Review: New $250 Cool-er e-reader a bargain?
The Cool-er e-book reader comes in eight colors.
(Credit: Interead)In the U.S., the Amazon Kindle remains the most popular and best known e-reader on the market. But not everyone's ready to pay $360 for the device, and the Kindle doesn't appeal to international readers, because its wireless capabilities don't work overseas. And that's where upstart digital readers like Interead's Cool-er come in.
The product's name was inspired by the concept of a "cool e-reader" and it's the first consumer electronics product from Interead, which has offices in the U.K. and New York and also has a companion online e-book store to support the device. The Cool-er's claim to fame is that it's lighter, less expensive ($250), more colorful (it comes in eight colors), and more "open" than the Kindle, accepting a wider variety of file formats, much like Sony's e-readers do.
On many levels, including screen size and readability, the Cool-er matches the Kindle 2, and even beats it in terms of memory expansion, as there's an SD slot. We appreciated that the battery is removable and replaceable (Interead will send you a replacement battery for $5).
Read the full review to find out how good a deal the Cool-er really is.
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter. 
