Barnes & Noble nook Review Discussion

[Jen Edwards]

The nook is the new electronic reading device from Barnes & Noble.

It has a beauriful, 6-inch, e-ink screen as well as a separate color LCD touchscreen below, which is used for navigation, to view book covers, and as a virtual keyboard when necessary. You can shop for books and magazines and have them download immediatly via Wi-Fi or AT&T 3G wireless.

This e-book reader has 2 GB of internal storage, plus a microSD slot allows you to add more capacity, plus bring in your own personal content if you don't want to hook this device up to your computer.

The nook is $260, but any new orders won't ship until February 1 at the earliest; there will not be any nooks available at retail until after the beginning of the year. Orders placed now will receive a "holiday certificate" you can give to the recipient if you are ordering the nook as a holiday gift.

Read the full content of this Article: Barnes & Noble nook Review

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[Magellan]

Great review! I hope my wife caught all of my hints, and I hope she caught them several weeks ago. :-)

[Varjak]

Very nice review; but I would like to have read a bit more about the comparison in speed (page turning, searching, etc.) between the Nook and the Kindles. Every other review I've read describes the Nook as much laggier.

Interesting stuff about the footnotes and bookmarks. I use this feature on my WordSmith Palm doc reader (I don't typically write marginalia in 'good' hardcover books and haven't since college). On WS, I both the footnotes and bookmarks are WYSIWYG. They show pretty much as they'd appear on paper.

[dunkaroo]

What's the point of having Android on this device?

[Drillbit]

Kindle is using Linux, which is the default preference for devices of this type, though I don't know which distro Kindle is using, probably Debian, which is also used in Maemo like in the Nokia N900 and Google's own ChromeOS. I think Barnes and Noble was using Android because one, its also a Linux and its easily modified and easy to write software for,

[Mi An]

What's the point of having Android on this device?

While probably not B&N's point, for the end poweruser, the nook has already been rooted and had ordinary Android apps modified for use on it.

I'm eager to see what B&N and AT&T do in response to be people using the 3G access for things other than downloading books.

I seem to recall that B&N has tentative plans to provide apps for it. But I would expect the unofficial fare to be far more interesting.

[Magellan]

Yes, it allreasdy has Twitter, Facebook, Web Browser and Pandora apps running on a hacked version. Apparently the OS is on a removable SD card (once it is hacked open anyway).

[dunkaroo]

If app use is one of the great features that makes this product different from the Kindle and all the other e-readers available, then it should be pointed out and tested (yes tested) in the review. The review was well-written, but not comprehensive with this glaring omission.

[Hook]

If app use is one of the great features that makes this product different from the Kindle and all the other e-readers available, then it should be pointed out and tested (yes tested) in the review. The review was well-written, but not comprehensive with this glaring omission.

App use is not currently one of the features of the Nook. The fact that some have been able to hack the device by rooting it and other means, does not make those things features. Android is simply an embedded OS, like the Linux that runs yor ATM. The review examined the device with manufacturer supported features, which is what a review should do.

[Mi An]

If app use is one of the great features that makes this product different from the Kindle and all the other e-readers available

The "future official and/or present unofficial app use" answer came as one part of responses to "why android?", not "why nook?" There was no glaring omission in the review for the reasons Hook states.

Hacks aren't for your average BH review reader (the thousands of people who read the news from the front pages, not the forums) who is looking for a more average use review. And the distant possibility that B&N may have official apps in the future isn't really something you can weigh right now. Maybe they will, maybe the won't. If they do, maybe it will be useful, maybe it won't.