Pogue trashes the Cool-ER

[Gideon]

He was addressing the Cool-er AGAINST the Kindle, not against "every ebook reader ever." The kindle, because of people's public awareness and its popularity, have become the yardstick. Maybe it stinks, but it's the case. It's like every phone being compared to the iPhone now.

I like it when journalists do a thourough job as well, and the Harry Potter thing annoyed me too, but I also believe reviewers don't have to get into the minutia of a subject.

Personally, I was thrilled he mentioned the DRM stuff with the kindle. Half the time you see an article about it (like the 9.99 article) no one mentions the straps these things put you in.

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Alas I can't afford a kindle currently and none of my friends have one. I currently have a eb1150, which is awesome, and my iphone. I would not be adverse to trying out a kindle if someone would want to loan me one for a few weeks!

I think the kindle would definately benefit from people being able to see it in person and try it out at a store. I tried out a Sony PRS 505 at the Sony Store.

Anyway I think its very exciting that we are getting more and more ereaders on the market!

Amy

I understand completely. I only bought mine because I had a great summer season last year with 3 big projects that all paid off at the same time. Talk about the planets aligning. Still, I found it did not fit how I prefer to read. OTOH, my better half, she does like it. She reads 3-10 novels/month on it. But she doesn't use half of what it can do. One bonus is I can buy Kindle books I want then find a way to read them on my other devices. But to be honest, the few books I have bought were experiments to either see how they looked or if "adjustments" could be made so I could device shift. Which is legal here so no problem just one of this "we dare not give it a name" sorta things on MR...

Without a doubt being able to handle the device would help many people. Especially those for whom this would be a significant investment, for some equal to their annual book buying budget at the used book store for a year. That is a lot to ask of the vast majority of avid readers out there.

Hopefully you'll run across a Kindle somewhere...and the owner be willing to allow you to try it out for a brief period. There is always the 30-money back thing, but Amazon seems to have gotten a tad cranky people actually were taking them up on that offer. I suspect there were a lot of those selling the Kindles on ebay at huge markups early on and then returning the ones which did not sell in 20-days or whatever. Do that a couple times and everyone pays the price eventually.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Gideon

Dang.... Course Harry Potter isn't on any ebook reader, but still.... dang.

I need to check out their "book store" and see if there is anything to it. Somehow I imagine it's almost all public domain stuff.

Yes, and that (together with the not wireless part) is the one thing I don't like about the review. No other reader has wireless (yet), he should have mentioned that the sony doesn't have it either (as he does mention the sony once or twice). And he should have looked for Harry Potter Kindle format on Amazon.com too, to do a real comparison.

Originally Posted by Gideon

He was addressing the Cool-er AGAINST the Kindle, not against "every ebook reader ever." The kindle, because of people's public awareness and its popularity, have become the yardstick. Maybe it stinks, but it's the case. It's like every phone being compared to the iPhone now.

I like it when journalists do a thourough job as well, and the Harry Potter thing annoyed me too, but I also believe reviewers don't have to get into the minutia of a subject.

Personally, I was thrilled he mentioned the DRM stuff with the kindle. Half the time you see an article about it (like the 9.99 article) no one mentions the straps these things put you in.

I always get a rash as soon as one product becomes the yardstick for other products that do the same yet completely different things. It makes me want to avoid those products (unless it was the first of their kind, which it almost never is). You won't see me with an Iphone or Itouch for example.

[sassanik]

Kindles wireless capablity is also limited to areas that have whisper net access, which most major cities do, but if you are out in the middle of nowhere? or close to there there is a high chance that you won't be able to use the whisper net.

I am guessing the author did not search Amazon for a kindle version of Harry Potter?


Amy

[Gideon]

Well, lots of times the devices deserve to be the yardstick. Sometimes not. I'd say the iPhone/iPod touch does deserve it. I'd say the Kindle does, too, really. Both changed the nature of the game and turned a niche into a more mainstream product. If you're entering these markets - THESE are the products you have to be able to compete against. It's like someone releasing a MMORPG - if you can't beat Warcraft, then you're screwed. Which isn't to say Warcraft is better, etc etc... just that it pulls together the right traits to be a success in general.

Whatever one's opinion might be, the Kindle is sitting in a very different position than most other ebook readers. The other ebook readers are still niche products - working with rather small selections (ignoring public domain as everyone has that), high prices for their products, and a lack of public awareness of even their existence. This includes the Sony Reader. We can argue all day about tech specifications, or even the morality of the various stores but at the end of the day most ebook readers (in the US, at least) might as well be a fancy Nokia phone - nice products, cool design, maybe even superior to the iphone - but no one has them, there isn't much in the way of apps (books), and they're way too pricey.

We're here in e-reader fandom... we love our devices, love to talk about them, toy around with them, are intimately aware of the limitations and abilities of various devices. But we're not everyone. We're not even most people. I think the Pogue review is (mostly) pretty legitimate in the 'average consumer' sector sort of way. And we have to keep that in mind. If it was aimed at us he'd be doing a huge disservice, but he's not.

