Hot For Cool-ER: Kindle Challenger Steps To The Plate

Can Cool-ER slay Amazon's Kindle? Can any e-reading device? The growing market for e-readers will get a little more crowded next week thanks to Interead.com, which on Monday will release its Cool-ER e-book reader.

At first glance, the Cool-ER doesn't have much in the way of a hook—and if there's to be a Kindle killer on the horizon, it's going to need something special to stake its claim—but it's still representative of frenzied interest by vendors to get out in front of the exploding e-book market.

According to U.K.-based startup Interead.com, which posted specs and release information on its Coolreaders Web site the Cool-ER has a 6-inch screen with an E-ink display and measures 7.2 x 4.6 x 0.4 inches.

The device will cost $249, which makes it $100 cheaper than Amazon's Kindle and a solid $249 cheaper than Amazon's large-screen Kindle DX. So far, the Cool-ER will only be available through the Web site but, according to Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, Interead.com is "actively pursuing distribution deals to put the reader in electronics stores, supermarket chains, department stores and bookstores."

In a blog post earlier this week, Rotman Epps, who recently discussed the Amazon Kindle DX's viability and Amazon's plans for its Kindle iPhone application with ChannelWeb, suggested the Cool-ER reader would help expand consumer choice, put pricing pressure on market leaders and encourage innovation in the e-reading market.

"The Cool-ER Reader will be one of many e-reader products coming on the market in the next few years," Rotman Epps wrote. "By itself, it won't make a huge impact on the market, especially considering its lack of wireless, its currently limited distribution, and its relatively high price point."

Interead.com's Cool-ER is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X, but runs Linux. It includes 1 GB of storage, 128 MB of RAM, an SD expansion slot that adds 4 GB, and a 400MHz Samsung S3C2440 ARM. The battery life, according to Interread, is described as 8,000 page turns.

The manufacturer of choice for Interead's Cool-Er Reader is Netronix, the Taiwanese company also responsible for Bookeen, Astak Mentor and other e-reading products. There are a great many e-book readers and e-reading applications out there beyond Amazon, Sony and the other big names in the market—and that number is expected to grow.

For the moment, Amazon's Kindle remains top dog, and Amazon is expanding the Kindle's features and capabilities all the time. The most recent update, which came earlier this week, is the ability to read notes made in Kindle on the Web. Kindle users can make notes and highlights on the device itself but now, according to Amazon, they can log into their Kindle account through Amazon's main page and see their annotations there as well.