Last week I told you that BuyDig has recently become an authorized nook vendor. I managed to snag one of the nooks that we’ll be using as a display model and took it home for a week to put it through its paces. Overall, the nook is a great eReader. Setting it up is fairly quick and painless (unless, like me, you have a penchant for coming up with the most obscenely difficult WiFi passwords and spend five minutes digging through your password notebook (itself written in code) so that you can get the nook to connect to the wireless network).
The model I tested out is the nook color. So, let’s take it out of the box and see how well it does, shall we?
Inside the Box
The nook color comes with the tablet device (the actual nook), a USB adapter, and a wall socket. A quick start guide is also included in the box. However, once you’ve plugged in and charged up the nook, the nook itself walks you through setting it up. Still, the printed guide is a nice bit of redundancy (redundancy in technical gadgets is good).
The USB adapter allows the nook to be charged by being connected to a computer (provided, of course, that the computer is turned on and booted up). The wall socket lets you plug the USB adapter into it and charge the nook through a standard wall socket. The socket unit does not have a ground on it which is probably for the best since the socket is rather large and you may want to turn it upside down to plug it in. When not being used, the metallic prongs fold neatly into the socket, making it easy to store ore carry without worrying over bending the prongs and rendering the whole thing unusable.
Setting it Up
Barnes & Noble recommends that you let the nook fully charge before using it for the first time. I let it charge to 100% — a process that took about two hours, tops. The minute it was plugged into the wall, I could have set it up, however. So, if you’re eager to get going, all you need to do is give the device a bit of juice and then you can jump straight into reading while the nook charges up.
The set-up, minus the self-inflicted problems, literally took no more than three minutes. The nook itself forces you to take each step in order and the interface is very intuitive, especially if you have experience with a smartphone. So, within five minutes of taking it off the charger, I was already getting a book from the nook store and looking forward to a long night of settling in to Sagan’s Cosmos.
Using the Nook
Using it is simple. The long button at the bottom of the touch screen is the “wake up” button. Then you drag the ribbon across to indicate that, yes, you do want the device to be active (this prevents accidental presses from eating away at the battery life). If you were reading something already, the nook will display the last page you were on. If you had navigated away from the book — perhaps to the store to check out other books — then pressing the open book icon at the bottom of the screen takes you right back to where you were in your current book. Bookmarking pages is also easy — just press in the middle of the screen and then tap the bookmark icon on the upper right corner.
Turning pages — forwards or back — is easy as well. To go back a page, just tap the left side of the screen. To go forward, tap the right. You can also drag the pages (left to go back, right to go forward) but a simple tap will accomplish the same job. On books that allow for it, you can increase the size of images by dragging the corners of the image outwards or decrease the size by dragging them inwards (pinching).
The nook also has adjustable back lighting which lets you read anywhere. Low light? No problem! No light? I was able to read several chapters painlessly and with no eyestrain while in bed with the blinds closed, the lamp off, and a blanket over my head. Reading outside is also not a problem. Even with the sun beaming down directly on the nook, by setting the brightness as high as it would go, I could read quite easily. The screen is somewhat glare resistant even without the matting found on other eReaders.
Possible Annoyances
However, no device is perfect. The nook, while being great, has three quirks that some users might find annoying.
1) The touchscreen — Touchscreen devices are growing in popularity. However, they do have an unfortunate tendency to pick up fingerprints. The nook is no exception. Still, wiping away the prints with a shirt or soft towel largely clears this problem up in a few seconds.
Another issue with the touchscreen itself is that you must tap the screen to navigate. After a while, you will be habituated to this and will no longer notice it. However, for the first few chapters, I found myself noticing the gap between pages as I touched the screen to turn to the next page. This might be a problem for you or it might be a good thing for you: YMMV.
2) The weight — The nook is, by no means, heavy. However, it is heavier than something like the Kindle. I did not find the weight to be much of an issue, though. Merely noticeable.
3) No “sleep now” button — The nook puts itself in sleep mode after a certain defined amount of inactivity. Until that threshold is crossed, however, the screen is completely lit. It will then go into a duller lighting mode for a few seconds before completely turning itself off. If you were reading when you shouldn’t have been (such as at work — unless you’re doing a review on the nook like I am!) then the nook will not be an ally in the cover-up when your boss comes over. Also, if you want to go straight to sleep, you may do well to set the nook on the nightstand or floor and then turn so that your back is to it for the 30 seconds or so it takes the nook to decide to kill the light.
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