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Originally Posted by PaulGuy
Well my nook arrived this past Tuesday and I’ve had some time to play with it. First of all the nook is a beautiful device from a hardware perspective. The e-ink display has nice contrast and the ability to select different fonts (3 currently) is a nice feature. The refresh rate or page turns is slower than my Kindle but not absurdly so. The touch screen interface is a nice approach but its response time seems inconsistent. Sometimes it works as one would expect, sometimes it seems very sluggish. I had no trouble figuring out how to use it and for the most part it is pretty intuitive. Some functions though are painful to use compared to Kindle’s interface the most obvious being the dictionary (word look-up) which is cumbersome and slow compared to Kindle’s joy stick type navigation and definition preview window.
The first day with my nook went smoothly and had me wondering what everyone was complaining about. Then came day two. On day two I turned on my nook and it’s functions had slowed to a crawl. I’d tap the “My Library” icon and nothing would happen. After waiting 5 seconds I tried again then 3 seconds later the red icon flashed white, and took me to my library. Finally it froze up completely and I could not get it to work at all. I checked the owners manual looking for instructions on how to re-boot and could find none, in fact, there isn’t even a trouble shooting section at all. Calling customer service I was told how to re-boot and that fixed the issues. The battery life seems very short (2 days?) so I’m putting it into airplane mode when I don’t need wireless running. The color screen at factory brightness is too bright and a distraction from the e-ink screen but is adjustable. I set mine at 10% brightness which seems just right. The page turn swipes are nice when they work annoying when they don’t.
But all these problems are a result of B&N’s unfortunate choice to rush a v1.0 product to market before it was ready. The design and concept of the device seems sound to me and the device is a beautiful piece of hardware. The problems cited can and I’m sure will all be corrected via firmware upgrades so the nook in my opinion will be Kindle’s first real competition once the bugs get sorted out and it gets “up to speed”.
Many of us employ screensaver hacks on our Kindles but you don’t need them with nook. Just created a set of images in a folder and put that folder in the screen savers folder. Your set will now appear as option to select from, nice, easy.
The B&N equivalent to Amazon’s “Manage your Kindle” webpage is pretty spartan and has a long way to go compared to Amazons. Oh yes, as an example of a not fully evolved concept, you can download eBook samples just like the Kindle, but once on your nook you can’t delete them! You have to go on-line to your account to do that.
All said nook is not the “Kindle Killer” so many in the tech world seemed to dreaming of (for reasons I don’t get) and the Kindle in contrast seems much more polished and easy to use. However once the nook reaches it’s true potential which I feel can be done via firmware not nook2, it will be a real, viable competitor which can only be good for everyone.
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Thanks for your review.
I tried the look up at B&N today and I did not think it was that terrible, but again I had nothing to compare it to.
The lock up you had, did it only happen that once or has it been a continual problem?
The battery life issue is something that I would be concerned with if it does not last at least a few days with the wireless off.
I am not looking to it as a Kindle Killer - I just want an e-ink device that reads my Ereader DRM books and will read library books (Adobe DRM). I am more concerned with how well it functions as a reading device - The text was sharp and clear - the page turns were OK (using the buttons).
I got Dracula the Undead in Epub format from my library and the f ormat on my EZ-Reader is horrible (Huge Margins of white). I downloaded the book at B&N on the demo nook and ran into the 15 seconds or so of formatting message at the largest font; however once it came up it was excellent.
Mine should be here tomorrow and after I use it a while I'll let you know how good or bad I find it.
I also think that strong competition will be beneficial to all of us e-book readers no matter what device we use.