Okay so I recently purchased a nook color. I thought i would post my thoughts on the device. I'll break this into three sections. The first will be my thoughts on the hardware itself. Next I'll talk about the "stock" nook. Finally I'll cover the nerd factor.
I'm starting with my thoughts on the hardware first, as that is the thing that will be important to everyone considering this purchase. First let's get the size out of the way. The tablet has a seven inch display. It is comfortably sized for reading one handed...even laying on your back. It is however loads bigger than the very generous 4" screen on my phone. There are times when I feel mildly cramped by the display size. However, I feel that if it were much bigger, it would be too big to comfortably hold and carry. I guess the balance is personal preference. I like the 7" size.
The size is great but not so important if it looks like crap right? It doesn't look like crap. It is beatiful. It has a very high pixel density. Higher than either the ipad or the galaxy tab. One has to look very carefully to see pixels. Colors are also very good. Honestly I think colors look better on this than on my phone's amoled display. And then there is the viewable angle. Barnes and Noble claims 178°. That may be a bit optimistic but it is really really good. Really the screen is fantastic. That being said, it is not an e-ink screen.
E-ink screens look fantastic in the sunlight. This screen is barely visible in the sun. E-ink screens can not be read in the dark. This screen can easily. E-ink screens are cheaper. This screen is multitouch. E-ink is black and white. E-ink takes a noticeable amount of time to change what it is displaying. E-ink only uses power while the display is changing. This screen constantly drains the battery when it is on.
Speaking of the battery...this thing actually does quite well on power. B&N claims eight hours and i think that is about right. Watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica used about 5% of the battery even with wifi on. It will blow any laptop/netbook/phone out of the water here. But does this battery life come at the cost of processing power or memory or other geek specs?
The answer to this question is yes and no. The amount of memory is good. It has 512 megabytes of working memory and another 5 gigabytes onboard for storage. Throw in a microSD card of up to 32 gigabytes and you probably won't have memory issues. The processor though is a little trickier.
The processor is rated at 800 gigahertz. Blah blah blah. So the processor is slower thann the one in the tab and the ipad. Pop open a web browser on each of the three. Now scroll around a bunch and go pinchy zoomie. The ipad(1) will repond much better than the nook and the nook will respond faster than the tab. But if you look at specs the tab should be the fastest and the nook the slowest. Here is what I think. The processor is good enough that a well written program will run like butter. It is not so fast that it can make up for crap software. But clearly neither is the tab's. And I will be surprised if the dual core chips will make a difference here either.
So since we've brought up software, let's take a look at what comes out of the box. The obvious thing is the reader. The e-book reader is perfect. I works and is comfortable to read from. Likewise the shopping is good. A little too good to be honest. It is just a little too easy to purchase things that can be downloaded for free from places like the public library or Project Gutenberg. Anything that can be read in the reader app is good. Epub, nookbook, pdf...oh wait...pdf.
B&N claims to support pdfs. This is really my first disappointment with the device. The pdf reader that comes with it is terrible. I mean epically bad. But all you have to do is root it and download one that doesn't suck.
Root what now? Okay this is why I bought this device. This thing is kind of billed as a half tablet half reader. The truth is that out of the box it is a reader that does internet. That might change down the line. B&N has plans to open their own app store but it is not here yet. However, if you aren't afraid to get your hands a little dirty you can run basically anything on it that you can run on any android device.
This approach however takes a fair bit of research but isn't too tough after you figure it all out. There is a thriving community of hobbyists that have managed to get this device running basically every version of the android operating system available. They even managed to get it running the same os that that fancy new xoom runs. Long before the xoom ever came out. Do this and you have a tablet computer for half or a third of what most people will pay for one.
There is one issue I need to mention. The touchscreen can be very difficult to manipulate at the extreme corners and edges. This problem is present in my device and the display device at B&N. At first glance it seems like a hardware issue. I don't think it is though. If the device is rotated so the notification bar over these trouble spots the go away. I know this is present on stock firmware and rooted stock firmware. Other than the the crossword app this isn't much of an issue on stock firmware. You will notice it reading sometimes if you tap too close to the edge when turning a page. It is a giant annoyance on a rooted device (stupid tweet button). I have yet to try any custom operating spins so I cannot say if it is present there. I mention this last because i believe it is software and doesn't affect much out of the box.
So should you get one?
If you want just an e-reader I would think about a cheaper e-ink device.
If you want an e-reader that can go on the web this is a good option. This device ballparks for the same price as a netbook but has better battery life and a more convenient form factor. It can not do as much as a netbook at the moment. But then again, why would you ever want to do anything on a netbook?
Are you looking for a tablet but want it working out of the box and glitch free? I would say either wait for the app store or pay the extra money for a "real" tablet.
Are you tech savvy and want a super cheap super high quality tablet to play about with? If this is you (it is me) then i can't reccomend this device highly enough. Go get one now!
Maybe later I'll post some thoughts on the current state of android and tablet software.
