Cool-Er e-book reader now sold in UK by large retailer, Argos
“Catalogue company Argos has become the latest retailer to sell an e-book reader. The Cool-Er sells for £189.99 and supports PDF and ePub formats. It has a six inch screen and can have 8,000 page turns on one battery charge.” – Bookseller.com.
Details: Citing pubishing expert Martyn Daniels, the Bookseller notes that “Argos has some 700 stores, a turnover of £4.3bn, claims 130 million customers and catalogues some
17 million UK households.” Yes, as other say, this is one more step toward e-books’ becoming a major consumer item. What’s more, it could be a reminder to Amazon not to neglect brick-and-mortar stores in pushing the Kindle—whatever the country involved. So far, the Kindle is officially sold only in the States, although the rumor is that it’ll reach the U.K. by year’s end.
Cool-Er will continue to offer its reader through the Net. So what’s ahead? Cool-Er in the U.S. at places such as Best Buy?
Related: Argos site and its Cool-Er listings.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:50 am
Sony’s 505 reader has recently dropped price in many shops. The previous price was between £200 and £230 but now you can get for £150-£180.
Given the extra formats the Sony reader copes with, what convincing argument is there to buy the Cool-er aside from the groovy colours?
August 21st, 2009 at 4:13 am
Thanks, Mark. Helpful info. This was more of a news item than an assessment of the Cool-er, but yes, many reviews would agree with you—for example, Gizmodo’s. Reviewers don’t like the interface, but at least the current Cool-er can read Adobe-DRMed files (PDF alert) (not that I’m a fan of DRM!), so that’s one thing to consider. Thanks. David
P.S. I’ll post a query and see if any Cool-er owners want to speak out.