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The Nook: Thumbs-down from Engadget and a warmer review from Gizmodo—and meanwhile B&N suffers another delay
December 7, 2009 | 1:10 pm
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By Paul Biba
Update, 3:54 p.m.: To fill existing orders, B&N won’t debut the Nook in the stores until early next year—just give demos right now. – D.R.
Curious what it’s like to use a Nook? Well, the hardware experience is pretty similar to the Kindle and there is no difference in the E Ink display, says Engadget.
The software, however, doesn’t seem to be so hot.
Engadget feels that it is "daunting" to navigate around, and the dual screen interaction is confusing. Even after hours of use, the Engadget tester would forget what to press to get to the desired place. The Nook’s response was "extremely sluggish" and "stuck in the mud."
Overall Engadget found the software to be an impediment to reading and "downright unpleasant to use sometimes… When it came to day-to-day use, we felt let down in a big way, and can only imagine how magnified that feeling would be if we’d gone and shelled out nearly $300 for the device."
But wait! Gizmodo’s reviewer likes the Nook even though the Kindle remains the blog’s favorite. These rivals are “two big dogs surrounded by a bunch of poodles.”
Mr. or Ms. Gizmodo says: “Nook preserves the same pleasurable reading experience, but tucks in the capacitive-touch LCD screen for added control. In its 1.0 implementation, Nook is not as fast or as smooth as it should be, but already it’s showing that the second screen is not a gimmick.”
What’s more, Gizmodo reports that B&N is “promising round-the-clock enhancing, optimizing and debugging over the next few months, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were three or four updates pushed through the Nook by March—the first possibly before Christmas.”
So maybe the sluggishness reported by one early user will go away, if it’s there.
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Comments:
I tried one out in B&N today. Yes, there are some issues with the responsiveness of the LCD screen. I found the e-ink to be very good, though, and actually reading was perfect. No problems with page turns, etc. The text was clear and readable even on the smallest text size. There’s also three different fonts available: Amasis, Helvetica Neue, and Light Classic. I’d most likely stick with Amasis or Helvetica.
I had no trouble with the navigation, though there was a slight learning curve. After the first few minutes, I had no trouble navigating through the various features. As another reviewer noted, there is a tendency to want to touch the e-ink screen to make a selection, but I did that once, immediately realize my error, and didn’t do it again. I didn’t find anything “daunting” about it.
I agree that some updates will need to be made to deal with the responsiveness of the LCD screen, but I’d be happy to use the device as it stands currently.
Forget ereaders. My ideal device would be a netbook computer with a DETACHABLE screen, which you may use independently as an ereader. Part netbook, part tablet.
Guess what? One just came out early this year! Check out the Touch Book. It’s $299.
https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/
Video of the Touch Book’s detached screen, used as an ereader:
https://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/gallery.htm
Engadget reviewed it:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/02/touch-book-from-always-innovating-harbors-removable-tablet-netb/
The only problem for me, a netbook user, is the small 8 GB storage. But you probably wouldn’t need a normal laptop again for most of your daily business.
Correction: it’s $399 total. The $299 is for the tablet alone:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/netbook-tablet-touch-book-always,7143.html
Specs from the company’s website:
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/info.htm
9.7″ x 7″ x 1.3″ for around 3 lbs (with keyboard)
ARM Texas Instruments OMAP3 chip
1024 x 600 8.9” screen
Storage: 8 GB SD card
Wifi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth
3-dimensional accelerometer
Speakers, micro and headphone
8 USB 2.0 (4 internal, 4 external)
10 hours of battery life
“The Touch Book uses an innovative ARM processor from Texas Instruments that delivers the power of a traditional desktop computer but uses a fraction of the energy.
Like a cellphone, it is always-on, so there is no need to reboot each time. And without noisy fans and disk drives, it’s completely silent, so it won’t intrude on your inner space.”
Also, it’s Linux-based and doesn’t run Windows XP applications.
As was noted in a previous blog, I ordered a Nook in the first five days and I’m waiting to see exactly what I purchased. I’ve been using E-books for years and purchased a Rocket E-Book from Barnes and Noble about ten years ago. I still own that device, it never really worked, but I never returned it to B&N. I figure this time if I’m not happy with the product, I’ll just return it and go back to ereading on my Palm TX and iPod Touch and wait for Apple to produce their next “game changing” product.
So far, I’m not too happy to read some of the comments that are finally appearing in the media. I’ve already set up my books and files to transfer to the Nook, so it won’t be too long before I can give the Teleread community my evaluation, hopefully before Christmas.