A (long) Nook Color review from an experienced ebook reader

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by bossfan2000

Hey Liviu..glad to see you love your color nook! I just posted a longish review on my blog, and I'm going to update it to add a link to your review here.

Thanks for linking this there; i put a (long) comment too and as mentioned I am thinking of editing this to post on FBC since this is the first ebook reader I would recommend unreservedly to everyone (loved my 700 and were I to have it, I may or may not have bought this on sight, but that had a bunch of drawbacks, though for me touch/fast/internal light/one hand handling are paramount and the 700 was the only eink with that; the 650 lacks internal light so it is much less useful,as mentioned had to bring back the trusty Nokia 770 and that has beautiful reading too with a great screen but smallish once you compare it with a 6/7" and of course no pdf capabilities worth their name)

[Mirtika]

I had reserved one and got sick, so didn't go the first day. Went Saturday to check it out. Beautiful color. Beautiful display. Even went to a manga online site to see if I could read my beloved mangas on it: Yes. The images were large enough to read the dialogue bubbles and see the art clearly (unlike the Kindle 3 I normally use, where manga is nigh impossible to read).

I didn't like that there's no 3g. I didn't like how to turn the pages (would prove tiring to constantly flick the screen,a s opposed to a nice little press set-up like the Kindle which is minimal action to change page, go back).

The wifi was spotty. That was likely cause of the limited ability my local B&N has to handle users (so said the sales assistant). They can accomodate only about a dozen persons using their wifi at a time. I have no idea what that means or why or whatever.

It was a lovely little device. Just totally love how the children's book art looks on it--crisp and bright. The web browsing was faster and, of course, prettier than Kindle. The contrast (white background, not grey) is more like a book and I like that.

Battery life. Eh.

The cases they had available to protect it: crap. Why is it so hard for them to find a nice case that actually looks and feels protective?

I decided to reject it and take time to consider it, since I expect the 2nd gen iPad and the Playbook to come out 1st quarter 2011, and I wanna see how those make books look. Hubby wants an iPad anyhow, so if I can read magazines and books fine on that, I may just skip the Nook Color. But it sure is a purdy and desirable gadget. I was mighty tempted.

My Kindle3 looks positively muddy and old by comparison.

But I like the keyboard not requiring a screen change and it seemed easier to try and get books on my Kindle than on the Nook.

B&N needs to tweak that baby and make it more user friendly, but it's lovely.

Will be interesting to see what the similarly sized Playbook by Blackberry will be able to do/how it will compare.

Amazon needs to come out with a beautiful and bigger (not DX big, but 7 in+ big) display in color and keep it's handier aspects, and I'd get THAT. I don't need an iPad size one, but seeing the size of the Nook Color made me realize how much easier that is on the eyes and how for those of us who like art books, illustrated books, graphic novels, comics, magazines, and manga--well, no brainer. Nook Color wins there.

[tubemonkey]

iPad, Galaxy Tab, PlayBook = $500+

Nook Color = $250

[Mirtika]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

iPad, Galaxy Tab, PlayBook = $500+

Nook Color = $250

Absolutely. But money ain't the only consideration. The Playbook is supposed to be UNDER 400, not 500+, but I suppose I could have heard bad rumors. Same size as Nook, as I understand it. CAn't remember if it also was WiFi only. If it can browse faster, better, and has nice readability, I may go that way and read my "already-paid-for-Kindle-downloads"-- and yes this is a consideration for me as I've bought many Amazon Kindle books that won't read on the Nook--on the Playbook. (or iPad, I suppose.)

Hubby has his heart set on 2nd gen iPad. (We loved testing the first gen, but with Apple, we don't buy first gen. We wait. Impatiently. But we wait.)

If I hit the Lotto, I'll just get them all. No sweat.

Where can you find such a lovely and responsive screen - I've had several Archos tablets - meh, garbage and no support.

I think the Nook is the steal of the year - it's close to being rooted (go over to XDA-Developers) and once that happens we'll be able to side load our favorite Android goodies.

