Nook Hands-On

Well, after using the nook for a while, I have decided that overall, I like it a lot. But that's not without qualification.

First, the good. The screen is amazingly easy to read. I've just never been able to read long documents on handheld LCD screens without wicked eyestrain, but this is like reading it on paper. It's easy to operate with just one hand, and I like that you can look up words in the dictionary on the fly.

The biggest qualm I have is that it is s-l-o-w. I can accept that the eInk screen will be slow on refreshes because that's endemic to the technology. But the color LCD touchscreen is slow too, and not particularly responsive. When you combine the two, hilarity ensues. I end up executing a lot of the commands twice because it initially looks like nothing has registered. Or I press it and wait for like 5 seconds to account for the delay and it turns out that indeed nothing went through. Frustrating. Oh, and if you have fat fingers, forget it. Some of those touchscreen buttons are positively miniscule.

All in all, I like it. But if there's one advantage that paper books retain, it's cheapness. These e-readers are so expensive that I would NEVER take one to the pool or the beach, whereas I don't give a shit if my paperback falls in the water.

Finally, I'm about halfway through Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, and so far, I think it sucks. Not that I came into it expecting Atlas Shrugged, but it's pretty much a first semester college research paper on the Freemasons, albeit a little more suspenseful. There's still 700 more pages left for it to get better, so I'm hopeful. But one minor quibble--at one point a character "points to a Metro sign" from the Freedom Plaza, which turns out to be Metro Center. But anyone who's ever been to Freedom Plaza knows that you can't see ANY Metro signs from there, much less Metro Center's, which is several blocks away and is frankly a little tough to see even when you're right on top of it.