Cool-er Reader

"We make reading cool". That's what's written on the back of the Cool-er. At this point you're probably either gagging or grinning, and this reaction will play a very large part in how you feel about this latest entrant to the cluttered eBook reader market.

As will your feelings towards Apple. The Cool-er resembles an iPod flattened by a rolling pin, or at least an iPod circa 2002. The click wheel, smooth curves and a selection of eight vibrant colours - including Vivid Violet and Hot Pink - may impress from a distance, but the moment the Cool-er hits your hand it's clear this is not Apple's progeny.

The plastic case feels cheap, although it is a pre-production sample, and the four menu buttons are stubborn when they should be yielding. This is made all the more aggravating by the click wheel which won't register two clicks in quick succession for some reason. And it creaks when flexed. Sheds and ships creak; £164 gadgets should not.

The Cool-er's devotion to plastic means it weighs an astonishing 178g, compared to the 260g of our A-Listed Sony Reader PRS-505. Indeed, it's so light we half expected it to float off the desk whenever we opened the window. It also left us so worried about dumping it in a bag with heavy books, keys and the rest of life's paraphernalia that we chose to carry it around in the hand instead. A rough and tumble sort of gadget this isn't.

Of course, aesthetics are only half the story and thankfully the Cool-er gets it right where it matters. Though based on the same Netronix reference design as the Cybook Gen 3, the hardware's had an overhaul. The 6in E Ink screen renders in eight shades of grey rather the Cybook's four, leading to crisper text, while a selection of three font styles and eight font sizes means all eyes are catered for. An ability to play audiobooks in the MP3 format makes it an expensive option for the blind.

The Cool-er also goes a long way to addressing one of our major eBook bugbears: speed. Every eBook reader that's come knocking on our door has been slower than a footballer ploughing through a Mr Men book. The Sony PRS-505, for example, requires two seconds to change page - which is something you get used to over time, but only grudgingly. The Cool-er, with its 400Mhz ARM processor, is much faster, requiring no more than a second between page turns.

This sexing up of the hardware also means there's 1GB of memory built in, enough for around 800 books, with an SD slot offering the possibility of an additional 4GB for those still wading through Robert Jordan's never-ending Wheel of Time series. The lithium ion battery is good for around 8,000 page turns on one charge, making it ideal for long journeys. In fact, the only objection we have to the spec sheet is the limited format support: the Cool-er will recognise JPEG, PDF, EPUB and TXT files. Compared to the BeBook, or even the PRS-505, it's a remarkably stingy list and will prove a deal breaker for those looking for DOC or Mobipocket support.

Unlike the Kindle, the Cool-er does not offer luxuries such as a hardware keyboard or Wi-Fi, and for its £164 exc VAT price tag we'd be stunned if it did. Instead it hooks up to your PC or Mac through the supplied USB cable, with texts loaded through Adobe's Digital Editions software, or by dragging and dropping onto the device.

Anybody looking to fill up their digital library can hit the coolerbooks.co.uk online book shop, which claims to offer 750,000 titles and a 25% discount on all listed prices for Cool-er owners. That just may be, but at the time of review a quick search turned up precisely one Stephen King novel and only one by current Hollywood favourite Cormac McCarthy, which is hardly a ringing endorsement. It's also worth remembering that books downloaded from the site come in the ePub format and are subject to DRM, which means you have to unlock them through Adobe's Digital Editions. They can then be used on five registered eBook readers.