An Awful Review of the ANN and the Kobo Touch

[taosaur]

Maybe they should have run the focus groups before they released the product :P

I'm just calling it the nook, prefaced by "new" if it seems contextually important.

[RockdaMan]

I found some stuff in the comments interesting:

Really looking forward to All New Nook 4: Electric Bookaloo.

Just the other day I said to someone to hold on a minute while I turn on my book.

there is no need to choose. They all have their place.

Just as we don't commit ourselves to only reading paperbacks or hard bound volumes or magazines or newspapers, we will probably end up having multiple devices.

I have a question for David Pogue (or anyone with a touchscreen e-ink reader) - how easily does the screen get dirty from touching it all the time?

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

You can't, but I can.

[For the benefit of record, it was "NY Times All New Nook and Kobo Touch Review: Awful"]

Cheers,
Marc
Moderator

Thanks Mod!

[spellbanisher]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

You can't, but I can.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Thanks Mod!

Well, the entertainment value of this thread has risen dramatically.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

(and if BN really did say the name was the All New Nook then I'm calling it the ANN from now on.)

Heck, every time I see it mentioned, I think of it as the New Nook of the North.

[wallcraft]

Amazon also uses the every generation the same name approach. The K3 is the "Latest Generation" (not the 3rd generation, at least until the K4 comes out) and the K2 is the "2nd generation".

[Sweetpea]

Oh well, there will always be "reviewers" who want to make their audience laugh... Apparently, this is one: "Let's not do some research into my subject, but take a few keywords from the marketing campaign and write a review based on that! Oh, and while I'm at it, let's compare apples to potatoes..."

[OtterBooks]

Some tech writers need to just stop reviewing ereaders in the same way they don't review heart rate monitors, multimeters, and other technology dedicated to experiences they clearly aren't familiar with.

[RockdaMan]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

Some tech writers need to just stop reviewing ereaders in the same way they don't review heart rate monitors, multimeters, and other technology dedicated to experiences they clearly aren't familiar with.

Very good. I agree.

Who are the good ones? We should start a thread somewhere. My favorites of the moment are Anand Lal Shimpi, Andy Ihnatko, and the former Engadget writers now housed at thisismynext.com.

[fjtorres]

It used to be rule one of reviewing: critique the product for what it is, not for what you think it should be.
You don't complain if a drama is lacking in funny wisecracks but you do complain if a dramatic moment comes out humorous instead of moving; you don't complain about trunk space in a Ferrari but you do complain if a full-size pick-up can't handle a 4 by 8 sheet of plywood. And you don't make a stink about the lack of animated menus on a device intented for static images.
Contrary what some seem to believe, no product is perfect; no product is free of compromises or design trade-offs. It,s what makes product optimizations possible in the first place: you tailor the product to meet the needs of your target audience, not clueless pundits and marketers.
And just because two products can be used to do one common function doesn't instantly make them competitors nor does it mean they should be designed to the same criteria. Yes, you can carry manure in a Ferrari but most people know a pick-up truck is optimzed for heavy loads and Ferraris for speed and only an idiot pretends they are competitors.
iPxxxs are designed for media consumption; eink readers are designed for static text displays. One needs color and fast response for video, the other needs to be light enough to hold for hours, page fast enough it doesn't break immersion, and generally be as paperlike as the tech allows. You would think a 500% price differential would be enough of a clue that eink readers are *NOT* iPad competitors but some people seem to be oblivious to the obvious.

This kind of blindness isn't limited to clueless reviewers, BTW; just yesterday, a commenter on a digital reader blog wanted to know if a just-introduced 6in eink reader could be used to make phone calls and, when told it couldn't, proclaimed the vendor had missed the boat.
(No further comment needed, right?)

[ST-One]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

Oh well, there will always be "reviewers" who want to make their audience laugh... Apparently, this is one: "Let's not do some research into my subject, but take a few keywords from the marketing campaign and write a review based on that! Oh, and while I'm at it, let's compare apples to potatoes..."

Apples to Barn(e)s, actually...

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by lestatar

Pogue has steadily lost credibility with me over the last few years. Not only as a result of his unapologetic Apple fanboi-ism, but also his schtick, which I once found engaging, but to me has become cheesy and annoying.

A shame since I did enjoy his work.

I find his schtick to be interesting, at times. When he does a good skit for his column, it's pretty funny. But he seems to have made up his mind about e-ink readers, which is a shame. It's like he continuously refuses to see why people buy them, and review them on their own terms.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by RockdaMan

Very good. I agree.

Who are the good ones? We should start a thread somewhere. My favorites of the moment are Anand Lal Shimpi, Andy Ihnatko, and the former Engadget writers now housed at thisismynext.com.

I like Anand. Actually I know a guy who writes for Anandtech. However, they're tech writers. The spend their time studying benchmarks, chipsets and operating systems.

An electronic device came out that was meant to supplement a non-digital experience, in this case paper books, and for some reason tech writers decided that it fell into their territory. It doesn't. When I want a professional review of a heart rate monitor I'll look for it from a fitness enthusiast, not someone who sees its display then remarks on how primitive it is because it won't play Angry Birds (after all, there are heart-rate apps for iOS and Android).

When Pogue spends three hours a day reading novels, or something other than tech blogs and press releases, I'll listen to him. Maybe he does already, but his writing about ereaders in the context of personal computing/multimedia devices suggests that he doesn't know wtf he's talking about.

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by OtterBooks

When Pogue spends three hours a day reading novels, or something other than tech blogs and press releases, I'll listen to him. Maybe he does already, but his writing about ereaders in the context of personal computing/multimedia devices suggests that he doesn't know wtf he's talking about.

I'm not sure I'd be that harsh. His reviews of the original Nook and the Kindle have merit. I think the problem (at least from an e-ink perspective) is that he's inordinately fond of tablets. He seems convinced that dedicated readers are doomed, because "there's an app for that". What I find odd about that is that he's actually a photography enthusiast.

Even the most meager of cell phones can take pictures now. It actually takes some work to find a cell phone that can't take a picture. And yet, Pogue hasn't been calling for the death of dedicated cameras the way he has for the death of e-readers. (And he's not alone in that, of course.)