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General discussion

Nook not living up to the hype

by minimalist Dec 10, 2009 9:57AM PST

As sexy as it looks and as intriguing its features could be, I'm so glad I waited before I took the plunge on the Nook. It seems that the the gap between reality and the the promise of new tech is always there. But in this case it looks like the gap is fracking huge.

Walt Mossberg slaps the Nook down:
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091209/nook-e-reader-has-potential-but-needs-work/

and David Pogue absolutely savages it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

"Every one of the Nook?s vaunted distinctions comes fraught with buzz kill footnotes."

"To use the technical term, it?s slower than an anesthetized slug in winter. And it?s buggy. In four days, my Nook locked up twice and displayed an ?Android operating system has crashed? message twice."

Ouch. I was going to get a Nook because of the touchscreen navigation and the ability to read ePub books (no way am I going to be locked into Amazon's proprietary DRM after the way iTunes jerked me around in the early days).

I guess I'll wait to see what Apple offers before I make the plunge now that the Nook is looking so lackluster.

Discussion is locked

5 Posts
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Eh
by Nicholas Buenk Dec 10, 2009 11:51AM PST

Can't imagine the Nook or Kindle being a better reading experience than my Macbook Pro is.
But that's just me. Mr convergence.

Hmm, and in regard to those articles. I don't take much notice of bugginess because it's still early days for the software and product, one assumes patches will come. But complaints about unresponsive touch screen, sluggishness, confusing UI. That sounds bad.

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Bad indeed.
by minimalist Dec 10, 2009 9:41PM PST

But I'm not interested in a backlit screen or limited battery life or the extra weight when reading books so reading on a laptop is not the answer for me.

Once someone does a sleek looking eReader that has smooth as silk navigation without a bunch of buttons, lets me put other store's books on the device, and gives me a killer collection of books at reasonable prices I'll jump, Add digital checkouts from your local library and you'd have the perfect device.

After all the hype I was hoping this reader would be a lot closer to that goal but its obviously not. Reminds me of the original Blackberry Storm... great idea, horribly executed.

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Kindle for Textbooks
by mehoag Dec 20, 2009 3:01AM PST

I think the Kindle is "almost" there; but I'm not buying until I know that the Kindle is able to manage the conversion and unlocking of large, protected textbook PDF files. As it now stands, the Kindle is limited in the size of the PDF files it can open, and it's not clear from the product literature whether or not the owner of a protected textbook file can open that file with his or her password on a Kindle device.

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Someone had to say it...
by Slikkster Dec 13, 2009 12:08PM PST

Add an "ie" to your device name and reconsider the implications of your thread title, lol.

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Adding "ie"
by PressAnyKey Dec 16, 2009 3:56AM PST

Sometimes nookie doesn't live up to the hype either but most of the time it does... Happy

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