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Can Cool-er e-reader undercut Amazon Kindle sales?

By | May 14, 2009, 10:58am PDT

Summary: Interead’s CEO and founder Neil Jones has been moving and shaking the past few months, preparing his upstart U.K.-based company to launch a new lightweight e-book reader, the woefully-hyphenated Cool-er, that would sharply undercut the $359 price of Amazon’s Kindle 2 with a $250 price tag. Whoops, looks like a few British bloggers pulled the trigger [...]

Interead’s CEO and founder Neil Jones has been moving and shaking the past few months, preparing his upstart U.K.-based company to launch a new lightweight e-book reader, the woefully-hyphenated Cool-er, that would sharply undercut the $359 price of Amazon’s Kindle 2 with a $250 price tag.

Whoops, looks like a few British bloggers pulled the trigger before the big reveal.

Now that the horse has been let out of the barn, so to speak, here are the facts: the new Cool-er digital reader comes in eight colors and weighs half as much as the competition. It’s planned to be available May 29th, and Interead, whose e-book store will tie into the device, is taking pre-orders.

Here are the specs:

  • Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.6 x .43 inches (HWD)
  • Weight: 6.2 ounces
  • Screen Size: 6 inches
  • DPI: 170 pixels per inch
  • Levels of Greyscale: 8
  • Type: E Ink Vizplex
  • Touchscreen: No
  • Manufacturer: PVI
  • Operating System: Linux
  • Storage: 1GB
  • Memory: 128
  • Processor: Samsung S3C2440 ARM 400MHz
  • Battery: Li-Polymer battery (1000 mAh)
  • Battery Life (single charge): 8000 pages
  • Memory Expansion: SD (up to 4GB)
  • Wireless: No
  • Formats: JPEG, PDF, EPUB, TXT, MP3 (2.5mm headphone jack with a 3.5mm converter included for standard headphones)
  • Languages: 8
  • Bookstore (Titles): Over 750,000

The Cool-er is compatible with Mac and Windows PC, and while it’s sure to fight a heck of an uphill battle against the massively popular Kindle — from overseas, no less — it is designed to be more open with its formats, a criticism of the Kindle, and should compete more directly with Sony’s e-reader offerings, particularly on Interead’s home continent.

Jones has promised to send me a Cool-er to review hands-on, and I plan on doing so for this blog shortly. Stay tuned.

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Topics

Headphone, Battery, Amazon.com Inc., Sales, Amazon Kindle, Interead, Jones, Engineering, E-books, Personal Technology, Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca is editor of ZDNet and SmartPlanet.

Disclosure

Andrew Nusca

Andrew J. Nusca does not hold any investments in the technology companies he covers.

Biography

Andrew Nusca

Editor

Andrew J. Nusca is an editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.

He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. He lives in his native Philadelphia with his wife, cat and Boston Terrier.

Follow him on Twitter.

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good idea about headphones
gavin.chan 30th Sep
Thanks for sharing. Hi, do you have monster beats headphones ? We supply kinds of headphones by dr.dre. Buy detox headphones from dealingway.com at wholesale price. RYQh7
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0 Votes
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OMG! You ran over my iPod with a steam roller...
olePigeon 14th May 2009
OMG! You ran over my iPod with a steam roller! It's ruined! I... I... hey,
wait a minute. That'd make a cool looking eBook reader.
0 Votes
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LOL
oncall Updated - 14th May 2009
Nice one.
Now that you mention it that's exactly what it looks like.

As for me I just discovered J.R.R. Tolkien's classics are now available on Kindle so I am in happy reader land for the next few days to weeks (or months if the kids have anything to say about it). Which brings me to my point, content. Content, and ease of use, is going to decide the success or failure of any new ereader device in the short term. A little color never hurts though.
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Nice!
LiquidLearner 14th May 2009
Tolkien was a reason I was holding out on an e-reader. Any word on Wheel of Time? (I know I could look, but I figured it would make the blog look busier)
0 Votes
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Haven't heard anything
oncall Updated - 14th May 2009
Nor have I heard about the early David Eddings books (even though his later stuff is out on Kindle) or the entire Harry Potter series.

