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News & ArtsMonday, January 25, 2010
Tech / Books On Fingering a Nook for the First Time
Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 3:07 PM
I've messed around with a Kindle before, and I can tell you that, although I found the experience to be a bit too weird to be a normal thing for me—the button-happy interface isn't as clean and intuitive as it should be, and while I hear you get used to the whole "screen-flashes-a-negative-while-turning-the-page" thing, I was incredibly annoyed by it—the Kindle is about three billion times better than Nook. The Nook is painfully slow, the touch screen is inexact and the interaction between the two screens is horrible; download speeds were glacial, and it took a minute and a half for the book to appear on the screen after I chose it from the menu. And that's a book that already existed in the machine's memory.
I am unsurprised that B&N just laid off an unspecified number of employees from their digital division; this thing is a disaster. Avoid the Nook at all costs.
1
If the stupidest person in the world - Paul Constant - says I should avoid it, does that mean I should avoid it like the plague (it's so bad even retarded people hate it) or actually buy it (the guy's retarded after all).
I love my kindle, all the books I ever wanted for free for download from bittorrent.
I love my kindle, all the books I ever wanted for free for download from bittorrent.
2
A minute and a half to pull up a book that was already in its memory? Yikes!
I actually love my Kindle 1.0, and while I hope the page-turning has improved, it really doesn't bother me when I'm reading. I've probably learned how to anticipate exactly when to press the button so it doesn't interrupt my reading. Sure is nice to download a new book when I'm bed and to always get it quickly!
So far the only major drawback - for me, at least - is the precious few books available en espaņol. Also, the dictionary it comes pre-loaded with is pretty inadequate, so I finally forked over the 15 bucks for the Merriam-Webster collegiate.
@1: What's with the Constant hate, by the way? Does not compute.
I actually love my Kindle 1.0, and while I hope the page-turning has improved, it really doesn't bother me when I'm reading. I've probably learned how to anticipate exactly when to press the button so it doesn't interrupt my reading. Sure is nice to download a new book when I'm bed and to always get it quickly!
So far the only major drawback - for me, at least - is the precious few books available en espaņol. Also, the dictionary it comes pre-loaded with is pretty inadequate, so I finally forked over the 15 bucks for the Merriam-Webster collegiate.
@1: What's with the Constant hate, by the way? Does not compute.
3
My dad (who's in his fifties) LOVES his Nook; I haven't heard a single complaint from him. I wonder what he'd think of the Kindle.
6
This is consistent with what I've heard about the Nook. The reviews panned it, and I thought it had been left for dead a month ago. Kindle has a lot of software improvements I'd make if I were at the helm: Have it refresh half the page at a time, starting with the top half (so I could press the next button preemptively as I reached the end, then read the freshly loaded top half while the bottom refreshed. Add some organizational folders and options. Allow renaming and editing info for books, or hiding certain books with embarrassing titles (Joseph Conrad I'm looking at you). Allow the user to toggle back and forth from front matter with a single button (instead, I found myself copying and printing out (!!!) the character lists and trees from Wolf Hall).
But these are all pretty minor compared to a multi-second page refresh and a battery life reduced by a backlit LCD and touch screen. (which in addition to having a low battery life makes the device hard to use in the sun where the LCD won't show up, and hard to use in the dark where the eink display won't show up!)
The Kindle has hardware issues for sure - the technology is young, and improvements will take time. It has software issues that could be corrected now and infrastructure issues that the publishers and Amazon are fighting without a lot of regard for the reader. The Nook, on the other hand, seems to have insurmountable hardware design flaws. So far, I don't regret buying my Kindle but I've been telling everyone who asks me about it when I travel that if they don't feel like they'll get their money's worth within a couple years, it's worth waiting. We'll see whether I have regrets come Wednesday. I used to think Amazon should team up with Apple to create an ereader. I don't want a tablet computer, but they may end up doing the interface better.
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But these are all pretty minor compared to a multi-second page refresh and a battery life reduced by a backlit LCD and touch screen. (which in addition to having a low battery life makes the device hard to use in the sun where the LCD won't show up, and hard to use in the dark where the eink display won't show up!)
The Kindle has hardware issues for sure - the technology is young, and improvements will take time. It has software issues that could be corrected now and infrastructure issues that the publishers and Amazon are fighting without a lot of regard for the reader. The Nook, on the other hand, seems to have insurmountable hardware design flaws. So far, I don't regret buying my Kindle but I've been telling everyone who asks me about it when I travel that if they don't feel like they'll get their money's worth within a couple years, it's worth waiting. We'll see whether I have regrets come Wednesday. I used to think Amazon should team up with Apple to create an ereader. I don't want a tablet computer, but they may end up doing the interface better.
7
Paul, tip on over to the Sony store and check out their eb ooks. I love mine and just upgraded to the PRS600 from the 505
9
My partner loves his Kindle, but we did check out the Nook when we were in a B&N last.
We had a similar experience with the Nook attached to a cord on the counter seeming slow and buggy, even when accessing a book in its memory. I mentioned it to the young guy behind the counter and this young man was eager to show us his personal Nook, which moved a lot faster and seemed much nicer than the shitty display copy. It supports most e-book formats (all the ones I quizzed him on). He also said that while you are in a physical Barnes and Noble with your Nook you can read any e-book in its entirety, the way you could in a real bookstore.
It seems nice, but it's not as sleek as the Kindle or as responsive, and the LCD was so ugly it was a dealbreaker for my partner. Kindle's design-- both hardware and software-- is cleaner.
