Cool-er: light, trendy, inexpensive e-book reader - Page 22

sony_fox · 07-07-2009, 06:58 PM

mtravellerh

Quote:

I will send a second email to you containing a unique reference code so you can provide your payment details nearer the delivery date. Your COOL-ER will then be dispatched to arrive with you at the beginning of July.

Have you had your 2nd email yet? Are they actually shipping in July? Don't want to order one (for OtherHalf) until they've finished building them!

sassanik · 07-07-2009, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sony_fox

mtravellerh

Have you had your 2nd email yet? Are they actually shipping in July? Don't want to order one (for OtherHalf) until they've finished building them!

I got my confirmation email today.

Quote:

You are receiving this email because you recently submitted a COOL-ER pre-order form.
You are 3 steps away from completing your order.
1. Click the link below or copy and paste it into your internet browser to call up the page
2. Submit your unique pre-order reference number noted below
3. Complete the payment details screen and confirm your delivery details

So they should be shipping them in theory. :-)

Amy

Jill74 · 07-07-2009, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sony_fox

mtravellerh

Have you had your 2nd email yet? Are they actually shipping in July? Don't want to order one (for OtherHalf) until they've finished building them!

Me either. I'll just wait for them to finish it.

mtravellerh · 07-08-2009, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jill74

Me either. I'll just wait for them to finish it.

I actually paid yesterday. Waiting for the shipping here.

DaleDe · 07-08-2009, 03:04 PM

Well, the big question for someone to answer is how many levels of grayscale will this device really support, 8 or 4.

Dale

Robertb · 07-08-2009, 03:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, the big question for someone to answer is how many levels of grayscale will this device really support, 8 or 4.

Dale

The Cool-er and Mentor Lite are essentailly the same. 4 levels of grey scale and neither has the Epson.

wallcraft · 07-08-2009, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Well, the big question for someone to answer is how many levels of grayscale will this device really support, 8 or 4.

We need some good ePub and/or PDF test documents with images (to test ADE), as well as stand-alone images (to test the image viewer). There are candidates in Manga on Kindle/Cybook/V3 - Automatic Photoshop Image Conversion! and More display issues on the DR.

netseeker · 07-08-2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robertb

4 levels of grey scale and neither has the Epson.

Are you sure?

http://www.coolreaders.com/specifications.asp:

Code:

Screen
Levels of Greyscale  	8

mtravellerh · 07-08-2009, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wallcraft

We need some good ePub and/or PDF test documents with images (to test ADE), as well as stand-alone images (to test the image viewer). There are candidates in Manga on Kindle/Cybook/V3 - Automatic Photoshop Image Conversion! and More display issues on the DR.

I'll keep that in mind

DaleDe · 07-08-2009, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by netseeker

Are you sure?

http://www.coolreaders.com/specifications.asp:

Code:

Screen
Levels of Greyscale  	8

Exactly, that is why I asked the question. We need to find out of they are mistaken and get the information corrected. To test you have to distinguish between hardware support and dithering. This may take a magnifying glass to see the speckles.

Dale

mr.ninja13 · 07-08-2009, 05:12 PM

Hi all,

I got my second mail this morning and when I came back from work my cool-er was waiting for me! :-)

I did not have any time to do any indepth tests, but the grayscale levels look definitely 8 to me, there's quite a noticeable difference compared to the Cybook screen.

Build quality is ok, on par with the cybook i'd say, it does actually look quite nice.

Regarding the "stiff" buttons, again they feel exactly as stiff as the ones on the bookeen, the fact that they're flush with the case make them slightly more awkard to operate.

And the packaging included a 3.5 to 2.5 jack converter!

Paolo

mr.ninja13 · 07-08-2009, 05:53 PM

A couple of other points, the lack of documentation is quite shocking, there's no full manual on the device, and all what's available is the basic "quick start" guide.

The device feels quite faster than the cybook (booting, changing pages etc).

The default fonts are a bit underwhelming.

