Nook Color Reviews

[waffleman]

I've recently purchased the NC - and in the process, read a bunch of reviews. I thought I'd list the link to reviews for others doing research on the device. My filter was to only place reviews where the author apeared to have had at minimum a few days testing before publishing - I ignored rethose where the author only had a few hours hands on.
There are probably tons of other I missed - feel free to add others are you find them.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20101213/tc_zd/257977 (discussion by PCMag editor)

http://ireaderreview.com/2010/12/05/...-color-review/

http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...2751-1,00.html

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/revie...-nookcolor.ars

http://www.seekgeo.com/?p=5968 (video review which shows how it works, click on close caption to read what he says)

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread234963.html

http://www.suntimes.com/business/278...le-device.html (a pretty extensive review, comparing to Kindle)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/te...wt&twt=nytimes

http://www.tabletpcreview.com/defaul...lor+nook+color this reviewer talks about the NC after having used it a few weeks. Definitely worth the read.

[boswd]

this one is quite the statement, one I agree with from the Yahoonews review

"At its heart, it is the best dedicated ebook reader on the market. B & N officials told me that when they did consumer research after the first Nook came out, customers told them that they wanted magazines, newspapers and Web content as well. So the Nook Color is optimized to deliver a great reading experience for all of this content. Its color screen means it displays the color illustrations or drawings in printed copies of books. Magazines and newspapers also appear exactly the same as the hard copy versions. And even a normal ebook has crisp text and is easy to read with its backlit screen."

[leday]

Originally Posted by boswd

this one is quite the statement, one I agree with from the Yahoonews review

"At its heart, it is the best dedicated ebook reader on the market. B & N officials told me that when they did consumer research after the first Nook came out, customers told them that they wanted magazines, newspapers and Web content as well. So the Nook Color is optimized to deliver a great reading experience for all of this content. Its color screen means it displays the color illustrations or drawings in printed copies of books. Magazines and newspapers also appear exactly the same as the hard copy versions. And even a normal ebook has crisp text and is easy to read with its backlit screen."

what he said!!!

[cutterjohn42]

Teleread review
http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/re...by-the-editor/

and Engadget review
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/16/nook-color-review/

[Eduardito]

I did some research before buying mine but unfortunately I always stay on the bigger sites (CNET, Gizmodo, engadget) and in retrospective their reviews seem as they didn't actually do much with it except evaluated on looks and superficial tasks.

One of the things I would've liked to know is that you can't put sideloaded books on your home screen.

I know a lot of things might come in the future or can be fixed by rooting, but this shouldn't be taken into consideration in the present time. Sometimes I wait for future updates on devices that never come. Such is the curse of the early adopter.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by Eduardito

I did some research before buying mine but unfortunately I always stay on the bigger sites (CNET, Gizmodo, engadget) and in retrospective their reviews seem as they didn't actually do much with it except evaluated on looks and superficial tasks.

One of the things I would've liked to know is that you can't put sideloaded books on your home screen.

I know a lot of things might come in the future or can be fixed by rooting, but this shouldn't be taken into consideration in the present time. Sometimes I wait for future updates on devices that never come. Such is the curse of the early adopter.

out of the big three you mentioned I like Cnet the best, David Carnoy is an actual reader and he gives his reviews based on everything that includes the reading aspect.

Engadget and Gizmodo, especially Gizmodo tend to reviews these not as readers but as "Is this the next great tablet, what can it do? Can it run apps? can it wash my car? etc.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by boswd

...
Engadget and Gizmodo, especially Gizmodo tend to reviews these not as readers but as "Is this the next great tablet, what can it do? Can it run apps? can it wash my car? etc.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by cutterjohn42

Teleread review
http://www.teleread.com/paul-biba/re...by-the-editor/

and Engadget review
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/16/nook-color-review/

Wow that teleread review was a very very good review on the Nook.

as far as the weight is concerned, I agree with him 100% on this comment

"I would say that the weight gives it a nice heft, but it is not so heavy as to be uncomfortable in daily use "

It does have that certain nice weight to it, like you are holding something high end but not too heavy. I reminds me of my sansa fuze mp3 player as opposed to my iPod nano 5G, the nano is very light and airy, the fuze felt solid.


he's also spot on about the web browser and I think what gets over looked about the web browser on the nook color is, especially when compared Samsung Galaxy S Tab, is it's ability to automatically show the PC website and not the mobile website and scales it to size fantastic.

I've noticed this goes unmentioned in reviews but with reviews of the Galaxy S tab it's one of the first things mentioned that is the Galaxy Tab brings you to the mobile websites

Another big plus for the nook color.

[waffleman]

The reviews, in total, clearly show that the NC is a home run and will only improve with updates coming in January.

[cutterjohn42]

Actually most Android browsers can view full websites. It's simply a browser identification setting that gets sent to websites that then if configured redirect to mobile / full / whatever. Still pondering a NC but I see that it appears that Samsung has capitulated and bought a ton of Tegra2s, so I think that I'm just going to wait and see who else joins the Tegra club w/a 7" tablet.

[RockdaMan]

Were there any not so glowing reviews? I get suspicious when everyone praises everything about a machine.

[SCION]

Yes, there are more than a few. The consensus of those reviewers was spend the extra bucks on an iPad.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by SCION

Yes, there are more than a few. The consensus of those reviewers was spend the extra bucks on an iPad.

LOL

Did anyone say just get an eInk device?

additional question: Are you always online?

[SCION]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Are you always online?

Of course not. I do hang around when I know someone is rooting their NOOKcolor and may need assistance.

[RockdaMan]

Just found this review. It's by an avowed Kindle fan. He starts off like this:

The Kindle has never not been the #1 eReader in my opinion.

Did he really spend enough time with it to give it a fair shake?

Have played around a lot with Nook Color, have finished Alice in Wonderland, and am about to finish Kraken by China ‘Agency Model’ Mieville.

And what does he think?

When a book is good – It’s not as big a difference in reading experience as you might imagine. There is a difference – But it’s easy to rationalize it away, because you have great Internet surfing, and color photos.

For reading stretches of 30 to 60 minutes – The Nook Color is almost as good. It isn’t eInk, but there aren’t a million distractions, and it is, despite protests to the contrary, a reading tablet.

The size is perfect. It’s a better screen size than Kindle, and the weight, while not ideal, is manageable. If you have weak hands – stick to the Kindle.

Any negatives?

Longer stretches of reading, especially at night, are a pain. Got a bit of a headache after spending 3 hours reading at night. The strange thing is that it’s OK. It’s still not like iPhone or iPad where it makes you want to stop reading on them completely. It’s almost like Nook Color is in between Kindle (zero headache) and iPad (noticeable headache).

Conclusion?

The only solution is an Android based Kindle Tablet. There’s no other option – Either Amazon releases an actual Android based Kindle Tablet, or it hopes and prays B&N runs out of money before Nook Color has totally over-run the eReader market.

http://ireaderreview.com/2010/12/19/...-color-review/