Pogue trashes the Cool-ER

[=X=]

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.

Right but there is a difference between using a product as a "yardstick" and using a "beatingstick". Aside from the button and menu, All of his criticism against the Cool-er were features that where unique to the Amazon device, wispernet, wispernet store, blogs, newspaper subscription, and TTS. When he covers PDF he uses a brochure looking PDF and pretty much downplays PDF support. YOU got to be kidding!

Getting to the point replace the Cooler any other eBook Reader and most of his criticism apply.

Originally Posted by Gideon

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.

There is an old golf saying "Most games are lost before the first swing*". The subtle point I was trying to make was this review was heavily biased to the Kindle features. My take is review hand not intent to being fair, the review was it was an intentional slam, his PDF choice was designed to reduce the PDF support and his book search was designed to make the bookstore look bad(don't tell me he didn't run the same search on the kindle)

He omitted other importing features, removable storage, removable batter, batter life.

Originally Posted by Gideon

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.

Another example of how this guy did a bad job. DRM also exist on the Cooler yet he makes it seem like it does not.


*Golf Handicaps often favor an opponents strength making it difficult or impossible for the other to win.

[Alisa]

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.

In which case it reverts to functioning like other ebook readers. You load content via USB. Of course you still have lovely features like content search, annotation and dictionary lookup which few others have, as well as the biggest book selection usually at a lower price. Even if you removed the EVDO radio, I'd still find it the best device for my needs. It still may not be my ideal in every respect, but it's a tough package to beat.

[sassanik]

Originally Posted by brecklundin

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

That is disturbing! That you can get the k1 to work where cell phones aren't!


Amy

[RickyMaveety]

I doubt I would buy the thing, but it wasn't really fair showing that you can't get a Harry Potter book from their selection. I don't think you can get it for the Sony of Kindle either.

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

I doubt I would buy the thing, but it wasn't really fair showing that you can't get a Harry Potter book from their selection. I don't think you can get it for the Sony of Kindle either.

You can't get Harry Potter for anything, legally. So yeah, that wasn't playing fair.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by =X=

I found it interesting that when he mentioned amazon "TTS" no mention of this feature being disabled.

Yea, he also states how bad it is because you have to, oh horror, attach it to your PC to put books on it. Then later he says how much worse it is than the Sony reader, which IIRC requires that you hook to a PC to transfer books. (or yes via the SD card which you can do on the cooler thing)

BOb

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by =X=

My interpretation if this review was "if it's not it kindle it stink"! Pretty much all of his criticisms for not having all of the Amazon features. Essentially he could slam all the other eBooks for the same reason.

I found it interesting that when he mentioned amazon "TTS" no mention of this feature being disabled.

Did anybody notice when he criticized the eBook store for lack of ebooks and showed a "0" search result, he was looking for a "Harry Potter" book. He should have been fair and showed the same search on the Amazon page.

The video was great entertainment value but aside from that it was a very poor review.

Sorry I'm with John Stewart's view on the media, its the journalist job and responsibility to do a good job on any story they write
=X=

I work for Astak and am a competitor of the Cool-er... but even I feel that Poque was wrong in bringing in the Kindle by comparison. Poque lists all the things he likes about the Kindle ( wireless, text-to-voice, etc.) but never remotely touches on all the bad things about the Kindle (text-to-voice lawsuit, sound of text-to-voice, 80 Million buttons on the front, and the infamous "You buy Kindle, you buy Kindle eBook forever".

Jesus, how often do people want to change the font size anyway? YES, they do want to pick the size they need but once you pick it I would say you tend to stay with that size. To rip a device because you have 8 font choices and criticize it for having so many font choices that you have extra steps... that goes overboard.

Plus... wireless is not the best thing in the world. Many otherwise devoted eBook Reader fans would prefer to download thru the computer. I am not against wireless by any means... I am just saying that some want it and some do not. It is NOT a legitimate reason to rip an eBook Reader in comparison.

[RickyMaveety]

Change font size? Me, almost every damn day. Several times a day. It all depends on whether or not I can find my reading glasses. If I can't, it is big font time.

Never much use the wireless, but it is really nice to have when I need it.

Also, never have felt tied to the Kindle Store, although I do use it.

Having lots of buttons on the device doesn't bother me one bit, in fact, it makes it easier for me to search for specific books and/or specific text that I would otherwise be unable to find.

However, there are very few reasons to give a really crummy review to an ebook reading device, unless it doesn't do what it should do (which is let the user read ebooks), or is overpriced for what it does do.

And, of course, pulling a Harry Potter book into the mix is just ignorance on the part of the reviewer.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Ignorant seems to be a pretty good word to cover that review. Who does he think he is slamming that reader for being built in Taiwan? Where does he think most of his electronics come from anyways? How about Acer or Asus. Are they crap because they're from Taiwan? I for one would certainly feel more comfortable buying a product made in Taiwan than one made in China.

