Book Nook – Review/Overview
My husband bought me a Book Nook for my birthday. I’ve played around with it for about a week and I really like it.
Warning: loads of pictures.
I got a fancy cover with it and it looks like this:
I have to warn you – for some blasted reason, the camera had the hardest time with the Book Nook. I’m a lousy photographer, and Book Nook is crisp and sharp. Any blurriness is due to the my camera and not the device. I swear, it took me like half an hour to get decent pictures. I think it might be the protective film, but I’m not taking it off, or I will never get it on there again.
As you can see, the Nook has two panels: the top, the reading panel, which is not lit and the bottom, the electronically lit panel, which turns itself off after a few seconds if you don’t mess with it. When inactive, the top panel displays portraits of various authors, in this case we got Kurt Vonnegut. The top panel is perfectly readable in daylight. I took pictures in my chair with a soft electric lamp and no flash, so this is actually what it would look like under normal light.
So, turning the Book Nook on.
This is a shot of my library. As you can see, I downloaded a bunch of samples. Samples are free and almost every e-book has them, so you can try before you buy.
This is the cover view of the library in the lower panel. The panel turns on when you tap it and you can scroll the covers and so on with a swipe of your finger across it.
This shot was taken to demonstrate the handy search keyboard but you can see a bit of text in it. The text is NOT that dark. It’s just that the camera had problems adjusting to the electronic screen, so it’s sort of darkened everything else.
If you look closer, you will see there is some smexing going on.
That’s because I was reading Lisa Kleypas. I’m cheap and I was looking for something light and inexpensive for my first purchase.
I found this book, Suddenly You, for $3 and change, downloaded a sample, and read it in one night. It was a lot of fun. The story had been done before but it was executed flawlessly.
Below you will see what the book menu looks like.
So going shopping. The Nook is wireless. You select shopping from the bottom panel and it takes you to BN.
I searched for Jeaniene Frost
I chose Destined for an Early Grave and was offered book overview, a sample, and a cover.
Jeaniene seems to be on sale 
I like the Nook. It’s easy to use. I also own a SONY and I gave to say I prefer the Nook by a long shot. I like the fancy lit screen, the wireless capability, and the reading surface looks better than a SONY. Much has been made about the mysterious delay of half a second when selecting things. The delay didn’t bother me in the least. I haven’t noticed it.
The Nook has another point in its favor: the books are cheaper than at SONY store. I used to have to buy my e-books at Fictionwise, because SONY was too pricy, and then convert and downconvert and reconvert so SONY would read them. No I tap the screen and I’m done.
As of now, SONY is being retired as a primary reader in favor of the NOOK in Gordon household. 
Good to know. I love my Sony reader but it is locked up now and hasn’t responded to my various efforts to unlock it. Since I already have a LOT of electronic books that I like to re-read, perhaps I’ll be getting a Nook for my birthday next month (if I can live that long without my precioussss). Argh.
Have you tried the “hold down the reset button for a minute” last resort?
If that still doesn’t work you may have to wait for the battery to flatten out.
Yeah – it required hard reset, reformatting of memory and a complete reload but all is well now. Back to reading tonight after work!
Oh, and thanks for taking pity on me and offering suggestions for fixing!
Nae probs.
I was eyeballing the Nook. I know the roommate wants one. But right now, trying to recover from Christmas before going into debt for a new tech toy again. Maybe next Christmas I’ll have one.
(yippee) I love my nook too! It is very easy to use, very colorful and nice to read from. I am very impressed. If there is a delay, I haven’t noticed it, it takes a moment or two to download, but that is to be expected. Thank you again!
Take your nook into a B&N store before tomorrow (think it was good until 1/6/10), if you get a chance. You’ll get a coupon on it for a free $1.95 cookie at the cafe. All you have to do is show your nook screen with the coupon on it to the server and Whammmo! Free Cookie Goodness. I actually blogged about my free cookie I was so giddy about it.
http://ameliemarkik.blogspot.com/2009/12/so-i-got-free-cookie.html
btw, I love my nook too. I named it “Sugar nookie”.
The only bad thing is the size of the samples. I’ve only downloaded 2 of them and didn’t buy either for the following reason: each was about 12 pages long, but the overwhelming majority of the content was title pages, acknowledgments, reviewer quotes, copyright pages, etc. The first one netted me 1.5 nook pages worth of actual text and the second, only 2 PARAGRAPHS! That’s not enough for me to tell if I like the author’s style or the premise of the book. I wasn’t willing to commit to either one.
you know me… i’m a kindle person but i’m glad you got the nook ::::Grins::: we DO need to get you a skin. wonder if there are any cool ones out.
I’m a kindle person as well, but they sound pretty similar (except mine doesn’t have the fancy scroll screen). I’m very happy with mine and now there’s an apple tablet looming on the horizon…Help! LOL
I’m so jealous!! I got one for Christmas, but hubby wasn’t lucky enough to actually snag one IRL, so it ships Feb. 1st. sigh. But I’ve already gone shopping, so there’ll be plenty of books to read on it when it gets here, lol!
Thanks for the review! I have one of these sweet babies on order for shipment on 1/15/2010. I ended up getting a Sony Pocket reader for Christmas and I love it but I’m pretty sure I’ll like nook better – if for no other reason than the larger screen – but I’m really excited about the Wifi access and the sexy color covers!
I love my kindle, but totally jelous over the Nook’s color covers. I would probably switch over, but you can’t download Nook books to a computer (I don’t always have wifi access).
