I has a nook!
- Image via Wikipedia
I got my nook this weekend, from the lovely BF (A Christmas gift that got delayed by lack of availability from B&N) and have been playing about with it here and there.
My initial first impression is good, even once I got over the requisite geek-girl squeeing over a new gadget. The interface is incredibly intuitive and had no learning curve whatsoever. In fact, while opening the package it came in required instructions (I kid you not. And they were very necessary.), the only instruction manual you get for the actual device is in its own library, and virtually unnecessary.
It came pre-loaded with three classics (Dracula, Pride and Prejudice, and Little Women) – the inclusion of Pride and Prejudice admittedly won some points with me, as that’s one of my favorite books and likely one I’d have been buying if it hadn’t been there. Both it and my first purchase via the nook interface, Coraline, look really spiffy rendered in the e-ink screen.
Connecting the nook to my B&N account, purchasing books from the store, etc. was handled admirably fast by the included (and free) AT&T wireless connection, and it seems that the interface lag that I’ve seen folks complain about has been dealt with. While the AT&T doesn’t pick up at my house (nothing picks up at my house, no matter what service provider. I live in the boonies), it picks up everywhere else I go, and adding WiFi hotspots for my local library and office was simple enough.
My main reason for choosing the nook over the Kindle was because the nook did not use a proprietary e-book format, and allowed side-loading of non-B&N purchased e-books and documents. Of course, here you have the issue of loading items that have not been specifically formatted for the nook, but the books I’ve loaded onto it in epub format do well. Anything in pdf format, of course, displays as an image and can get cut off. My local library offers e-books in epub format, so I haven’t had any problems with the few I’ve tried out.
I’m very pleased. This is by no means a substitute for actual physical books, I’m looking at it as more of a supplement to my book addiction . . . and perhaps a way of ensuring that I don’t end up completely buried in books at some point. (This weekend, I pulled a mountain of books out of my car that, once catalogued and sorted, came out to a total of 197 books . . . BF says I should get better gas mileage.) Very likely, the nook will replace only my paperback purchases – the books that I really care about having for posterity, to read again and again and again, I’ll still be buying in hardcover.
Related articles by Zemanta
- The Barnes & Noble nook is officially sold out (crunchgear.com)
- Sara Edmonds | The World Of E-readers (freshfiction.com)
- Kindle Vs Nook: My Experience (evilgeniuschronicles.org)
- Barnes and Noble Announces “World’s Largest eBookstore”, Upcoming eReader [Ebooks] (gizmodo.com)
Recent Comments