I got one on Sunday - saw it last Friday at BN and would have bought it on the spot, but they were out of the 4 reserved/refused ones, with the last sold in front of me
Luckily Best Buy near me got 5 on Saturday; after calling all the BN around and putting my name on their list at each, i found out Sat night that BB sells them too and when i saw that the Hartsdale store has them in stock, I was there Sunday morning at the open...
My Sony 700 died this spring after 18 months of heavy use when only the Itouch saw some reading use on the go and they replaced it with a cool, crisp and fast Sony 650 (extended warranty, so free but no more 700's) but the 650 has no reading light and it's very hard to use at home without lighting the house like a store since I hate reading lamps, book lights and all... Great for park, library/bookstore use, but...
So back to the faithful Nokia 770 still going strong since 2006 for home use and the joys of triple device book maintenance especially that Calibre services the PRS and the iTouch, but not the Nokia...
So when Nook Color was announced I was really curious - checked some earlier color readers like the Pandigital one at Best Buy which is slow and sluggish - and the in-store demo just sold me on it.
After using it for several days with both epubs and pdf's (some huge including with heavy color pictures and the like), Nook Color is just awesome.
I have pretty much only my content and deleted the BN stuff from the BN account and Calibre works perfectly with it, as does drag and drop on the PC.
I have tried web browsing and it does a decent job so i may use it the way i use my iTouch now when i need something online quickly somewhere where there is wi-fi (bed, library, bookstore, Mcdonalds and the like) but no more.
I have not tried music, audio books (except for the read aloud feature for one of the children book they offer as sample at Bn and that is good) or video since I have no interest in that for now on NC.
So I will talk about epubs, pdf's and miscellanea
Epubs: I use Sepia with varying brightness (in home 20%, lighted store closer to 50%, outdoors same though not yet seen it in bright sun - November and all). Excellent navigation with page cursor, fast, intuitive bookmarking, good in-book menu; fonts i use as they go but so far I need lower size than on the PRS 650 for reading - the NC is just clearer; bookmarks seem to be internal to the book and not in the same place as in the Sony line
Search works well though there is no enter page number, just cursor navigation, but with page displayed as you move the cursor and pretty fine cursor pinpointing at what number you want not the jerky one of the PRS
On the 650/700 go-to-page works better
Two ways of moving pages (swipe left page back, tap right page for ahead, the opposite for back)
Superb - and I cannot overemphasize this - rendering of Spanish, Romanian, French characters; seems to work only with European fonts perfectly and with others only in some cases as per the guide, so you need to use pdf's or embedded fonts in epubs for such, but for what i need it's just awesome
Pdf's: the best handling I've seen so far in a small device; crisp rendering of color pictures, fast zooms either with the fingers or with a screen button under the device; superb navigation with enter page# from the pdf in-book menu which is very different than the epub; no search, bookmarking or in-book links/contents so far and hopefully those will be added but that is a minor annoyance for now
Page number appears on top at a tap in a faded but big font so it's not a distraction and you need to remember it (roughly) if you change books, but the go-to-page is pretty instantaneous
Moving pages is done by swiping top-bottom ahead, bottom-top, back, though once in a while fiddling at the left/right edges with zooms moved pages also, but I am not sure why/how
Again cannot emphasize how fast is the pdf load and how crisp are the books - i have a double page scan admittedly of a small format book but still...that you can read in horizontal mode as is, without zooming, scrolling...
Can scroll and all if needed too while have no real idea how reflow works but the NC is so crisp, reflow is not needed most of the time unless the pdf started very small fonted so with lots of characters per page, otherwise just zoom it to the fit page and you can read it comfortably
Misc: library sees all your books if you put them in the appropriate place and while I had an issue once when I disconnected the NC and it said something about being corrupted (calibre was still putting a book on it and I forgot), restarting fixed it;
No delete in-device, need to use either the files or Calibre delete, while for BN books, need to go to your account there
have option of arranging books chronologically in access mode not like in the PRS line only in "when on device" mode - here access means "when on device" too, so adding new books bumps them to the top, but when you read from a book that goes to the top; this is just superb since in the PRS I needed to use Notes for that, in the iTouch there is only a 5 book limit (for Stanza which is the only thing i use there btw) and FbReader on the 770 used to have up to 100 recent book remembering, but now it has only 10
Here no issue; can order on authors/title but do not need; same with other ways of displaying the library in which i am not interested - just chronological list; I do not use shelves and the like since search gives me any book on NC instantly and chronological order allows me to move in-between the latest reads directly (for pdf's as above, need to go-to-page since no bookmarking or remembering of place-in-book for now, but again that is fast)
Library or whole NC search impressive and real time - type one letter, two letters... it gets you there; that + chronological ordering makes perfect
Book covers - hit or miss as others noted, but could not care less
Weight/handling - while the PRS is lighter, the NC feels solid and it's not a drag reading one handed and writing or doing something else; does not feel to have 1 lb, while the form size is perfect (the biggest failure of the iPad for a reader like me is that it essentially needs 3 hands and it's a bit on the heavy side too)
Charging/USB connection - so far, so good; heavy use gave me good hours (4-5 and i had 50% left -you can check precise battery charge with the in_nook menu under device, as well as see it on an outside bar roughly) and I charge it daily, but I miss USB charging and the prop. adapter is ultra-annoying; hopefully it won't break; the switch of the cable from USB slot to charger slot is also annoying, i would have preferred two cables
No cover/sleeve so far, I use the shorter one from the PRS 650 which is ok; i plan to get a NC sleeve soon (goes for 9$ on eBay or 20$ at BN) ; I feel that cover would add too much bulk and i had no issues with my PRS 650 in a sleeve and even preferred it to the Prs 700 in its cover
Overall look - superb, elegant - with indicators for time (another pet peeve with the 700 and the Nokia 770 too for that matter), battery, sounds (have in-book on, system off) automatic notice indicator (eg when in BN it tells you can connect to them and read books for free..)
No buttons except for home and I do not mind that
BN in-store works beautifully - tried it twice (Su, Mo) and (fast) read one 700 book end-to-end (have a review copy for anyone questioning the propriety of that) in two sittings, tried another book and read about half too though this one seem to have page limits for in-store free reading or just that i have reached the hour, though the message i got said mentioned page limits (have a rv copy of that too)
The only negative is that now everyone in my family (eg my 9 year old son who was not really interested so far in reading from my 650 despite him being a heavy reader of print books and me having the odd upcoming pdf rv copy of children books he wants or the odd Gutenberg children books like Verne or Malot) wants it too...
Take a look at it in-store and you will see if it wows you, but personally i think that NC truly enriches book reading (it's not paper, but who cares - books were printed on regular paper in b&w for cost first foremost)