[tuomas]

Well, I schlepped off to my local B&N tonight to try out the nook. It wasn't a very successful expedition. The nook (actually they had two units that I saw, one of which refused to start up) was slow to the point of not being usable. there was an extreme lag on every tap of the LCD touchscreen. Once a book was brought up the unit seemed to function just fine. Pages turns were fast.

The staff claimed (and I have no reason to not believe them) that the nooks were working fine earlier in the day and the day before. They said that they may have been having issues with the in store wi-fi. But unless the nook was trying to download something I don't know why it would have caused such unresponsiveness.

I have a nook on pre-order, and I'm keeping it. I just hope that a firmware upgrade address these reports of sluggishness. The unit I was using doesn't seem representative of other demo units. So now, I'm just watching my in box for a shipping notice!