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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.
A website, www.coolerbooks.co.uk, offers more than 750,000 titles for download. The device is also available via the Cool-Er website at the same price.
Writing on his BA blog, Martyn Daniels stated: "http://bookseller-association.blogspot.com/2009/08/argos-goes-cool-er.html" target="_blank" title="The">http://bookseller-association.blogspot.com/2009/08/argos-goes-cool-er.ht... distribution partnership effective starts to shift ebook readers into the consumer product market and alongside the myriad of other electrical devices." According to Daniels, Argos has some 700 stores, a turnover of £4.3bn,claims 130 million customers and catalogues some 17 million UK households.
The Cool-Er joins an increasingly crowded market of e-book reading devices. Earlier this month, Blackwell started selling the BeBook device, priced £199, following the launch of an e-book store on its website.
Amazon is expected to launch its Kindle device by the end of the year. Borders' Elonex device has the same price as the Cool-Er and was launched into stores in June.
Waterstone's has been selling the Sony Reader for almost a year. Argos also sells the Sony Reader, priced at £224.99