Barnes & Noble's Nook, Reviewed

harrymcc writes "Barnes & Noble's Nook — the most significant e-reader since Amazon's original Kindle — hits B&N's retail stores today. I've published an extensive review of the device, which is also the first e-reader to run Google's Android OS: It's an interesting and capable gadget in many ways, but the interface — which is sluggish and somewhat quirky — isn't polished enough to render it a Kindle killer."

Comments

Killer

[Zerak-Tul]

What e-books need is not a kindle-killer but a dead-tree-killer.

Re:Killer

[Tellarin]

... a dead-tree-killer.

Oh no! We're doomed. How do you kill a tree zombie? They don't have heads to shoot at.

Aaaahhhhh

Re:Killer

[jhoegl]

The roots man... go for the roots!

Re:Killer

[sh00z]

...get off the dead trees, and environmentalism surrounding recycling paper, or cutting down trees that are grown as a crop.

I'm going to kill my mod points for this discussion to say emphatically that this comment is NOT INSIGHTFUL, and borders on being deceitful. I hate to cite Wikipedia as a source, but look here for the reasons to recycle paper, even if you believe you're doing the environment some good by landfilling your paper refuse:

• Raw materials: recycled paper requires only 50% of the weight of raw materials vs wood pulp (the part you don't use in paper--lignin--has already beeb removed)
• Processing chemicals: Significantly less-hazardous chemicals are required to re-process recycled paper (mostly white) vs wood pulp (mostly brown)
• Energy consumption: there is 40% less energy required ro recycle paper vs processing new wood pulp
• pollution output: Recycling causes 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution than making virgin paper

I'm not even going to bother going into how juvenile it is to assume that throwing a piece of paper in the trash==composting it (or that the other organic bits like banana peels and carrot tops don't do a much better and faster job of it than paper would).

Don't Need a Kindle Killer, Exactly

[RobotRunAmok]

Just need something that forces Amazon to keep innovating and keep pricing competitive.

Thanks, B&N!

Re:Don't Need a Kindle Killer, Exactly

[AuMatar]

Now now, its only fixing if they agree to do that. If they miraculously decide to use the same price without discussion, that's the market at work!

Re:Don't Need a Kindle Killer, Exactly

[N1AK]

The fact that it shares the same price point doesn't imply price fixing or stop it being beneficial to consumers. Firstly, if the B&N device is 'better' it is effectively cheaper than the Kindle. Secondly, if both devices are exactly even then sales should begin to spread between the two, this will encourage one of the parties to drop the price in order to gain the others market share.

Factor in other benefits like removing some dominance from Amazon's position as ebook superpower, which will hopefully add competition to book pricing and limit anti-consumer licensing/limitations and this seems (as it should) like a good thing for us little people.

Re:Don't Need a Kindle Killer, Exactly

[teg]

But I'm hopeful. How long did it take before Apple had to allow non-AAC audio files to play on the first-gen iPods? They only did that because other companies started making players that would play the widely available mp3 files.

iPods were released before the iTunes store, so they have been able to play MP3s even longer than protected AACs.

To beat Kindle you need better policy

[erroneus]

Perhaps it is my slashdot bias, but the story about Kindles having books removed from readers' machines still strikes a sour chord with me. I recognize that most consumers don't know a thing about and many don't care. I don't see much difference between book burning and book deleting. To me the reasons, are irrelevant. Abuse will always emerge when opportunity is given.

Re:To beat Kindle you need better policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. No Kindle for me. Ever.

I did want one, and saw myself inevitably getting one when the price reached a reasonable altitude.

But they wrote me off with that stunt. Now any reader I do settle on must establish to my satisfaction that it does not have that "feature".

Re:To beat Kindle you need better policy

[erroneus]

And yet they did not issue a firmware update that would remove the easily abused feature.

When rights are able to be taken away, they are no longer rights -- they are privileges. I'd just as soon buy an actual book.

Apologizing for behavior is one thing. Making sure it never happens again is quite another.

With all this DRM everywhere, all we are really ensuring is that 1000 years from now, no one will know who we were or what we did.In the short term, we are losing public domain. In the long, we are losing our identity.

While it may not be a "Kindle Killer"...

[Phoenix]

The Kindle does have one disadvantage that is making me give the Nook a stronger look.

PDF's.

I buy a lot of Role Playing materials from Steve Jackson Games' "e23" site. They are in very high quality PDF documents and something that can display them without having to lug around a large, heavy, and massively power hungry laptop is a god send.

However, even though I legally own a copy of the PDF, Amazon refused to convert the PDF into a Kindle Ready file due to (as I was informed) copyright issues.

The Nook supports PDF out of the box and the internal file storage as well as the expansion slot gives me the room for all of the PDF's that I have.

So while it might not be a Kindle Killer, it has some features that put it close enough to the Kindle to make it a worthwhile contender.

What does a book offer that a reader doesn't?

[professorguy]

A book offers permanence. Books are created so the only infrastructure required to receive the information within is your brain. And how can you get rid of books authorities no longer like? Well, because of the light infrastructure requirements, you CAN'T. No book burning has ever deleted an entire work from the culture.

But if a corporation decides to "burn" an e-reader book, can they? They sure CAN! And the book will be gone with no chance of ever discovering an unburnt copy.

Sorry, no. The function I want is PERMANENCE. That cannot be built into an e-reader.

Re:Mandatory AT&T contract?

[Ephemeriis]

The review mentions AT&T 3G, but I couldn't find any mention of whether a new AT&T contract is required to buy the device at the stated price. If it is, then fsck that. If it isn't, then 'meh'. Its still pretty expensive. Wait for v 2.0.

No new contract, no bills at all. The 3G is free, just like the Kindle's.

Also, if one plugs its USB in, does it appear as 'USB storage', that one can copy PDF's to and be able to read them? Or is one required to use its proprietary software on a proprietary platform to load only special files with DRM?

No idea how it works with USB as I don't have one yet, but it does read SD cards... So you could always just throw your files on an SD card to avoid whatever software they think you should be using.

It will read PDFs and EPUB documents - both of which are more open than what Barnes & Noble is using now. Barnes & Noble has indicated that they plan to move their entire ebook store over to EPUB eventually.

And how about on wifi? Can one use any sort of standard protocol (ssh, ftp, smb) to copy PDF's in (or out) and/or can it navigate to an arbitrary URL and download a PDF, or does it only support the device accessing company-specified websites to 'buy' books?

Again, I can't say because I don't have one yet... But it sounds like the WiFi is fairly limited at the moment. There is no web browser and I don't believe you can transfer anything wirelessly... Except for maybe accessing the B&N bookstore over WiFi.

Bottom line - Mandatory contract bad. Mandatory proprietary software bad.

The reason I chose a nook instead of a Kindle is the relative openness of the platform. With the SD cards and support for PDF and EPUB format, I figure I can use this thing with basically any content I want - even stuff Barnes & Noble doesn't sell or support. And with the Wi-Fi I can probably maintain my connectivity even if B&N kills the 3G for some reason. And the user-replaceable battery means I don't have to go to great lengths just because the battery is old and flaky - unlike the Kindle.