[tech_au]

Originally Posted by Alisa

I would like to hear more about how the books are shareable. I can share my books with up to 6 people with Kindle but I have to register them to my account. .

I would say that when he said the books are shareable it means that you can have multiple devices registered with your adobe DE account and that you can copy them onto multiple devices just like you can with the Sony reader and Adobe DE.
I must say it does look like a cheap plasticy reader designed at a low dollar point
Maybe thats what the market needs to break into mass acceptance.

[Gideon]

If you need any proof of this... take a look at the comments at this thread at Gizmodo. These ARE tech geeks, but not ebook geeks. And they have no clue what they're talking about.

Gizmodo

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Kindles wireless capablity is also limited to areas that have whisper net access, which most major cities do, but if you are out in the middle of nowhere? or close to there there is a high chance that you won't be able to use the whisper net.

I am guessing the author did not search Amazon for a kindle version of Harry Potter?


Amy

Amy,

We travel A LOT for business and mostly it is to the middle of nowhere. And while I know there are pockets w/o Sprint access, that is no different than other options. We have access in national parks which both impressed and scared me...the limited coverage info aorund is not that accurate. Edge might have a slightly larger area but in our case it never has mattered. In fact the stupid K1 of ours can usually still get access when the phone craps out... sigh...hehehehe

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by discourse

3. Freedom to buy and get tons of free books and content from more than one place

This is true of the Kindle as well. Assuming people don't strip DRM, Cool-Er has the advantage of reading DRM PDF books, but Kindle has the advantage of reading DRM AZW books. Everything else can be converted so can be read on either device. But the Cool-Er's PDF reading is really not practical, so ...

As for button presses, I agree he's exaggerating a bit. But the point is, when you compare it to the Kindle, almost any device that doesn't have it's own font size button is going to require more clicks to do the same job.

[sirbruce]

Would you guys say an image editor shouldn't be compared to Photoshop?

[Tuna]

I wonder if Interead are going to suffer from the two separate products they're launching being seen as a single offering? With the Kindle, you're also buying into Amazon's store. With the Cooler, you don't need to use the Cooler book store, which could be regarded as a positive benefit - particularly if Google are entering the arena with epub books. If they're seen as a single entity Interead needs both the book and the store to review well - double the risk for a new product.

It's funny that when Microsoft attempts to tie people into using their software, the world gets up in arms. When Amazon tie you into their bookstore it's seen as a positive benefit. Comparisons with the Kindle are also particularly frustrating for those of us living outside of the US where it's largely irrelevant at the moment.

If Interead are paying attention, they'll be working hard to address the issues raised in the reviews about the user interface and buttons. Small tweaks at this stage could pay dividends.

PDF support is also a strange issue. The format is really not suited to ebooks - unless they're full page size - so including it is a double edge sword. It's nice to be able to read them at all, but people's expectations are way above what the format can offer on any small screen device.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by sassanik

Kindles wireless capablity is also limited to areas that have whisper net access, which most major cities do, but if you are out in the middle of nowhere? or close to there there is a high chance that you won't be able to use the whisper net.

The coverage is actually pretty good:
http://www.showmycoverage.com/mycoverage.jsp?id=A102ZON

But, uhh, compare that map to the coverage of the Sony or the Cool-Er? Which is non-existant. So...

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Tuna

I wonder if Interead are going to suffer from the two separate products they're launching being seen as a single offering? With the Kindle, you're also buying into Amazon's store.

You're buying ACCESS into Amazon's store. You're not required to use it and can still get non-DRM ebooks from many other places. With Cool-Er, you get NO access into Amazon's store.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Would you guys say an image editor shouldn't be compared to Photoshop?

Nope, it should be compared with Paint Shop Pro

As for button presses, I agree he's exaggerating a bit. But the point is, when you compare it to the Kindle, almost any device that doesn't have it's own font size button is going to require more clicks to do the same job.

I think it only mentions it because it would have made more sense if you could have gone sideways to the next column, instead of having to go down one column then the next (or maybe he just didn't figure that out himself )

[kacir]

Originally Posted by sassanik

I think that the cool-er not having a wireless connection is not a big deal.

It IS a big deal.
- I do not want company that sold me the device to be able to have a peek at the documents I am reading currently.
- I do not want the company that sold me the device to be able to push firmware updates (that can actually disable certain features on the device. like TTS) without me expressly asking for it.
- I do not want the company that sold me the reader to be able to delete documents from my device when I switch on the wireless.
- I do not want the company that sold me the device to be able to track my physical geographical position (yes, you can do that if you have cell phone hardware switched on. They send you a ping and they can triangluate your position using the towers that can "see" your device. (I am aware that this is Tin Foil Hat stuff, and that it would not be possible without cooperation with the mobile service provider, but it *is* technically doable.))