Recently Purchased a Cool-ER

[sassanik]

In the news thread we had several pictures posted of real life Cool-ers that people bought.

See:


https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...hlight=Cool-er

some of the purple one:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...Cool-er&page=4


Amy

[acolsandra]

[QUOTE=orwell2k;609446]No such luck in Netherlands, I'm afraid. Stores like Media Markt have the usual suspects like Sony, but I want FB2 support.

Hi,

In the Netherlands you can buy it at bol.com, here is the link:

http://www.bol.com/nl/l/elektronica/.../10/index.html

greetings Sandra

[mtravellerh]

Golly, those are expensive on BOL! It is a nice, fast hardware, but this is REALLY too much!

I love my Cool-er after the firmware update. I had the no bootup issue, too and succeeded to upgrade my Cool-er successfully. Handling those three buttons (Ok, third side button and reset) is a bit of a challenge, but it worked out nicely. I discovered a nice aside bonus, btw. if you have a Sony=Ericsson handy (with the mini USB-plug) you can use that loader to reload your Cool-er battery while still being able to read. I like that!

By the way, the Cool-er is going now to the last read book, when you turn it on.

I did not have a lot of success with the FB2 files, btw. They might be readable, but I really didn't care too much about them. RTF was not something I will upload there either. I have now mostly epubs on my reader (I have scaled those up to 130%) and they are just displaying greatly. So are the reflow PDFs (I read only text PDFs, no technical stuff) and the PRC/Mobi are a good alternative (those are displayed without cover but fine otherwise)

I would love to have a bigger base font size (16pt?) on the epubs in a future FW update, though!

[AJW]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

By the way, the Cool-er is going now to the last read book, when you turn it on.

I want that feature! I'm hoping for a quick turn around on my first cool-er when I manage to remember to post it off for them to repair.

I don't dare do the F/W upgrade on my second unit now until I've got the first one back so I'll at least have one working e-reader.

[AJW]

Here are some shots of a formatted FB2 book and the font layout menu

Font Selection Screen

NTX New Font

Georgia Font

Courier Font

After I took these shots I noticed the ghosting of the menu on the page. This goes after you turn the page the first time after being back in the book from the Menu. The shots make it look more intrusive than it is due to the flash.

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by AJW

After I took these shots I noticed the ghosting of the menu on the page. This goes after you turn the page the first time after being back in the book from the Menu. The shots make it look more intrusive than it is due to the flash.

Just paginate forward and back again when that happens!

[AJW]

Deleted

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by AJW

Feel free to send me over a file you'd like me to try out, I'll pm you my e-mail address if you'd rather send it directly.

I'll get a shot of the font menu tonight so you can see how that works.

What I found oddest about the Txtr device is that with all the formats it supports, and a name like that, it apparently doesn't support txt files!

I've not really experimented with battery life, my reading time varies wildly from day to day, but I heard that lithium-polymer batteries survive longer when they're charged more frequently compared to when they're run down to nothing routinely, so I've been charging it every few nights. The battery hasn't been going down very fast in that time.

Well, I found that to be true. At first, I was a bit disappointed with the battery life (2 days), but I didn't turn the device off because I have a LOT of books on that thing and because it didn't jump back to the last read book and I Do read a lot. Now it lasts a week or so easily (with turning the device off at night when I'm sleeping)

[orwell2k]

Originally Posted by AJW

Here are some shots of a formatted FB2 book and the font layout menu
...
After I took these shots I noticed the ghosting of the menu on the page. This goes after you turn the page the first time after being back in the book from the Menu. The shots make it look more intrusive than it is due to the flash.

Thanks so much for that! I really like the layout. It seems to me that on the Cool-ER like on the BeBook, FB2 is displayed much better than ePub.

I don't know if it's the way ePubs are currently being formatted, if the rendering engines are still too immature (and will improve in time, I sincerely hope) or whether it is inherent in the ePub standard itself. FB2 describes the book structure, and allows maximum flexibility for the user to adjust how the document "looks," within the limits of the reading software. ePub "seems" to be more rigid, but it could juct be the current way the standard is being (poorly) used and the current reader engines. I have read a lot of the ePub threads and quite frankly am no closer to unerstanding the intricacies of the problem.

Tell me, can you also load user-defined fonts onto the device to have more choices? Not that the choices you have are bad, but a few more might be nice, or if a user has a particular favourite font. I'm hoping there's a simple solution like on the BeBook, where you can load your own fonts into a /fonts folder at the root level of your memory, and there is also the possibility to load your own fb2.css file into a /crengine folder (uses CoolReader for FB2 and RTF). I'm not sure what Cool-ER uses - but I like the display and am seriously thinking of getting one!