You can, actually. You just need to have the BN app on your desktop or laptop. (*says the BN employee*) All that information is stored in your account, so if you’ve downloaded a book to your Nook, it’ll be on the app as well. Bookmarks are shared, etc.
I don’t have an e reader at all yet but I’ m gathering information from wherever I can get it as for which one is the best.
Thanks for the info.
I’m also a Kindle user, but the Nook is definitely a huge competitor for it. If I had to choose all over again? I’d definitely be looking hard at the pros and cons of each, and how much the books differ in price between B&N and Amazon (in the past, Amazon had better prices).
Btw, I got Amazon gift cards I used for my Kindle and I downloaded two of your books, even though I own them in paperback. I plan on buying all of them for my Kindle.
I just got the kindle and am loving it. it’s my first e-reader. I chose kindle for the worldwide wireless capability, the others only listed US capability. I am in the navy and will be deploying later this year so global access to new bookies is a must.
My nook will ship on the 15th as well, Tina, and I’m trying to stave off hysteria by reading reviews, buying accessories, and fondling the in-store nook at my local Barnes & Nobles (unsurprisingly, “fondling” is the least successful of my gambits). I went all out and bought an Oberon cover, too (http://www.oberondesign.com/) to give a flavor of romance to my new digital honey. I’ve been following the eInk phenomena closely, while enjoying reading on my iTouch. You can’t beat the eInk battery life for travel, though, and my brother swears that my eyes will thank me one day for switching back to a “non-glowing-screen” reading medium. I chose the nook over Kindle because I was about 400 ebooks in the hole to eReader by the time Amazon opened up and made an iPhone Kindle reader (I’m a big Fictionwise fan, too, Ilona!). The eReader files can be read on the nook without conversion tom foolery. I think I would have been in love with it, regardless of conversion phobia, because the hardware is solid and the software is already being upgraded (and hacked) as we speak. Someone, somewhere, is going to create the ebook software interface of my dreams, and I’m banking on it being beamed into the nook… I have been directing all friends and family members to the Mobile Reads forums for their own eBook solutions (http://www.mobileread.com/), I’m convinced that everyone has a different “perfect fit” and the forum has great differing opinions (and feature matrices for the obsessively organized amongst us).
So glad to read this! My Nook should be arriving tomorrow and I’m super excited to use it! WoOt!
Very cool. Am very jealous
I’m a Kindle user as well. Got it for my birthday in November. Love it! Glad to see you’re liking the Nook.
I’m sooo excited!! Hubby is getting me one as a belated Christmas gift!! I have to wait until February
, but who cares?? I LOVE IT!
I got a Kindle for my birthday last April. Aren’t those e-ink screens awesome? I currently have *looks, gasp* 81 books in my archive. Those are books I’ve read since last April. For some strange reason, I read far more on my Kindle than I ever did with dead tree books. Odd because I’m a total bibliophile. I love how books feel and smell and taste. Okay, the tasting is just for those yummy mantitty covers. And that’s my one complaint with my Kindle: rarely does the book come with its cover art. I love that little touch screen on the Nook. I know nothing about formats and all that techy stuff, but that little screen would probably sway me if I was in the market.
I’ve put over 100 books on my Kindle since I got it in July 2009. To see the covers of your books you need to click the menu and choose the option “cover page”. That should bring up the cover art. Most of my new books open to the first page of the story so I don’t usually see the cover unless I choose it.
That looks really nice. I haven’t seen any other positive reviews for it.
Did the cover come from B&N or did you buy it separately? I love that it’s got a book page on the front.
I bought it separately.
A lot of people seem to be waiting for an I-Tablet or some sort of other device. But the Tablet will retail for around a grand and I’m not that fancy.
I hear you Jade. I love having “real” books but I also love being able to search electronic books for scenes I like to read over and over again (i.e., I search for Curran a lot
)
Gah, now I really really can’t wait to get my Nook. I wasn’t able to order mine until Christmas Eve (that was my Christmas present) so I have to wait till Feb. for mine.
I was completely against things like the Nook but the first 100 pages of my Magic Strikes just fell out…
I’m more into real books, but if I don’t read a tree, I usually read it on my iPhone. Or on the eReader on my computer. Not ideal, but better than not reading it. I love eBooks from overseas that aren’t released here. That’s the best way for me to read books I reaaaally want to, but can’t afford to order in from overseas. The nook looks awesome, but its only for US release right now. Hmm…my birthday is coming up soon, hmm…how bout that then, hmm…I think Kindle is on international release…hmm…
The combination of wireless connectivity with an decent e-ink screen is great! If you’re a book addict, a Kindle or a Nook is like a crack pipe. More, more! It is amazing how much I’m spending on books now that I have a Kinlde, even though I also get a lot of of them free.
Have fun!
….. I am so sad now that I can’t order one in Canada!!! And was wondering if anyone would order me one and I will send a money order? with tip?(shamelessly looking for a U.S. citizen who is super generous with their address)
but… lol ah well it looks awesome and jealous of everyone who owns one now…
I sympathise.
I live in the UK so I have similar problems. I can’t even get Ilona Andrews’ Kate series electronically if I buy an e-reader. So I’m waiting for the publishers to sort out UK rights. I’ll get the reader which has the best books
Awesome review. I’ve been looking at the Kindle and the Nook for a b-day gift to myself, but I’m leaning towards the Nook. The thing that is swaying me is the fact that the nook can read PDF straight out of the box and Kindle requires conversion. Considering I have a vast library of ebooks already, I can’t deal with all that converting.
I want. Now!
[Checks bank account.]
Must be laters. sigh
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