Quote:
Originally Posted by aceflor
I need your actual opinion on the bebook neo and the nook. I am looking at those for a friend of mine, she insists on a white unit  and was quite crazy about the nook until she saw the neo, now she doesn't know anymore. She is flying tomorrow to the US and I won't be able to communicate with her from then on, she wants me to tell her whether she should get the nook while over there.
Since I don't have the nook, nor the Neo, I really don't know what to tell her.... |
I've already answered your PM concerning nook.
Comparing nook and BeBook Neo:
Design:
For me, "touch and feel" of my gadgets is very important.
Somehow, I can't get fond of Neo's looks.
Neo is quite similar to Kindle 2. For example, I don't like the brushed aluminum backside of Neo.
And I don't like the blue illumination in the center button, when charging or when signaling some activity.
nook on the other hand looks like an extremely polished Kindle 2. Stylish and cool.
nook for me, concerning looks, wins hands down.
Battery:
Neo still drains battery in standby. It's one of the few units I permanently turn off because of that. It's no disaster, boot time is about 30 seconds only. But nook is "instant on" within 2 or 3 seconds.
Bookstore and mobility:
Both have a bookstore. But Neo only links to standard webshops. On one hand, that's great, you can purchase and download ePUBs from various sources. But on the other hand, it's not too much fun, surfing standard websites (not optimised for the low resolution and slow refresh rate) on ePaper displays.
Both have WiFi. But in addition,
nook has 3G. You can exchange the US AT&T SIM and replace by your own. I'm using my iPhone Twin-Card. I can surf the B&N bookstore via 3G and WiFi and put the books of choice in my wishlist. I even could install VPN on nook and buy directly on the fly on nook. I buy on PC though, because I want to backup my files anyway.
BTW: I love nook's cover flow mode. Looks really great, at least for original content (for sideloaded content, you need to softroot nook and it looks less "spectacular").
Dictionary support:
It's relatively weak on Neo, comparing to Sony or Kindle.
nook's dictionary is way better.
But it's a pain to manage on nook. The cursor remains on the ePaper display and you move it via cursor buttons on the touchscreen. Meaning: You stare at the touchscreen to find the cursor buttons, but you have to track the cursor movement on the upper screen. That's solved way better on Alex: The text syncs to the touchscreen, you mark the word of interest on the LCD and check the dictionary.
Display quality:
nook has a phantastic font and concerning contrast even beats Sony 505. Neo is close enough, about even with Kindle 2 and Sony 505.
Covers:
For me, nook has the best covers out there. A friend of mine brought one for me from the US - phantastic.
The Neo covers I've seen are highly functional, but look and feel way cheaper.
SUMMARY:
Neo's advantage of course is its touchscreen.
nook's advantage of course is 3G (exchangeable SIM!) in addition to WiFi and the great bookstore.
nook has another huge advantage for me, but this might be "mgmueller-specific": I can use B&N's PDBs (and soon its ePUBS as well) on iRex 800, another favorite of mine.
I haven't found any interesting 3rd party applications for Neo. For nook, there's a very active "hacker scene" with nice add-ons.
I don't like nook for sideloaded content, even with the softrooted NookLibrary. Cover flow doesn't look very nice for sideloaded content and the menu in NookLibrary is slightly different.
So I use nook exclusively for B&N content - and for this it is phantastic.