(OK, that’s really “Nook eReader” but I like it better the other way.)
Two weeks ago my wife bought me the Barnes & Noble “nook” e-book reader. I had looked at the Kindle and the nook, and I had a — completely subjective, I admit — preference for the color touch screen. The Kindle has a nice keyboard (and a little joystick too), but I was just attracted to the nook’s clean design.
I took it on a business trip to California to see how well it worked. My thought was it would be easier to carry the nook with me than the usual three paperbacks I take when I go on trips. I used to bring just two, but I ran out of reading material one time, and went hunting desperately through the airport bookshops during a layover trying to find something appealing to read.
The nook worked very well. I had no problems transferring pdfs (I used “calibre” before upgrading to Snow Leopard, but now calibre crashes on me), and I bought Singularity Sky to read based on recommendations I got prior to the trip.
I initially had problems reading the book. They weren’t due to any issues with the nook proper, but actually reading a book on a brand-new piece of hardware was very distracting. I kept wanting to play with the features — browsing available books, looking at what was free, flipping around on pdfs, using the built-in dictionary, and so on — instead of read. I think I restarted Singularity Sky three or four times before I finally actually was paying attention to the book itself.
Once I got past the newness factor, the nook made reading really easy. No more worrying about bookmarks, or losing my place, or forgetting a book (they’re all right there!). I did notice some rendering issues, though, especially with italic text, but I’m sure that can be fixed with a software upgrade. After playing with the fonts a bit, I found that using the “smallest” setting, with the built-in serif font, worked the best. Any larger, and I was turning pages too frequently, which in itself is a distraction.
My one complaint about the nook is the responsiveness of the touch screen. They must have skimped a bit on the CPU because it’s kind of sluggish when compared with, e.g., an iPhone. But it works; it’s serviceable. And the built-in 3G and WiFi work very well for browsing and downloading.