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tecweston · 10-21-2011, 10:33 AM

Well, today marks one week that I've been using my Nook exclusively. I much prefer the design and feel of the Nook as opposed to the Kobo, and the text looks more like a real book (ie, indented paragraphs, text fills the entire page, etc). The presence of four physical page-turn buttons on the sides is also a plus, though not something I missed on the Kobo Touch.

One thing I don't like is that the screen does not display the cover of the book I'm reading in sleep mode, it only displays the scratchboard illustrations of dead authors we've all seen hanging up in Barnes & Noble stores. They're awesome illustrations, but after a while they get old, and I'd prefer it to display my book cover.

Side-loading Kobo books is super-easy, you just download the Adobe DRM epub off kobobooks.com and then drag and drop onto the Nook in Digital Editions. HOWEVER... the cover image does not transfer. So all Kobo books just have a plain white graphic of a cover-less book in the menus on the Nook.

One major problem I've noticed is the "error dialog - cannot open book" message. This happens when trying to open certain books. I have a bunch of side-loaded books on an SD card, and half of them would not open at all on the Nook. I had to go into Calibre and delete all the books off the SD card, then move them back again in order for them to work. However, I wanted to buy the new Penn Jillette book, so I downloaded a sample, and the sample will not open. I deleted and re-downloaded twice, but it still will not open. I'm afraid to actually buy the book because I don't think I'll be able to read it.

Also, although the Nook advertises 2 GB of space internally, only 250 MB of that is accessible for side-loaded books, and only 750 MB of that is usable for Nook books. Not a huge problem for me as I don't have anywhere near enough books to fill that up, and I have a 4 GB micro SD card besides, but those of you with large collections might want that information in case you were thinking of switching.

So in fact the Nook is not a perfect e-reader, any more than the Kobo was. I'd say it's better suited to my needs, as a major problem with the Kobo for me was how un-book-like the text formatting was, and the Nook is far more like an actual paper book. However, I have traded frequent network errors and poor formatting for books that are unable to be opened, and that seems to be a much larger problem.

10-21-2011, 10:33 AM	#8
tecweston Comic book artist Posts: 553 Karma: 1760679 Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: Detroit Device: Nook Glowlight, iPad, iPhone	Well, today marks one week that I've been using my Nook exclusively. I much prefer the design and feel of the Nook as opposed to the Kobo, and the text looks more like a real book (ie, indented paragraphs, text fills the entire page, etc). The presence of four physical page-turn buttons on the sides is also a plus, though not something I missed on the Kobo Touch. One thing I don't like is that the screen does not display the cover of the book I'm reading in sleep mode, it only displays the scratchboard illustrations of dead authors we've all seen hanging up in Barnes & Noble stores. They're awesome illustrations, but after a while they get old, and I'd prefer it to display my book cover. Side-loading Kobo books is super-easy, you just download the Adobe DRM epub off kobobooks.com and then drag and drop onto the Nook in Digital Editions. HOWEVER... the cover image does not transfer. So all Kobo books just have a plain white graphic of a cover-less book in the menus on the Nook. One major problem I've noticed is the "error dialog - cannot open book" message. This happens when trying to open certain books. I have a bunch of side-loaded books on an SD card, and half of them would not open at all on the Nook. I had to go into Calibre and delete all the books off the SD card, then move them back again in order for them to work. However, I wanted to buy the new Penn Jillette book, so I downloaded a sample, and the sample will not open. I deleted and re-downloaded twice, but it still will not open. I'm afraid to actually buy the book because I don't think I'll be able to read it. Also, although the Nook advertises 2 GB of space internally, only 250 MB of that is accessible for side-loaded books, and only 750 MB of that is usable for Nook books. Not a huge problem for me as I don't have anywhere near enough books to fill that up, and I have a 4 GB micro SD card besides, but those of you with large collections might want that information in case you were thinking of switching. So in fact the Nook is not a perfect e-reader, any more than the Kobo was. I'd say it's better suited to my needs, as a major problem with the Kobo for me was how un-book-like the text formatting was, and the Nook is far more like an actual paper book. However, I have traded frequent network errors and poor formatting for books that are unable to be opened, and that seems to be a much larger problem.