Comparison of the low-state SEDs and electron spectra for the two cooling descriptions. The blue dashed curves represent the model with continuous-loss approximation for cooling (Moderski et al. 2005), whereas green solid curves indicate the same model, but with the full non-continuous cooling term. Left panel: modelling of the low-state SED of 3C 279. The black points display the low-state data set of the source (Hayashida et al. 2012). The adjacent narrow bottom panel provides a zoom onto the SED ratio of the non-continuous to continuous-loss cooling description (in linear scale). Right panel: underlying low-state electron spectra for the two cooling descriptions. The electron spectra are shown in γ³N_e(γ) representation to better highlight the discrepancies between the two cooling models. Adjacent narrow bottom panels show the ratio of the electron spectrum between the non-continuous and continuous-loss cooling scenarios (in linear scale), with the second lower panel showing a zoom onto the Lorentz factor domain above 100.