Recently Purchased a Cool-ER

[dazcox]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

I'm more than happy with my reader and love the whole ereading experience. Ain't gonna jump through hoops backwards or break laws to buy books, though. I can't even be bothered to work out what all this fancy tech-talk means.

Imagine having to tread through that minefield if you want to phone out for a pizza: Sorry, sir, the sans anchovies pizza is not available to anyone in a street beginning with the letter 'T'; sure we'll deliver immediately, but I'm afraid the pizza box is locked and you don't have the right to a key because you live in a bungalow; Our pizzas are a different shape to your table. Sorry. Sure we have the pizza you want, but if you opt for the microwave 7.4 re-heatable-but-crusty version, that'll be an extra five bucks. You kiddin' ... you want to share your pizza with a friend! You mad or wot?

Ereader manufacturers and ebook retailers (who should be separate entities) must come to their senses and realise that simple sells books and delivery devices. You can't expect to drive a reading revolution if you make ebooks tough to buy and encourage innocent readers to adopt shady practices to get around greed-built roadblocks.

Neil

Luckily no such measures are needed to actually use the device, epub works fine so theres the legal option. Kindle books and removing the drm may be more of a grey area, but the choice is up to each user.

I do agree though, this is all way to complex at the moment, until I could see myself recommending an ebook to my mother who is hardly tech savvy I don't see widespread adoption of them, and as such, little interest from publishers here in the UK.

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by neilmarr

Ereader manufacturers and ebook retailers (who should be separate entities) must come to their senses and realise that simple sells books and delivery devices. You can't expect to drive a reading revolution if you make ebooks tough to buy and encourage innocent readers to adopt shady practices to get around greed-built roadblocks.

Neil

Agree with your comments in principle.

Point of logic though: you assume the "Ereader manufacturers and ebook retailers" are trying to "drive a reading revolution." I would suggest it's a subtle difference, but these groups are interested in one thing and one thing alone - the bottom line.

Profit $ are what's in their eyes, nothing more nothing less. And if that aligns with a "reading revolution" then lucky for us, if not, screw us and squeeze us for every nickel (BTW, us = the readers and consumers).

The true drivers of the reading revolution are the readers - members of forums like this, freeware and open source software developers that create tools like Sigil, Calibre, FBReader and CoolReader, and define true open formats like FB2 that allow users to truly optimise their use of reading content.

Cynical? Maybe...

[sassanik]

Well I managed to seriously crash my Cool-er last night. I think the epub file was bad? Not sure, it got stuck on the title page of the book. It would not turn off or allow me to go to the library select page. I plugged it into the computer and it reset and came up on the computer to allow me to manage my library.

Then me being me... just had to try and open the same book again... which of course froze it again. This time when I plugged it in to the computer the screen did not change, it was still stuck on the title page. I left it overnight because the battery was low and needed to be charged anyway.

This morning it still would not turn on or off after I unhooked it from the computer. So I hit the reset button on the back and it came back up and went to the previous book to the one with the bad file.

This time I did not try to open the bad file... I do learn eventually!

Why is this good news? Well last time I had my Cool-er crash it got stuck on the gradient page and it was not recoverable at all, and had to be replaced.

While the crash was annoying I am happy that I did not have to send it back and that in the end it was a fixable problem.

Amy

[dazcox]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Well I managed to seriously crash my Cool-er last night. I think the epub file was bad? Not sure, it got stuck on the title page of the book. It would not turn off or allow me to go to the library select page. I plugged it into the computer and it reset and came up on the computer to allow me to manage my library.

Then me being me... just had to try and open the same book again... which of course froze it again. This time when I plugged it in to the computer the screen did not change, it was still stuck on the title page. I left it overnight because the battery was low and needed to be charged anyway.

This morning it still would not turn on or off after I unhooked it from the computer. So I hit the reset button on the back and it came back up and went to the previous book to the one with the bad file.

This time I did not try to open the bad file... I do learn eventually!

Why is this good news? Well last time I had my Cool-er crash it got stuck on the gradient page and it was not recoverable at all, and had to be replaced.

While the crash was annoying I am happy that I did not have to send it back and that in the end it was a fixable problem.

Amy

Thats good news Amy, at least the latest software doesn't seem as willing to give up completely; Hopefully there will be another update soon to fix any remaining bugs.

How's your battery life going? Mine is still rubbish, even after a few full cycles now kinda disappointed as had heard all about the sony readers and their 2 week battery life, and my cooler has to be charged every 2-3 days

[sassanik]

I would say that its battery life is roughly 4 books (assuming the books are 300-400 pages).Which depending on your reading speed could take 2+ weeks to do. I would say I am recharging it overnight at least once a week. Though to be fair I usually download new books onto the Cool-er a couple of times a week.

I think an estimate of 2000 page turns is reasonably accurate, if you count changing screens while selecting the book etc. I do not think 8,000 is anywhere near what it is, maybe if you only have one word of text on the page.

Amy