First Look: Cool-er Ebook Reader

[andygates]

I've been looking at readers for a few weeks, and today had a play in The Shoppe and succumbed to the Cool-er. Mostly because I think a reader should be fairly invisible, a portal not a gadget, and the competition (the Sony PRS-300 Pocket Reader) was much too cluttered with buttons around the page. I got both devices in my hand and it was a no-brainer.

The Cool-er fits my "magic size and shape" - a DVD case. It's a little narrower and slimmer, and weighs exactly the same as a DVD in its box - ie, bugger-all. The Sony was much more of a Quality Gadget - Sony don't make anything else - but it was heavier and thicker and just more gadgety. It's a thing of beauty and Sony fans will be righteous in their love, but I don't even want to see the reader, let alone squee over it.

The Cool-er also does HTML which the Sony doesn't, and quiet a bit of my stuff is HTML.

There's no software with it: you manage it all with file folders or you get Adobe Digital Editions for the DRM stuff (yeah, riiiight). That suits me just fine. Charging is handled through the USB cable, so it should charge fine from ad-hoc USB chargers like the FreeLoader if you need to.

It takes SD cards up to 4Gb, which is total overkill for books but not for PDFs which get hefty - if you're a PDF slut like me, this is ace. The crazy-toothed survivalist library can easily tuck in one corner of a big SD card without getting in the way, waiting the zombie apocalypse.

Graphics are okay - 8 greys, very rich PDFs look a bit arse (zines no, papers with graphs yes). Page turns are fast for its class.

Comments

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Very nice. How's their booklist? And what's the deal with the encrypted PDFs they sell? I guess my question is: can they remove from me the ability to read things I buy from them? Because I don't think Amazon has entirely come to grips with what a colossal fuckup that 1984 stunt was.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The DRM is with Adobe Digital Editions. You get a book on one computer and registered devices, and there's some loan and re-download support. They can't suck books from the device the way Amazon did, as far as I can see. I haven't looked into it much deeper but take a look at coolerbooks.com - the sales end is not as fresh as the Amazon or B&N stores at first glance.

When I go shopping, I'll report back on the experience; for now I'm gorging on the glut of stuff I already have.

There are some UI annoyances. The status bar setting is forgotten on reboot (you should never need to, but apparently corrupted PDFs bounce it); the folder navigation is a little wonky compared to how I'd intuit it, but nothing insane. I like the fairly stiff, clicky buttons - that's another design decision I agree with that some reviewers hate.

[calum]

Does it cope with large PDF files?

E.g. if sad geek me wanted to put a 500 page RPG rulebook on there, would it work?

Can it follow PDF bookmarks?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The screen's not big enough for RPG rulebooks, really. You can make and use bookmarks; I'm not sure if it picks up on bookmarks set up within the PDF (I'm not a great PF boi; I'll check with some technical manuals at work later).

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

The DRM is with Adobe Digital Editions. You get a book on one computer and registered devices, and there's some loan and re-download support.

Meh. I'm kinda hoping that the whole DRM stupidity in ebooks eventually gets tossed down the chute, to reside in the Bad Idea Dumpster next to DRM in music.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Likewise. I have no love nor regard for it.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Actually, with a bit more digging, their booklist is weak. The device has native epub support so it shouldn't be hard to find stuff.

[skean.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombies:_A_Record_of_the_Year_of_Infection

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Eh?

[skean.livejournal.com]

It's a journal with practical experience and illustrations. The guy was/is a doctor and birdwatcher - made some very good sketches of the zombification process, and gave first hand tips on how to deal with them and life during a necrotic infection.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Ah, for the apocalypse? I understand now.. though alas it's paper.

Much more useful are crazy-hat classics like When There Is No Doctor (surgery with an axe!).