If you like to read books, the ebook reader may be the device for you. This device allows you to read electronic books as if you are reading paper. It also allows you to store virtually thousands of books in one small device; just imagine carrying that number of books with you everywhere you go, quite impossible! Ebook readers are very convenient! Also, you don’t have to be a tech-savvy kind of person to appreciate this wonderful device. Ebook readers are often built with user-friendly features. Also, companies attempt to make their ebook reader products more mainstream.
COOL-ER is an ebook reader from a company called COOLREADERS. One of the objectives of this device is to create an ebook reader which has a better mainstream availability than most of the high-end ebook readers in the market, including Kindle and Sony.
FEATURES
One of the most noticeable features of COOL-ER is that it is very light. According to the COOLREADERS website, it is 45% lighter than other ebook readers. It is also very sturdy. If you want, you can drop it a few times on the floor. When you pick-it up and turn it on again, you’ll see that it works perfectly. Nobody in their right mind would do that though; just to be on the safe side.
From the outside, it looks like a huge iPod. It has a huge screen with a navigation controller at the lower left that looks like a wheel. This has to be a strategy to make the COOL-ER more mainstream. It also comes in 8 different colors which adds a personal touch to the device. You can choose between black, silver, red, blue, violet, hot pink, pale pink, and green. That’s a fairly wide range of color choices.
Buttons and slots
The COOL-ER looks very simple; it has very few buttons and slots. Let’s enumerate them by location. At the top, it has an SD card slot for memory expansion and the on-off slider switch. At the bottom, there’s an ear phone jack and a USB port connection for charging and file transfer. At the right, there is a rocker button to increase or decrease the font size of the ebook texts. Finally, at the left, there are four tiny navigation buttons. First is the Multimedia button which plays the music files. Second is the Orientation button which allows the user to switch reader view from portrait to landscape. Third is the Menu button, and last is the Library setting button. At the front, there is a five-way controller which navigates screen cursor to four different directions and has a middle button for selection. All these features contribute to easy control and reading.
Adding Books and other files
Once you turn on the COOL-ER, you can start reading already. It already comes with pre-loaded books which you can enjoy. If you want to add books, you can turn on your Mac or PC, go the COOLREADERS bookstore, buy some books, attach both ends of the USB cable to the Mac/PC and your reader, and drag and drop your books to the device. Aside from books, you can also add other files. The COOL-ER can accept various texts formats, such as PDF, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC, JPEG, MP3 and EPUB. Among reading formats, EPUB works best. PDF has line breaks that look very clumsy, and the same is true with TXT.
Onscreen
In the onscreen menu, there are several intuitive sub menus such as Start of Book, Table of Contents, Font Options, Search, Properties, and Exit to get out of the menu and back to the book. Even your grandparents can use this ebook reader, as long as they can still read the very readable huge font menus.
The e-ink technology of this device also contributes to ease of reading, because it allows the screen to look a lot like paper. Thus, it doesn’t produce glare and there is no back light which strains the eyes. Unlike paper though, the screen can only incorporate 8 levels of gray scale, i.e., no color. The same is true with other ebook readers, although some of them can incorporate more gray scale levels.
DOWNSIDES
1. The five-way controller is too embedded in the front surface, and its buttons are hard to press.
2. The background color is light gray. It should have been a bit more whiter; the more text-background contrast, the better.
3. Screen has relatively slow response time. Page loading can take long enough for you to wonder if it responded to your command.
CONCLUSION
Why should you buy a COOL-ER instead of the more popular Sony and Kindle series? For one, it is cheaper than most ebook readers today. A few ebook readers are cheaper, such as Astak. It also sits well in terms of functionality, and it looks very pretty. The COOL-ER can make you get hooked with reading the way a book captivates you.
