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Harry Mccracken reviews the Nook Color
November 24, 2010 | 8:28 am
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By Paul Biba
Mccracken has a review in Time.com today. He is the well-known proprietor of the Technologizer blog.
Harry likes the Nook Color and says that he’ll take the trade-off of lower battery life for the color screen:
I preferred the Nook Color experience to the Kindle one for plain text, simply because the “paper” is so much whiter and the “ink” so much blacker.
Like the first Nook, which came with software problems, it seems as if the Nook Color has some teething problems as well. He says the animation is jittery as you scroll around the interface, for example, and that B&N is looking at a software update before the holidays. He also finds the browser to be the Nooks “most disappointing feature”.
However, on the whole, Harry has become a Nook Color fan:
For now, it’s an e-reader — and though it’s not perfect, it’s easily the most appealing Kindle competitor to date. (I don’t mean to ignore Sony’s Readers, but their high price tags for what you get hurt them in any comparison.)
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I looked at the Nook Color in store for about 30 minutes and was blown away at the interface, which was great. They have 3 layers of integrated menus which were perfectly obvious how to use. Of course, with LED devices and increased battery life you can get away with it. Also great: the ability to create custom bookshelves is a great feature. They really nailed the ebook functionality. Hopefully by the time the Android OS is updated next spring, it will be possible to download an app which lets you read RSS feeds.
The main competitor to this device is the eink Sony PRS-950SC with a larger form factor.
Saw the nook at Best Buy yesterday. My first impression was that it is an iPad wannabe…more tablet computer than e-reader and not really the best at either.
Great color, but the screen seemed to “vibrate” and “jump” which was a little irritating. Also had to hold it at an awkward angle so that the ceiling lights in the store didn’t reflect back at me. Not a good sign if you’re someone who wants to spend the warm Summer days outside web surfing or e-reading.
The e-book pages have wonderful contrast–maybe a little too wonderful. I wonder if the very black type against the very white background will be tiring to read from after a while. Looking back to pbooks, maybe they aren’t printed on pure white paper for a reason.
While lots of people will accept the shortened battery life to get a color screen, I’m not one of them. Eight hours, (which is what B&N says is the battery life, but manufacturers always seem to over estimate this, so who knows what you will actually get), just isn’t enough for me. I don’t want to find myself in the middle of a lazy afternoon away from home with no reading juice.
But the main reason I’d hesitate to purchase a nook right now is B&N’s announcement that they hope to have a software update, (read “fix”), out before the holidays. This tells me that they’re aware that they have rushed a faulty device onto the market. If I’m spending $250, I want a device that works correctly right out of the box.
They really need to add eReader/PDB support to the Nook Color. To not support their own legacy format (especially when there is Android eReader software already written) just seems dumb.
@Brian/ Anemic Oak
I don’t use the PDB format, but would those users be happy if BN just added a converter on their website for their existing library’s?
That seems like it would be easier than programming every new bit of software twice.
@Peter, I’m sure some folks would be fine with that, but I’ve never seen a converter for DRM’d books. Seems like more work than adding a function they already have the software written for.
I’m PDB dependant. I’ve converted over 100 books to PDB that I’ve read on my aging, very aging, Palm Tungsten T3. I use the Palm Markup Language to format text (italics, bold, etc.) and to add graphics (covers mostly) and footnotes. I am very interested in the Nook Color because I also have food recipes in PDF format that I created with step-by-step photographs for my web site, white-trash-cooking.com. It would be more efficient to have something in the kitchen while testing a recipe rather than running back and forth between office and kitchen while cooking. (There is no room for a computer in my little kitchen.) The black and white Nook accepts PDB, so I can only assume the color Nook will eventually. But I don’t want to buy until I know the format is fully compatible. Formatting over 100 books in PDF doesn’t seem like an option.
Bought a Nook Color and I think they are pretty good for the money paid. I especially like the color LCD feature because I like to read my favorite magazines while I wait in line, wait at a doctor’s office, or anywhere else. I did have a hard time finding a simple sleeve for it. However, found a small company that makes a pretty good sleeve for this unit and sells them for only $8.95 with free freight at http://www.nuvo-tek.com.
By the same token, if anyone knows of where I can buy a good cover (not a sleeve) that is not too expensive for the Nook Color, please let me know.
Thanks