So, I finally got an e-reader today. After getting my wife a Nook Color for her birthday, I found it intriguing enough to take the plunge and get my own. I still wasn’t sure I would really be into it, but the only way to find out for sure was to go ahead and take the plunge.
So far, so … well, OK. Some things I really like, others annoy me a lot. The color touchscreen is WORLDS better, for me, than the “e-ink” more typically found in e-readers. The “PC application” is Windows-only… but it does run fine, so far, under WINE in Linux, so there’s that. Battery life seems pretty sweet so far.
One thing that bothers me – the “lending” feature, which was something I heartily approved of, so far seems to require that you link the Nook to your Facebook account… and give it permission to post on your wall. NOT COOL, B&N. I am really, really not okay with applications which can pretend to be you by posting things as though they were you, ever, from pretty much anybody. And to be honest – I am looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg – the fact that this is even an option with Facebook apps drives me insane. There should never be a legitimate case for an application making a post as a human being without that human’s express consent, expressed beforehand, for that particular post. Anyway. Back to the actual device:
The feel of the device in my hands – which was a really big concern for me – is pretty nice so far. Part of how nice it is to hold is the leather “book” cover I got for it, which I am frankly kind of in love with – it’s glossy, nice-smelling black leather, with reverse-embossed classical authors’ names in big all caps serif text all over. I wasn’t sure when I went into B&N today whether I would get the Nook or not – I was really leaning more towards a Samsung Galaxy android tablet. I’m still not sure if I would have actually taken the plunge, without that cover sitting there all seductive-like. Having seen it though… had to have it.
My biggest gripe so far is the interface of the shop. The Nook store is frankly AWFUL – it’s almost impossible to navigate effectively. If you just want to buy whatever is selling well, you’re in luck, and you’ll be very happy. If you have more specific tastes… prepare for some pain. You can search for author name or book title, which is great if you know EXACTLY what you want – and by “great” I mean “OK”, because all you have is a simple, single-level search with no sorting or grouping. Better hope your favorite author has an unusual name, because you can’t limit searches by genre; for example, searching for “David Drake” got me both the military sci-fi author and some young gay dude who wrote a tell-all book. The lack of sorting or grouping is even worse; should you actually find the author you’re looking for, you can expect to find a complete mish-mash of crap: in a series of novels you’ll likely see #5 first, followed by three unrelated books, followed by #7, followed by more unrelateds, followed by #2… you get the idea.
You are also ridiculously likely to see the SAME book multiple times, with a different cover image. It’s even worse in the “free books” section – some dude wrote his own Star Wars book and it’s listed, I kid you not, AT LEAST ten different times. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it was SORTED or grouped in any way, but… did I mention that you can’t sort, or group, and your searches are single-level simple searches only?
Still, so far I’m enjoying the experience of actually *reading* on the device, and with any luck eventually B&N will sort out their godawful navigation issues on the store.
