I can't find my original thread, so I figured that I would bump this one to update you all on my second time playing with it.
As a positive, it still seems to be garnering an awful lot of attention. When I was at the store today, there were half a dozen people oohing and aahing at the new shiny technology. While I was there, one of the customer service girls (bad place for the display - IMO) asked if I had any questions. There weren't any that I asked her that she could answer.
Instead, I ended up fielding some of the more basic questions from other people that were gawking. I gave them my honest opinion after owning four Sony's and a K2.
Anyway.
The nook in store was running 1.1.1. The first thing I noticed was the speed increase. It really is a viable ebook reader now. The speed seemed to be on par with my K2, but still slower than the 700. The touch screen seemed more responsive this time too, which was awesome. It actually worked like it should. Though some of their wonky interface options still made things confusing. I didn't have to push super hard anymore to get the screen to respond to my commands. It pretty much did what was asked.
Then after about 20 minutes of fiddling with it, I started to notice some slowdown. But it only appeared on certain texts, which makes me wonder if it's a nook issue or whoever is formatting their ebooks.
I also remember reading on the board that a user was experiencing problems with series books. I downloaded samples of the Gunslinger and the Drawing of the Three, which were labeled on the "store" as "The Dark Tower I" and "The Dark Tower II"
Maybe I didn't hit the alphanumeric cutoff with the name, but I couldn't see any real problem with it storing the two of them. They were both displayed on my library as "Dark Tower I" and "Dark Tower II"
Loading them up loaded the respective files. The subtitles in the upper right and left hand corners of the screen showed the proper name. But the excerpts seemed to be the exact same content. I don't know if that's a fault of the sample, or the nook. It's been forever since I looked at my paper copies. The ones the files seemed based on were the newest batches of re-release. The TPB editions with the full color illustrations. I couldn't see any of the illustrations though, but that's because they're not in the first 20 pages
I am assuming that it loaded both files seperatly because the first few pages listed different illustrations and page numbers.
Switching between the two samples though did leave me reformatting after each switch. Total time between changing books (Tapping interface - waiting for response - watching screen refresh - change to formatting screen... text finally appearing) was somewhere in the ballpark of 10 - 15 seconds. Still way too slow, IMO. I don't know what caused the difference in the load times. I did the test 4x.
While in store, I had several network and library issues. Downloaded samples of "Under the Dome" "Sunshine Lady" and one or two other random samples did not appear. Period.
I got the "Downloading..." screen and it told me they were added to my library. Couldn't find them. I looked under "My B/N Library" and "My Documents." They were nowhere to be found. So I tried redownloading them again. The system told me the files were already downloaded and in my library. So, I went back to my library. Checked for new content. Checked a second time. Nothing.
Weird.
I'm hoping that it's an issue with the demo models only and their attempts to filter or limit the amount of crap on their displays. I did notice that I had spotty network reception, even though I had 3 bars on the WiFi and it showed the little B/N icon.
I got several "Could not connect to network." and "Network not found." error messages.
With the few samples I did try (They had "Dracula", "Little Women", and "The Great Gatsby" on for sampling) I noticed very sporadic speed responses. Dracula was downright sluggish. Taking the good ol 3-4 second for the next page to show up on the screen. Little Women was a little better at around 2 seconds, but Gatsby was blazing fast. Roughly averaged about 1 - 1.5 seconds for a page turn. THat was going front and back. And flipping several at once.
I was impressed with the fast books, disappointed with the slow books. So, I'm hoping it may have something to do with the formatting. The slow books included extras like timelines and bios that I had to flip through. They were displayed almost in newspaper columns.
In summary - it seems that B/N has made very good strides towards fixing the initial complaints. They still have some work to go. I'm hoping that by the time they're on the shelf all the problems will be solved, or at least covered with bandaids.
Then I plan on being a proud Nook owner