Also agree on the junk cases (and if you haven't noticed BN doesn't carry one case which allows the [poorly designed] rear speaker to sound through) - what rocket scientist thought of that one?

[LoganK]

Originally Posted by Mirtika

I didn't like how to turn the pages (would prove tiring to constantly flick the screen,a s opposed to a nice little press set-up like the Kindle which is minimal action to change page, go back).

You can also tap the screen to change the page. Works well if you hold it in your right hand. Contrary to another post on this board, a small swipe will also work to change the page if you are holding it left-handed.

Originally Posted by Mirtika

B&N needs to tweak that baby and make it more user friendly, but it's lovely.

I thought it was really well thought out, and there were a lot of nice touches I didn't expect: the recent items drop-down on the home as well as two locations on the screen to jump to the current, easy access to orientation and brightness settings from anywhere, word selection and look-up. It was actually these nice touches that pushed into sticking with a dedicated reader since I know I won't see anything like that on an Android/iPad device for years.

I should admit, though, that I tend to be a power user so my perception of user friendly may not match the general public.

[jasonkchapman]

Originally Posted by LoganK

You can also tap the screen to change the page. Works well if you hold it in your right hand. Contrary to another post on this board, a small swipe will also work to change the page if you are holding it left-handed.

Agreed. I read one-handed on the subway with it. For me, a quick thumb-swipe works quite well whether I'm holding it right- or left-handed. I checked that before buying it, because one-handed operation is essential for a crowded subway.

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by jasonkchapman

Agreed. I read one-handed on the subway with it. For me, a quick thumb-swipe works quite well whether I'm holding it right- or left-handed. I checked that before buying it, because one-handed operation is essential for a crowded subway.

works for epubs, but not for pdfs ;

pdfs need vertical swipes though once in a while some kind of touch changed the page, though i am still not clear if it's a tap or a small swipe; but i try moving pages on pdfs with taps and it just does not work consistently

the rendering engine and in-book options are different between epubs and pdfs and while i surely prefer epubs, there are many books on which i do not have that as a good option (try converting a 46MB pdf review copy and while the epub is ok'ish and readable, the pdf is perfect so if I can read it which NC surely does well, that's how it is; not to speak of scans and technical work, bilingual tables and other stuff epubs are not that good at - or at least my tools of generating them in the least amount of time are not, while MSOffice publish to pdf takes seconds and you get what you see, so can easily fiddle beforehand),

[pattmatt]

I've owned a Sony PSR-900 Daily Edition ereader for about a year now and recently upgraded to a Nook Color after seeing it at a B&N store recently. My main reasons for purchasing the Nook Color were (not in any special order): a desire to read at night (this was always hard to do with the Sony ereader even with a clip-on light), color so that I could see comics better (I have a bunch of old Spiderman comics on CD-ROM/PDF), video support, and web browsing.

In general, epub reading is very nice, especially with the ability to change the font to a "nightime" color scheme of white on black, bookmark, etc. I would say that it is superior to the Sony. I tried reading in bright sunlight and after I increased the brightness, I was able to read OK enough for me (I did buy the anti-glare protective screen cover, though). The Daily Edition always had a little bit of glare in bright light because it had a touch sensitive screen on it, so maybe the glare difference is bigger in other e-ink readers, but compared to the Daily Edition, it's comparable after you increase the brightness.

The part where I am disappointed is in the pdf support. Not the general viewing of them, the resizing and auto-rotate are fantastic, but the lack of features, particularly pdf-reflow or the simple ability to bookmark where you are at. This was a real turn-off for me. If you stay reading the same PDF without going to another book, it will remember what page number you were at and return you there. However, if you change to read another book (epub or pdf) and come back to your first pdf book, it will return you to the beginning of the pdf file. This wouldn't be so bad if you could save a bookmark in the book, but you cannot. This caused me to convert many pdf files to epub format just so that I could place bookmarks, etc. (thank you Calibre!). I hope that they add this simple yet vital feature in future updates to the Nook Color. One more comment - the pdf reader doesn't support the nightime-mode white-on-black fonts, either. In general, the Sony Daily Edition handles moving between pdf books much better than the Nook Color because it does remember where you left off AND allows you to make bookmarks. However, the display of the pdfs looks much better in the Nook Color.