And it can read non-drm mobipocket prcs, although they load really slowly and the quality is frankly, a mess, with most tags ignored so that the book ends up being a massive uninterrupted text.

paolo

wallcraft · 07-08-2009, 06:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr.ninja13

And it can read non-drm mobipocket prcs, although they load really slowly and the quality is frankly, a mess, with most tags ignored so that the book ends up being a massive uninterrupted text.

This sounds like FBReader. It processes the entire ebook on start-up, so it is slow initially and then fast from then on. It also does not put page breaks between chapters in MOBI (although it does in some other formats). Another "tell" for FBReader is that it does not allow access to the cover image. If it is using FBReader, then I would expect more formats than (PDF/ePub via ADE and): FB2, RTF, TXT, HTML, PRC. In particular, it should also support Plucker - however .pdb is so confusing that perhaps they decided to ignore all .pdb files rather than supporting only a couple of the many .pdb ebook formats.

mr.ninja13 · 07-08-2009, 06:51 PM

Wallcraft, yes that does make sense...

I cannot test other formats now, but it does behave exactly as you said (no covers shown for prcs for instance).

Upon cold boot it did display a message saying something like "loading nvx reader" or something like that (I can't rember the exact name now). This message is the same that in the pre-production shots on engadget said "loading FBReader".

Good to see that the cool-er does support other formats, but I think I'll keep my Cybook for reading prc files, unless the way mobipocket books are displayed on the cool-er improves in a future firmware update.

rixte · 07-08-2009, 06:54 PM

Thanks for all of the information! If you happen to have any impressions on battery life over the next couple of days I'd love to hear them (particularly compared with the Cybook)

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07-08-2009, 03:04 PM	#320
DaleDe Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,470 Karma: 13095790 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Grass Valley, CA Device: EB 1150, EZ Reader, Literati, iPad 2 & Air 2, iPhone 7	Well, the big question for someone to answer is how many levels of grayscale will this device really support, 8 or 4. Dale

07-08-2009, 05:12 PM	#326
mr.ninja13 Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2009 Location: UK Device: Cybook Gen3	Hi all, I got my second mail this morning and when I came back from work my cool-er was waiting for me! :-) I did not have any time to do any indepth tests, but the grayscale levels look definitely 8 to me, there's quite a noticeable difference compared to the Cybook screen. Build quality is ok, on par with the cybook i'd say, it does actually look quite nice. Regarding the "stiff" buttons, again they feel exactly as stiff as the ones on the bookeen, the fact that they're flush with the case make them slightly more awkard to operate. And the packaging included a 3.5 to 2.5 jack converter! Paolo

07-08-2009, 05:53 PM	#327
mr.ninja13 Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2009 Location: UK Device: Cybook Gen3	A couple of other points, the lack of documentation is quite shocking, there's no full manual on the device, and all what's available is the basic "quick start" guide. The device feels quite faster than the cybook (booting, changing pages etc). The default fonts are a bit underwhelming. And it can read non-drm mobipocket prcs, although they load really slowly and the quality is frankly, a mess, with most tags ignored so that the book ends up being a massive uninterrupted text. paolo

07-08-2009, 06:51 PM	#329
mr.ninja13 Member Posts: 20 Karma: 10 Join Date: May 2009 Location: UK Device: Cybook Gen3	Wallcraft, yes that does make sense... I cannot test other formats now, but it does behave exactly as you said (no covers shown for prcs for instance). Upon cold boot it did display a message saying something like "loading nvx reader" or something like that (I can't rember the exact name now). This message is the same that in the pre-production shots on engadget said "loading FBReader". Good to see that the cool-er does support other formats, but I think I'll keep my Cybook for reading prc files, unless the way mobipocket books are displayed on the cool-er improves in a future firmware update.

07-08-2009, 06:54 PM	#330
rixte Addict Posts: 300 Karma: 396757 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: new oasis, paperwhite, ipad, kobo	Thanks for all of the information! If you happen to have any impressions on battery life over the next couple of days I'd love to hear them (particularly compared with the Cybook)

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