It just underscores what I mentioned in another discussion that there is still significant resistance to the ebook concept from within the entrenched publishing industry. Very similar to other format wars I have seen like VHS vs DVD (no contest right but many movie makers held out forever releasing stuff on DVD) and now DVD vs newcomers Blu-ray and online movies. The difference being that the established format ebooks are taking on has a history that goes back centuries.
0 Votes
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Wheel of Time?
Col Mustard 14th May 2009
Can't finish it now that Jordan is dead. ;-(
0 Votes
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re: Wheel of Time
DadsPad 15th May 2009
this is off topic, here is info.
Brandon Sanderson will be finishing in the Wheel of Time series.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wheel_of_Time

There will be 3 more books, but Brandon said it was to be considered 1 big novel, it was just to big to publish.
0 Votes
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Lawsuit?
ricochet2200 18th May 2009
I can't help but think that apple will try to sue them. When I saw the picture I thought, "I didn't know apple was planning on making one of these". I think apple's 'look and feel' just got ripped off.
0 Votes
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The ease of buying books will make or break it.
BillDem Updated - 14th May 2009
Open reader formats!! I love the idea, but the ease of getting books onto the unit is the real test. I also like the fact that this one offers color choices for customization. Maybe Amazon should just release a reader client for all the other e-readers and focus on selling content.

As far as the price goes, NO WIRELESS... If you have to tether it to your PC to get books, that hassle may negate the $100 savings versus the Kindle.
0 Votes
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No Wireless?
jpr75_z 14th May 2009
Hmmm. One of the great things about Kindle is you can buy a book, magazine, etc., anywhere and be reading in a couple of minutes. No downloading to a PC first then transferring to your reader.
0 Votes
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Re: No Wireless?
Heathen89 19th May 2009
That depends on which wireless you are referring to. The wireless that the Kindle is on is not for me. I don't want the vendor of a device being able to connect to something I have bought and decide to update it, add/remove features, or kill it. Look at the whole text-to-speech issue. Or reports Amazon has deactivated peoples Kindles for too many returns, basically giving them a $359 paperweight.

Now having wireless to connect to your PC to pull a book off of there would be nice, but probably not worth the battery consumption.

It also depends on what kind reading you are doing on the device. If it is mainly novels/books, wired is probably fine. If it is a daily newspaper or blog, then it would probably be inconvenient.
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RE: Can Cool-er e-reader undercut Amazon Kindle sales?
dixon757@... 15th May 2009
No, it is even more worthless. No Wi Fi! Ridiculous! No touchscreen entry? More ridiculous.
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iPod Classic has no wireless nor touchscreen
gmeader 9th Jun 2009
An iPod Classic has no wireless nor touchscreen, asn sells like hotcakes. Why does an eReader need those?
0 Votes
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why does it look like a morphed ipod
vachi 15th May 2009
from the side curves to the wheel, did these guys just love
their color ipods, even the colors are so close to the ipods,
are they trying to get sued ?
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That's what I was going to say . . .
JLHenry Updated - 15th May 2009
Unless that's not a real photo, they can expect a lawsuit from Apple on this one. That wheel is IDENTICAL to the one on my iPod mini . . .

*** UPDATE ***

That IS a REAL photo (follow the link to their website). Unless they're OWNED by Apple, expect a lawsuit . . .
0 Votes
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E-Readers downfall is all books are tied to own devices
Randalllind Updated - 17th May 2009
If you get this reader you can only install books for their store. Kindle from Amazon etc etc

Also Kindle 1.0 books don't work in Kindle 2.0 reader. So this is why I will not buy one.

E-books should have a standard like you can play a mp3 in any player for the most part. E-Readers don't offer a standard format that works across devices.

They all do pdf but, you can't buy a book in pdf format.
0 Votes
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Not true, Cool-er supports open standards ebooks
gmeader 9th Jun 2009
The Cooler supports EPUB, FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPG AND MP3 and native PDF format documents so you can read any downloaded and torrented eBooks with ease.