[Gideon]

11 or 14 or whatever button hits is still ridiculous for a common function. That is VERY bad UI design. Unless it's something as of such ridiculous importance as the "tell Grandma to put her shirt back on" button, it shouldn't be 11 buttons in on something that takes as long to do something like that as an eInk reader.

Personally, I feel like I just kicked a puppy every time I accidentally buy a .tpz book (like tonight :sigh . There are a number of books I'd currently buy in an instant if it wasn't in tpz format, but it is and I won't put my ebook money in Amazon's hands unless I know I can bail (as I learned when I bought an Adobe ebook from them YEARS ago and they quit supporting them.)

[Tuna]

Originally Posted by Gideon

11 or 14 or whatever button hits is still ridiculous for a common function. That is VERY bad UI design.

As I understand it, the problem here is selecting the last item in a long list - ie. clicking through a number of choices. You can get to the font size menu quite easily, but if you go from one end of the list to the other using just cursors it takes a few clicks. Again, Pogue seems to be picking his fights quite carefully.

That's not to say the Cool-er UI might need some work, but I don't think it's as bad as he makes out.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Tuna

As I understand it, the problem here is selecting the last item in a long list - ie. clicking through a number of choices. You can get to the font size menu quite easily, but if you go from one end of the list to the other using just cursors it takes a few clicks. Again, Pogue seems to be picking his fights quite carefully.

That's not to say the Cool-er UI might need some work, but I don't think it's as bad as he makes out.

As a device, I agree. But, sadly, in such a device, the UI can become very important.

[Tuna]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

As a device, I agree. But, sadly, in such a device, the UI can become very important.

I've said as much on the other Cool-er thread. It looks like Interead are relying on Netronix to provide the firmware. As an OEM manufacturer, Netronix are very unlikely to be able to deliver a UI that is up to the 'iPod for ebooks' comparison. If that's your goal, you need to develop something special in house which doesn't seem to be Interead's business model.

Two points of comfort for the Cool-er:

1. A UI doesn't have to be perfect to be perfectly useable.

2. Firmware updates can make a world of difference.

If they really want to be successful, they might have to rely on the latter, but the good price point and straightforward proposition of the Cooler makes it a contender in my eyes. Readers should be getting cheaper, not more expensive - a lot of the other devices seem determined to add on as many bells and whistles as possible and to up the price in the process.

Let's not loose sight of the fact that we're trying to justify a device costing hundreds of dollars as a replacement for books that cost a few dollars.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Tuna

I've said as much on the other Cool-er thread. It looks like Interead are relying on Netronix to provide the firmware. As an OEM manufacturer, Netronix are very unlikely to be able to deliver a UI that is up to the 'iPod for ebooks' comparison. If that's your goal, you need to develop something special in house which doesn't seem to be Interead's business model.

Two points of comfort for the Cool-er:

1. A UI doesn't have to be perfect to be perfectly useable.

2. Firmware updates can make a world of difference.

If they really want to be successful, they might have to rely on the latter, but the good price point and straightforward proposition of the Cooler makes it a contender in my eyes. Readers should be getting cheaper, not more expensive - a lot of the other devices seem determined to add on as many bells and whistles as possible and to up the price in the process.

Let's not loose sight of the fact that we're trying to justify a device costing hundreds of dollars as a replacement for books that cost a few dollars.

If a device got a bad name because the software sucks, it'll be very hard to get rid of that in a next version.

And no, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it must be easily useable. Sometimes, a small change can get rid of a major annoyance. Take that font-size changing for example:

You have:

1 5
2 6
2 7
4 8


Now, from what Pogue showed, you must go all the way down from 1 to 4, then from 5 to 8 to get the largest font. But, what if they had made a sideway control? You'd go from 1 to 5 down to 8. It's only a minor change, but can help a lot in the clicking. Or, just be able to move upwards (from 1 to 8) would also bring down the amount of clicking by half.

When you have enough of those (minor) points, the overall feel of the software will be terrible and thus, people won't like the device.

As soon as I saw the device I was thrilled. It was cheaper than the others, doesn't have all those bells and whistles (which, I think is a good thing!) and even looks good. But, in the end, you must work with it, and a clunkie UI can make you feel like you're not working with it, but fighting against it.

[Tuna]

Agreed.

Personally, I'd redesign the whole UI so that more use could be made of those four buttons on the left of the device as context sensitive short cuts. The menu structure and display could make quick navigation second nature, without disrupting quick access to functions whilst you read.

I'm hoping to get my hands on one when they come out and get a feel for what is possible. It may well be useable as is - I rarely actually want to swap from the smallest font to the biggest - and it's an interesting exercise to see where improvements might be made without redesigning the thing from scratch.