I can't remember if you said this or not, but have you done the firmwar update, and has it provided noticeable improvement or not?

Thanks again.

[AJW]

I don't think you can load extra fonts into the software engine that runs the cool-er, however if you want to specify a font you could convert the books to PDF or other format that allows font embedding and just use those files.

Personally I like the way epub documents show up on the Cool-ER and find it nicer to read than many other formats. People on these boards seem to be saying it's the format of the future. If I have a choice I tend to buy things in epub format. When converting e-books from formats my reader doesn't support, I tend to convert them to epub.

I tried to update my firmware and it bricked my first Cool-ER. I'm posting it off to Interead tomorrow for a repair/replacement. I bought myself another in the interim because I couldn't bare to be without one after finding out how good they were. Hopefully they'll return one to me that does have the latest firmware on.

[dazcox]

Got my Cool-er from Argos last monday, was actually on way to waterstones to buy the Sony PRS-300, reading reviews on my phone and for some INSANE reason changed my mind, diverted to Argos and bought the Cool-ER.

Immediatly wasn't impressed with the build quality, but I'm careful with my toys so wasn't too worried.

On one hand, it is easy to use, and within minutes was ploughing through a novel. ADE was another story, as the device kept corrupting essential files for ADE every time it disconnected from the PC. Repeated installs of latest firmware (as per Intereads support) didn't help. 2 days later and the device wouldn't turn on at all.

Interreads support not overly helpful, so back to Argos and exchanged for another.

Worked great, updated to newest firmware with no problems, and ADE working fine (thanks to forum here I de-drm'd the epubs I'd bought anyway) but still not convinced.

I'm on my third book now, and still thinking I should have gone for the Sony.

If the device 'breaks' again it will be back to Argos for a refund for sure.

Anyone have comparative experience of both the Cool-ER and the Sony prs300?

[mtravellerh]

Originally Posted by dazcox

Got my Cool-er from Argos last monday, was actually on way to waterstones to buy the Sony PRS-300, reading reviews on my phone and for some INSANE reason changed my mind, diverted to Argos and bought the Cool-ER.

Immediatly wasn't impressed with the build quality, but I'm careful with my toys so wasn't too worried.

On one hand, it is easy to use, and within minutes was ploughing through a novel. ADE was another story, as the device kept corrupting essential files for ADE every time it disconnected from the PC. Repeated installs of latest firmware (as per Intereads support) didn't help. 2 days later and the device wouldn't turn on at all.

Interreads support not overly helpful, so back to Argos and exchanged for another.

Worked great, updated to newest firmware with no problems, and ADE working fine (thanks to forum here I de-drm'd the epubs I'd bought anyway) but still not convinced.

I'm on my third book now, and still thinking I should have gone for the Sony.

If the device 'breaks' again it will be back to Argos for a refund for sure.

Anyone have comparative experience of both the Cool-ER and the Sony prs300?

I've been heavily reading on my Cool-er for the last weeks (at least 200 pages a day) and had no problem whatsoever with ADE or the Cool-er (apart from those dumb page numbers on the right side).

[dazcox]

Originally Posted by mtravellerh

I've been heavily reading on my Cool-er for the last weeks (at least 200 pages a day) and had no problem whatsoever with ADE or the Cool-er (apart from those dumb page numbers on the right side).

Glad some people like it. Seems a lot have 'issues', hoping they go away as I'm hooked on the format.

[sassanik]

I got my replacement Cool-er a few days ago. The new firmware seems to be a good improvement. I use Calibre to transfer over my books to the Cool-er, though there have been a few that only transfered correctly when I did it through ADE, not sure why though.

So far no problems with this one, hopefully it will continue that way!

I imagine Interead has been pulling out its hair from all the returns it has had.

Does anyone actually use the 4 buttons on the left side? I have to say I do not. They are too small and I have to look at them to use them, which seems defeat the purpose of supposidly having those buttons. I just use the main wheel button.

Amy

[AJW]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Does anyone actually use the 4 buttons on the left side?

I only really use the Library button on the left side.

I never really change screen orientation or use the multimedia button, and the other button just does the same as the centre clickwheel button anyway.

I'm still waiting on Interead to get my original cooler back to me. I'm so glad I bought another one!