I am likewise disappointed in the organizing abilities of the Nook Color. I liked the Sony idea of collections and relied upon them heavily. I had set up Calibre to create my tags as collections in the Sony. I don't have any of this in the Nook Color. The closest thing that I get is organizing books by author or title. I like the idea of "shelves" but if the Nook Color doesn't allow shelves to be created/modified by programs such as Calibre, then it creates a lot of manual work for me as a user. I guess I'll have to get used to using the search function a lot. Hopefully they will open up their shelves in future updates so that Calibre can work with them. The Sony also had a view that let you see all your bookmarks so that you could jump around to different books that you were reading, but the Nook Color doesn't have such a view (I couldn't find one, at least). You can look at recently read books, but if you had bookmarked a book that you opened a long time ago, it is not easy to find it unless you know the book title so that you can do a search for it.

As for comics, the color and sharp resolution make comics look great. Thank you B&N! I haven't fooled around with video too much yet, but I've found some good hints on how to move video there (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=107571) so I look forward to trying that out soon.

In general, I'm pretty pleased with my purchase, just annoyed at how they treated PDF support. I'm now converting many of my books to epub via Calibre to get the bookmark support that I like, but I wish I didn't have to do that. I look forward to future updates in the software/firmware, and especially look forward to when B&N opens up App development more (next year, I hear).

[SCION]

Originally Posted by pattmatt

...
I am likewise disappointed in the organizing abilities of the Nook Color. I liked the Sony idea of collections and relied upon them heavily. I had set up Calibre to create my tags as collections in the Sony. I don't have any of this in the Nook Color...

[Liviu_5]

Originally Posted by pattmatt

In general, I'm pretty pleased with my purchase, just annoyed at how they treated PDF support. I'm now converting many of my books to epub via Calibre to get the bookmark support that I like, but I wish I didn't have to do that. I look forward to future updates in the software/firmware, and especially look forward to when B&N opens up App development more (next year, I hear).

I agree that the lack of page remember/bookmark in pdf's is the biggest failing of the NC but i hope they will fix it soon and in the meantime go-to-page works as a substitute especially if you tend to remember the rough place you were.

I still do not get that much the collection thing though; the way I see it, collections are useful to minimize click through until you get a book and maybe simplify look-up books if you forgot you have them on your device


But the collection ultimately won't reduce that much either for large libraries since you either have many collections or collections have many books, so in other words a large library gets divided into smaller but more libraries and the smaller the more, while the fewer libraries (collections) the more books in one..

Here on NC real time search from library or even home screen (global Nook) is really fast

[becsta]

I havent received my nook yet, does it show books that have been read? I alternate between reading books in different series and sometimes forget which ones in the series I have already read. Can you make the nook mark (for want of a better word) books that have already been read?

[SCION]

Originally Posted by becsta

I havent received my nook yet, does it show books that have been read? I alternate between reading books in different series and sometimes forget which ones in the series I have already read. Can you make the nook mark (for want of a better word) books that have already been read?

You can make a shelf for books read then place the finished book on that shelf.

[becsta]

Originally Posted by SCION

You can make a shelf for books read then place the finished book on that shelf.

Cool. I am so looking forward to getting this but probably wont have it till the end of the week or early next week.

[pattmatt]

I've been using the Nook Color more over the past few days and found a few other annoyances such as epubs don't rotate to landscape mode. When checking if others had this problem, I discovered this thread which documents many of the minor shortcomings of the Nook Color: http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/...ts/td-p/727723. It may be useful for those considering buying one. Despite these shortcomings, it is one heck of a device and I am glad that I purchased it (but wouldn't mind some updates to the software/firmware soon .