are pricey: Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, widely available at other sites for $10, costs $24 at CoolerBooks. I bought the ePub version of The White Queen at Ebooks.com and had no trouble transferring it to the Cool-ER using the Adobe Digital Editions software on my PC."
"The coolerbooks selection is also smaller than Amazon's, housing none of Ian Fleming's Bond books. (Amazon has them all for $9.99 each.) But the upside is that the Cool-er supports native PDF format documents, like the Kindle DX, so you can load on downloaded and torrented eBooks with ease."
"One of the big advantages to the Cool-er is that it supports PDF, EPUB books (the Interead bookstore is stocked with e-books in the EPUB format), and text files, and there's plenty of free e-books out there in these file formats…. E-books you'll find in its store are, by and large, pricier than their Amazon counterparts."
"Even while it's early days, the store is sorely lacking in key titles and is not yet at a state where it is able to compete against the many free ebook resources out there on the internet, let alone the well-established commercial ebook stores such as Waterstone's ebook store or Amazon's ebook store."
Document Support
9.0
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"One of the big advantages to the Cool-er is that its supports PDF, EPUB books (the Interead bookstore is stocked with e-books in the EPUB format), and text files, and there's plenty of free e-books out there in these file formats…. The Cool-er does not accept Kindle books downloaded from Amazon."
"The Cool-ER supports about a dozen file formats, including ePub, PDF, HTML, Rich Text, and three popular image formats. The primary format for commercial e-books, (which you can purchase on CoolerBooks.com or at other sites) is ePub with Adobe Content Server 4 digital rights management software."
"Cool-er supports the ePub e-book standard (which Amazon doesn't) along with the TXT, JPEG and PDF formats. You can read your own documents on the device."
"The upside is that the Cool-er supports native PDF format documents, like the Kindle DX, so you can load on downloaded and torrented eBooks with ease."
"It supports PDF, EPUB, FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPG and MP3, so you'll be able to view images and listen to music if you choose. Annoyingly, the Cool-er uses a 2.5mm headphone jack instead of the standard 3.5mm jack - although an adapter is included."
Syncing
5.0
Show what experts say (6 sources)
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"You load eBooks onto the player via mini USB or onto the SD card, but it's not quite compatible with Macs. Transferring files via OS X will get you four blank folders (the metadata files that Macs deposit on external drives) that you can't seem to ever get rid of."
"Cool-er lacks wireless. You must connect a USB cable to transfer e-books from a PC or Mac, or load files from an SD card. It's not nearly as convenient or easy."
"The Cool-er is compatible with Macs and Windows PCs. To get a book or file onto the device, you simple connect it to your computer via USB and drag and drop files to the Cool-er as you would any mass USB storage device…. Drag-and-drop e-book loading less convenient than Kindle's instant downloads."
"Unlike the Kindle, there's no option for wirelessly downloading text. You have to connect a USB cable to your Mac or PC to get content. And the online store has only a fraction of the selection Amazon's does."
"Getting books onto the Cool-er couldn't be simpler - via USB it acts as a simple Mass Storage Device, or you can insert an SD card instead. There is no software included (or necessary) - you simply drag and drop your publications. This meant it worked perfectly under Ubuntu Linux as well as Windows without any drivers."
"You can transfer content only via the USB cable, though Cooler Books CEO Neil Jones says that the company plans to offer a wireless model next year."
Measy Score
n/a
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Review Score
6.2
smart average based on expert reviews
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Release Date
May 01, 2009
Features
Style
Has
Black
Has
Silver
Connectivity
Hardware
Processor Speed:
400 MHz
Has
Replaceable Battery
Screen and Keyboard
Screen Resolution:
800 x 600
Screen Size Diagonal:
6 inches
Size and Travel
Height:
7.2 inches
Width:
4.6 inches
Volume:
13.2 inches ^3
Weight:
6.2 oz
Multimedia and Storage
Book Storage:
700 e-books
2.5mm Headphone Jack:
10
Has
Expandable Memory
Built-in Memory:
1 GB
