Is nook color good for college?

[Fuego]

Just saw the Nook Color for $139 on buy.com and i'm not sure if it is a good buy for college. Help me out with this decision please

[peitsao]

Depends. What is your major and what will you be reading mostly--any PDFs, for example. If you root it, you will have more options and sources for material and apps. At that price, it's probably a refurb.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by peitsao

Depends. What is your major and what will you be reading mostly--any PDFs, for example. If you root it, you will have more options and sources for material and apps. At that price, it's probably a refurb.

Refurb Nook Colors are as good as the original. The only difference between a brand new NC and a refurbished one is the packaging.

@Fuego
I'm not really sure what you're planning on using the Nook Color for. It's great for reading comics and stuff, but productivity-wise, I'd still go with the laptop. For reading textbooks, reference material and the like, a 10" tablet is a much better fit. It's going to be a pain in the neck constantly zooming in and out on PDF files on the Nook Color's smaller screen and reflow isn't really an option for technical books.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by Fuego

Just saw the Nook Color for $139 on buy.com and i'm not sure if it is a good buy for college. Help me out with this decision please

Hi,

And welcome to mobileread.

If what you mean "good for college" is a nice ereader for textbooks, I'm afraid there is no good ereader or device for such kind of books. Most tablets and eink ereaders do not allow annotations or more powerful editing tools on top of the actual book.

If you are going to read some ebooks for a class, and planning to buy Nook Color for that purpose, I recommend you to validate their price and availability on the B&N website, even before investing your money on it. However, for pure text books, with no images or a few, you should go for an eink device, not a tablet. Sony, Nook Touch or even new Kindles, are most popular choices, with Amazon (Kindle) in my experience, having a better textbook and IT collection than the other two. But again, you should check yourself.

If you need a device for PDFs, the Nook Color is probably not a good choice, in my opinion. The default PDF reader lacks of many options that will make the reading experience a painful one. Also, 7" is kind of small for most PDFs and documents and that's something that even after rooting (hacking the system to make it a natural Android device with open market) can't be fixed. An iPad 1st generation with GoodReader app, would be a better choice.

[jocampo]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

@Fuego
I'm not really sure what you're planning on using the Nook Color for. It's great for reading comics and stuff, but productivity-wise, I'd still go with the laptop. For reading textbooks, reference material and the like, a 10" tablet is a much better fit. It's going to be a pain in the neck constantly zooming in and out on PDF files on the Nook Color's smaller screen and reflow isn't really an option for technical books.

Agree!

[geertm]

B&N Nookstudy textbooks can only be read with the Nookstudy program for PC. Not on the NC.

[Nahgem]

I have to agree with those above me. I love mine to death, but I'm not a student anymore, and I wouldn't have wanted it as my primary studying device when I was. At the same time, if I had to read a ton of PDFs, as long as they didn't have lots of charts in them, I'd rather read them on a tablet of some sort than my laptop screen.

The PDF readers available for the Nook Color aren't very good, though. I'd definitely recommend rooting it so you can have better functionality, or waiting for the Nook Color 2 that's coming out soon since it looks like it has more apps, or perhaps buying something with a larger screen. A 9 inch tablet would definitely be easier to read PDFs and type notes on.

[Magnus]

Originally Posted by Fuego

Just saw the Nook Color for $139 on buy.com and i'm not sure if it is a good buy for college. Help me out with this decision please

I'd be hesitant to use a NC for studies... if you are going to make notes and highlight passages, there's no reliable means to back-up your annotations... I'd be lost without mine.

But if you're using the NC just for reading or for searching texts, it's quite up to that job.

[LoganK]

If it was a choice between a laptop and anything else, choose the laptop. If you are simply looking to supplement with a reading device, it's one of the best in a pile of mediocre, not-quite-there devices.

Originally Posted by Nahgem

The PDF readers available for the Nook Color aren't very good, though.

Have you used ezPDF? Easily worth the buck or two the author charges. You can add the following on top of any PDF you read:

• Underline
• Strike-out
• Sticky-note
• Freehand
• Figure
• Textbox

It'll even auto-crop the margins if you ask it to. I read a lot of technical books and the Nook Color held sideways is a great size and weight without being unreadable.

Unfortunately, no Nook Study (which I hear is good) and I don't believe ezPDF supports DRM files.

The point Magnus raises about back-ups could be important. ezPDF makes it seem like it adds your notes directly into the document (i.e., it modifies the PDF), but I don't use the notes feature extensively enough to know if that is true.

[Nahgem]

I was using ezPDF before I rooted, and I liked it fine for comic books and such, but not for text. Then again, I read everything in night mode, and unless I'm just a dunce, there doesn't seem to be a way to use night mode without destroying the formatting. I probably should have clarified that it's a YMMV thing, but there's no way I'd use it as a study device.

[=X=]

First thanks for the link, I'm going to pck another nook up for a Christmas gift.

As a stand alone device I will say no tablet is good for students, the PC cannot be beat just yet. However as a supplemental device tu nook is one of the best devices if your willing to install android cm7. Doing so opens so much functionality on your device.

The 7" form factor makes this device portable and small enough that typing with two thumbs is fast.

For reading you'll have to get good readers like RepliGo, EZPDF, Moon+, Mantano.

RepliGo and ezPDF have came a long way most folks who used it give incorrect information because these tools have evolved.

Both those tools allow full annotations and modify the PDF directly so your annotations are viewed on any pdf reader, great for sharing notes with others.

I've been reading PDFs on 4" and 7" devices for years and have no complaints, yes it's easier to vew the whole page on a bigger screen but I don't read a page at a time I read a sentence at a time. Most PDFs reader do a great job re-flowing text.

The area that most tablets sorely lack is in good word processors. There are a few good ones Office and Documents To Go, but they pale compared to a PC word processor.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Magnus

I'd be hesitant to use a NC for studies... if you are going to make notes and highlight passages, there's no reliable means to back-up your annotations... I'd be lost without mine.
But if you're using the NC just for reading or for searching texts, it's quite up to that job.

They fixed their night mode a while ago, you no longer have to reflow the PDF to view the document in night mode.

[Nahgem]

Originally Posted by =X=

They fixed their night mode a while ago, you no longer have to reflow the PDF to view the document in night mode.

Thanks for the update on that. I doubt I'll go back to using it, because I've discovered I really like Mantano, but that's definitely an improvement.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by Nahgem

Thanks for the update on that. I doubt I'll go back to using it, because I've discovered I really like Mantano, but that's definitely an improvement.

Mantano is a very good app. But it has two big shortcomings that keep me from using it as a PDF ereader.

1. It uses a proprietary annotation system, not the standard PDF.
2. EzPDF has intelligent zoom which makes reading PDF easy on smaller screens.

As an ePUB reader Mantano is one of the better apps.

=X=

[=X=]

Thanks to the op, I ended buying my daughter a nook. For $140 the nook is a great deal.