We had a similar experience with the Nook attached to a cord on the counter seeming slow and buggy, even when accessing a book in its memory. I mentioned it to the young guy behind the counter and this young man was eager to show us his personal Nook, which moved a lot faster and seemed much nicer than the shitty display copy. It supports most e-book formats (all the ones I quizzed him on). He also said that while you are in a physical Barnes and Noble with your Nook you can read any e-book in its entirety, the way you could in a real bookstore.
It seems nice, but it's not as sleek as the Kindle or as responsive, and the LCD was so ugly it was a dealbreaker for my partner. Kindle's design-- both hardware and software-- is cleaner.
10
Hmmm. I just don't see the need to carry a dedicated e-book reader. I read a lot of books on my Motorola Droid and that works great for me, and it's something I carry everywhere anyway.
11
A "button happy interface"? Is that supposed to be an improvement on Savage's infamous "...something dropped from a great height. A canned ham dropped from the 23rd floor of the Empire State Building."
ITS NOT A BUTTON-HAPPY INTERFACE PAUL CONSTANT YOU WOMYN-HATING PIG! It's called a CLITORIS and the CLITORIS is a beautiful, natural thing and you should be HAPPY TO TOUCH IT!!!!! You should consider yourself LUCKY if you ever get to "mess around" with the so-called "button-happy" interface that you find so UNCLEAN and UNINTUITIVE.
Basically anything more complicated than sticking your PENIS in a HOLE over and over again is just too much to demand isn't it? And I guess not intuitive enough for dudes like you. Is that it? And unclean. If you find a vagina so UNCLEAN, then stay AWAY from it. Any vagina that is too unclean and button-happy an interface for the likes of YOU is better off looking elsewhere for love.
And too SLOW? It takes too much of your precious TIME to work the button-happy, non-intuitive clitoris? You're all like, "two minutes of penetration and I'm OUT OF HERE. I got off and now I'm going for a pint of bacon flavored ice cream and a pipe. Where's my smoking jacket?" Am I right?
If staying home alone with your fist wrapped around your precious "Kindle" -- is your cock really named Kindle? Jesus Christ, Constant. Jesus H. Christ. If staying home with your "Kindle" makes you so happy, then that's where you BELONG. Just stop telling other men that your disgustingly selfish sex attitudes are normal or acceptable. They aren't, Mr. Paul Constant. They are not acceptable at all.
This makes "canned ham" sound like that "Womyn: Intimate Geography" book.
ITS NOT A BUTTON-HAPPY INTERFACE PAUL CONSTANT YOU WOMYN-HATING PIG! It's called a CLITORIS and the CLITORIS is a beautiful, natural thing and you should be HAPPY TO TOUCH IT!!!!! You should consider yourself LUCKY if you ever get to "mess around" with the so-called "button-happy" interface that you find so UNCLEAN and UNINTUITIVE.
Basically anything more complicated than sticking your PENIS in a HOLE over and over again is just too much to demand isn't it? And I guess not intuitive enough for dudes like you. Is that it? And unclean. If you find a vagina so UNCLEAN, then stay AWAY from it. Any vagina that is too unclean and button-happy an interface for the likes of YOU is better off looking elsewhere for love.
And too SLOW? It takes too much of your precious TIME to work the button-happy, non-intuitive clitoris? You're all like, "two minutes of penetration and I'm OUT OF HERE. I got off and now I'm going for a pint of bacon flavored ice cream and a pipe. Where's my smoking jacket?" Am I right?
If staying home alone with your fist wrapped around your precious "Kindle" -- is your cock really named Kindle? Jesus Christ, Constant. Jesus H. Christ. If staying home with your "Kindle" makes you so happy, then that's where you BELONG. Just stop telling other men that your disgustingly selfish sex attitudes are normal or acceptable. They aren't, Mr. Paul Constant. They are not acceptable at all.
This makes "canned ham" sound like that "Womyn: Intimate Geography" book.
12
I played with the Nook and found it similarly slow and frustrating. I also didn't love the tacky plastic feel of the back. It felt "cheap" even though I know that's to increase friction and keep it from sliding around like the Kindle.
The Kindle is great. I wish the screen were ever-so-slightly bigger for PDF viewing, but it's otherwise awesome.
The Kindle is great. I wish the screen were ever-so-slightly bigger for PDF viewing, but it's otherwise awesome.
13
Um...you played with an electronic in the store for 10 minutes and you think that's enough information to give a review? I have yet to go into ANY store selling an electronic and have the display model give me even 1/10th the same experience. They're corded to the counter; you can't try them in different environments; you can't take them over to a computer and experience what downloading and uploading content is like; you can't get a real sense of what the battery life is like or what the wifi reception is like. If you actually HAD a Nook and gave it a real, honest-to-God "I'm actually using this as it's meant to be used" trial, then that would actually be a worthwhile review. Not just playing with it at the counter while the coffee bar is making your latte.
15
You don't have to watch an Ed Wood movie all the way through the ending credits to know that it sucks.
I don't care how great it is at "downloading and uploading content," if it really takes 90 seconds for it to load a book from memory, ever, it absolutely fails at its stated purpose.
Um...you played with an electronic in the store for 10 minutes and you think that's enough information to give a review?
You don't have to watch an Ed Wood movie all the way through the ending credits to know that it sucks.
I don't care how great it is at "downloading and uploading content," if it really takes 90 seconds for it to load a book from memory, ever, it absolutely fails at its stated purpose.
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