Nook Color review

Edit: I did indeed get an iPad2 for xmas and I’m in LOOOOOVE. Pricey, but it does everything I want in one device. -A

Since we could not afford a pricey yet delicious iPad, we split the difference and Nick got a new iPod and I got a used Nook Colour. Nick DEFINITELY got the better end of that deal!

I was thrilled to get the Nook off eBay for $177 after shipping since it had a skin, leather cover and a 32Gb SD card. All that swag was over $200 retail and they issued a swanky OS update to bring the Colour to ‘almost’ a Nook Tablet. I was happy until I actually tried to use the damn thing…

OMG. Who the hell is designing that OS? Probably the same morons who design BN.com. As soon as I went to check out the BN.com site I recalled why I’d shopped with them ONCE and then run back to Amazon. The BN.com website is ATROCIOUS. The search engine is so weak that it can’t find WIRED. That’s right, WIRED or even WIRED MAGAZINE will get you a looooong list of everything they have with WIRE in the title and the magazine down in the mix. They’d be better off just linking to Google for their search engine.

I remembered the horrible search engine and sighed and went about setting up the Nook and trying out Seesmic so I could crosspost to Twittah. What a mistake. The experience with this app was what made me all ragey on Twittah that day.

The Nook’s touchscreen ain’t no iPod. It’s slow and not very responsive comparatively. So I had lots of misclicks. I opened Seesmic and was going to set up Twittah when I accidentally clicked Email instead. This is where the fun starts.

That click sent me to the Nook’s email client. No problem, right? WRONG. There is nary a back or cancel button in the whole interface of this OS. Coincidentally, just like the crappy BN.com website that you have to use the BACK button to navigate. So, there was no way to back out of the email client and go back to Seesmic. Now, picture holding a small tablet and being stuck in an app you didn’t want to launch, not being able to do ANYTHING else but configure it to be able to use your device. Go ahead and let that sink in.

Where did you end up? RIGHT! RAGEY! I deleted the app (which you have to go to the website to do, you can’t do it from the damn Nook) and reinstalled it, thinking that I’d get to start over. Nope. Still popped right over into the email app. That I didn’t want. So I set up the goddam email app that I didn’t want to use and Seesmic still remained forever stuck on the ADD EMAIL page. I deleted it again (from the website, of course) and started chanting

It’s not an iPad, it’s a reader. Stop expecting so much!

The rage finally subsided enough after a few hours for me to look at it without the strong desire to throw it. Oh, and the BN Nook support team? JOKE!! They are as stupid as the website. As I poked around the OS, it became clear that this software is half baked and nowhere near what it should be. I certainly hope the Kindle has better software. Gods. There is not a single instance of CANCEL or BACK that I can find. Every time I’d click a book by accident, it would launch into the reader, add the book to my dock and the only way out is to click the Main Nav button and start over. You end up at the main screen a LOT. There simply is no back button. You click something and you’re committed. That’s it. Infuriating.

The only thing that has assuaged my buyers’ remorse is the 400+ books that the chick I bought it from left on the SD card. Granted, she had an unnatural fascination with horrifying chick lit and bodice rippers, but even with those tossed, there are still probably 100 books I can use. She does a lot of dieting (which is why she switched to Kindle, actually, it has the app she wanted) and reads lots of biographies, so that definitely helps with the STANG of the shitty OS and shitty website. When you consider that the average price of an ebook is around $10, that’s a substantial bit of cash. I’ll take it as compensation for such a sad, shitty little device.

Granted, the Nook is FAR more flexible with file formats – hell, it even reads Word docs! The seller left a bunch of docs on the SD card, too. So for that and the better hardware specs, I think the Nook Colour/Tablet is a better deal than the Kindle, but the downside is having to deal with BN.com and their limp support. My issues with the Nook aren’t hardware related at all, they are ALL OS and BN.com related. Oh, and Seesmic, which I should have known better than to install in the first place. They have really crappy software, but the lure of Twittah was too strong! LOL

Apple has definitely ruined me. RURNT as we say down here. I can see how PC people would be perfectly fine with a shitty OS like this since they use Winblows every day, but Apple people should just save up and get an iPad. There really is no comparison. I think the plan is to get myself an older iPad after the holidays (hopefully there’ll be a glut on eBay when everyone gets new ones!), copy all the books from the Nook and then resell it. I just don’t think I can stand its shitty interface for long. [Edit: I resold the Nook immediately on eBay and with a payment from a client bought the iPad from MicroCenter for $450 that day.]

As a reader it’s OK. Good luck finding anything on BN.com and forget comics unless you read the big two. Graphicly.com says they have an app, but it’s not really an app, it’s a pointer to collections, so yah. No comics apps. But, again, the Nook will read pretty much any format, so you could download pdfs and read those on it.

Or just save up and get a GLORIOUS iPad and not have to screw around with substandard software, no apps and crappy support. That’s my recommendation.

I’d give the Nook Colour 2 out of 5 stars.