EPUB is a free open international standard eBook format that is based on XML and is flexible for reflowable display on all sizes of device screens, unlike PDF. More info on EPUB on Wikipedia. Free software called Calibre can convert any ebook to this format.
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Not True on 2 of your 3 points
dblevins54 10th Jun 2009
Disagree on 2 of your points.

1) All of the books I had on my Kindle 1.0 were available on my new Kindle 2.0. The books from Amazon were immediately downloaded when I asked for them (took a few minutes). All of my books that I had loaded myself on the Kindle 1.0 worked on the new Kindle. I use the MOBI format.

2) Almost all eBooks are available in PDF formats (it is usually the default) from other eBook sellers. None of the Kindles support PDF natively. I do my own conversions from PDF to MOBI and it takes me about 15 minutes per book and 3 different applications! I have not tried Amazon's Beta PDF conversion so not sure how good it is. Microsoft's eReader format is better since it takes much less manual work to convert. Un-encrypted MOBI format files are best, no conversion needed. In all cases make sure you get non-DRMed versions of your eBook.

To me the big issue is new book availability. Are they available? How soon after Hardback release? Cost in comparison with the paper version? The answer to all of these questions favors the Kindle at this time. The cost of a Kindle eBook versus the paper version has more than paid for my Kindle.

I had a Sony e-Reader before the Kindle 1.0 and Sony still does not have the new book catalog that Kindle did on day 1. Sony?s web site was a pain to use (better now?) and the whole experience of getting a book on the Sony was as bad as the early days of MP3 players. Those 500,000 free books that Sony talks about are just as available on the Kindle with a few minutes of work.
0 Votes
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Fight from overseas?
Kaiwai 17th May 2009
How can you have a fight with Amazon from overseas when
Amazon have clearly stated that they hate their overseas
customers by refusing to sell it to overseas customers. The
kindle is exactly like the Zune - being sold by navel glazing
Americans who think that the world stops at the shores of
the US of A.
0 Votes
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RE: Can Cool-er e-reader undercut Amazon Kindle sales?
thammr 18th May 2009
There is lots of good content available for any truely open e-book reader. I'm not interested in a device that's tied to some bookstore, but if I had a truely open device that I could use to read PDFs, text files, word documents etc, it would save a huge amount of paper.
I don't want wireless or any other expensive and unnecessary junk, just a plain open reader with a USB port.
0 Votes
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RE: Can Cool-er e-reader undercut Amazon Kindle sales?
shadfurman 18th May 2009
The sad thing is, I doubt kindle is DRM heavy cause
thats the way Amazon wanted it. I think its that way
cause they were the first and took the brunt of the
initial release. They've broken the wake for everyone
else and prob won't see as good a return, unless they
are able to stay ahead of the competition (or the
competition stays behind) and the kindle is able to
hold the name brand (much as the iPod has done)
0 Votes
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Pay me now or pay me later
dblevins54 10th Jun 2009
?Bookstore (Titles): Over 750,000?, Wow that is impressive. Wonder how they did that? Even if they do the Sony thing of counting all of the Public Domain books that anyone can get for free (you do have to convert them yourself however) that is still an impressive 250,000 titles!

So I followed the link in the story to the bookstore and searched for one of my latest purchases ?Skin Trade? by Laurell K. Hamilton. The price is $21.56, not exactly a steal, the list price is $26.95. Amazon sells the Hard Cover book (real paper, 496 pages, 1.5 pounds) for $16.17, the Kindle version sells for $14.82. So on this one book I save $6.74. Since the Cool-er is $80 cheaper ($100 - $20 shipping, Kindle ships free) as soon as I buy 12 books like ?Skin Trade? the Kindle is cheaper.

That doesn?t even count the convenience of wireless download, shopping for and buying a book anywhere I can get a Sprint signal happy. And for now, free web surfing with a display that is readable in sunlight and big enough to be usable. And no need to worry if my coffee shop has Wi-Fi or not.
0 Votes
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good idea about headphones
gavin.chan 30th Sep
Thanks for sharing. Hi, do you have monster beats headphones ? We supply kinds of headphones by dr.dre. Buy detox headphones from dealingway.com at wholesale price. RYQh7

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