[frossie]

Hey all, I note that a lot of people here are veterans of e-reader devices, so I thought I would post my impressions since this is my first e-reader.

I guess some background would be useful. While I am a self-identified geek, I have never been tempted before to jump on the e-reader bandwagon, partly from "Nothing will replace the feel of a book in your hands" snobbery, partly because none of the e-readers I had seen people have tickled my gadget fancy, partly because of all the standard concerns (DRM, pricing etc). However I had come to be convinced of the merits of not having the millstone of thousands of books hanging from my neck every time i moved, and had gone as far as asking Santa for an International Kindle. When the nook specs were released, I decided I liked those much better, and also was happy to encourage some competition to Amazon (not that I have anything against Amazon) so I cancelled my Kindle order and ordered the nook instead.

While I was waiting for the actual nook I did read a lot of the reviews and watch some of the unboxing videos. Now it is quite understandable that these kind of things focus on the user interface and showing the various features. When my nook arrived I had no interest in any of that - I just wanted to read a book, so I just started doing that ASAP. The bottom line is I am really happy with the device.

As for the main criticisms of the device:

Slow UI: I personally did not find the user interface annoyingly slow, given how little I actually interact with it - it seemed fine and it queues up input so it is not actually a problem (What I mean is that if you are typing in say I wi-fi password you can type as fast as you want, you don't have to do it at the rate of the e-ink re-fresh).

Confusing UI: I have no real idea what the problem here is, I had no trouble finding my way around (I did not read instructions or the manual though as I said I had watched a couple of unboxing videos so it was not a complete surprise).

Slow page-turn: This so did not bother me, I kept thinking "the so called 3 second page turn is rubbish!". However when I did time it, I can see where the 3 seconds comes from. Let me explain - if you time it with a stopwatch from the moment you decide to push the next button to the new page being rendered then it probably does take something of that order. However, it is not the case that the e-ink screen is refreshing for 3 seconds - the time when the screen is unreadable is 1 second or probably less. So very quickly I started doing what I do with a real book - just like when you are reading "in the flow" you start turning the page while you are still reading the bottom two lines, so I start paging at roughly the same time. So psychologically the screen is unreadable only while it is refreshing, which is okay, though obviously I wish it was either instant or at least less visually jarring (as the whole screen flickers briefly black which is rather distracting).

As an experiment (and bear in mind I have never read an e-book before), I started reading a book on the B&N reader on my iPhone, and when the nook arrived switched mid-stream to that. The difference really is night and day - while reading on the iPhone I had a lot of trouble "losing myself" into the book, whereas on the nook I could very quickly do so once I found the settings I liked (see below).

Now obviously the device is not perfect though I am hoping that some things can be fixed with a firmware upgrade. The thing I would like to see the most is the ability to synchronize the latest-place-read between the nook and the iPhone. Even though I moaned about the iPhone interface, it sure would be nice to be able to pick up the flow while stuck in the dentist's waiting room and so on. The only other thing that I would like to do (and for all I know I can do, but haven't figured out how) is to use the actual last page read as the "screensaver" - while the included screensavers (really set images) are very nice, I would like to be able to just pick up the device and start reading while also simultaneously getting it out of sleep.

So all in all I am really happy with my nook and I think I will get a lot of use out of it. I am also very happy that since I ordered it, my main reservation with going B&N, which was their significantly higher pricing, seems to have been resolved. I think provided B&N are responsive with firmware upgrades this will be a great platform - people actually forget how not-perfect the first iPhone was; what made the iPhone a success was the constant improvement.

Okay so for anybody who's still reading this, some minor notes on settings. I actually unboxed in Europe because I left on holiday before the nook arrived, and my husband brought it out to me a few days later (no I didn't make him stay in the US to wait for the nook! he had some business to take care of first). I had no problems setting up - obviously the first attempt to register did not work since I had no 3G data connection, but you can continue without registering, and then go on the settings, configure your WPA WiFi settings and then register - everything worked fine. So, no concerns operating the device outside cell coverage.

Of the actual device settings itself the most important for me was reducing the font size one down from the default. A critical part of getting lost in a book for me seems to be having enough text on the screen, which is why I had so much trouble on the iPhone. The smaller font worked great for that, and was still perfectly legible and easy on the eyes. I also set the lower screen to time-out after 10 seconds instead of the default 30, and reduced the lower screen brightness to about 1/3. After that, I had no issues with the lower screen being distracting. I also increased the device time out to the maximum (20 minutes or something) for the occasions where I get distracted or start wool-gathering. I also put the device in airplane mode to conserve power - not that I know what the battery life is, but I saw no need to be on the network since all I want to do is read my book.

Finally I ordered the turqoise Bronte cover and that looks good and works very well - the quality seems excellent though I guess on balance I would have liked a clasp or some other way to keep it shut for handbag use (but that can easily be improvised). I did also order the little Lyra light but it hasn't shipped yet.

Apologies for droning on, I hope somebody finds this useful.