Me and My Nook, Three Months Later...

When I bought my nook in the end of July, I wasn't sure what to expect of myself and of this gadget. I have a tendency to become bored with things like this rather quickly no matter how bad I have to have them (i.e. my DS) and so I worried about whether I would get my money's worth out of an ereader. I already have so many books and now I'm spending $200 on something that will allow me to buy books from my couch and have them instantly? My willpower isn't exactly strong when it comes to books. I promised to share my conclusions on my nook three months later so here we go.

Ease of use. I find the nook pretty darn easy to use. It took me a while and some tinkering with my brother's Droid Incredible smartphone to realize that tapping works better rather than the touching the icons. The color touchscreen is bright and pretty. The larger screen looks a lot like paper and is easy to read. It's a little heavy but not unlike an actual book. I've also added an expansion card to mine; I filled up the <2GB hard drive rather easily.

3G reception. I live in a fairly rural area but still typically get one bar of reception and sometimes find that even if there are no bars on the indicator that the connection doesn't drop. I can (and have) connected my nook to my home network but didn't like the web browser that comes with the nook. Maybe they'll upgrade that feature in a future software version. Browsing ebooks part in the Shop function is decent but would be better if you were allowed more control with the search option. I would like to be able to jump to a particular page or just look at all the free ebooks - you have to browse through the first 99 pages before you can see just the free ones. That's really the same for B&N.com though too.

Availability of books I want. Generally, if I search for something I find it but occasionally get stymied by amazon and their exclusivity of some titles. A few months ago I wanted Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie in ebook format and ended up downloading it from Sony (the only place I could find it) for cover price only to discover not two weeks later that B&N was now selling it for $2.99. I was not happy. 

LendMe capability. This is a cool idea but I haven't tried it yet. I've seen some grumblings out there about how not all titles are tradeable but big deal. Like that's a surprise? Jane and I have plans to trade books this way at some point with me and my nook and her machine of choice and a nook app.

Battery Life. The battery is supposed to last longer if you deactivate the wireless connections while you read but I haven't really noticed much of a difference. The removable battery was a big selling point for me; I like control over that kind of thing. It's why it took me several years to finally get an iPod. You can charge the nook via a regular outlet or while it's connected to a computer with a usb cable. My nook holds enough of a charge for me to not be a pain about having to recharge too often and I'm pretty happy with it.

Free book Friday. B&N offers a new mainstream eBook for free each Friday. Throughout August, every Friday they would offer a new set of free B&N Classics and I took much advantage of that one. There are also offers like free stuff from the in-store cafes.

Freebies in-store. I've only done this once but if you take a nook into a B&N store you are offered free reads that you wouldn't get anywhere else. For example, I got a sneak peek of Maggie Stiefvater's Forever. It's a deleted scene but still!

Nookcolor. It definitely figures that within a few months of buying my nook they come out with an all-new ALL-COLOR, ALL-TOUCHSCREEN nook, the nookcolor. *grumbles* It looks pretty cool and would be awesome if you can a young child who likes books. Or, you know, if you were older and just thought it was pretty.

Accessories. I added the anti-glare film for both screens and have been happy with them because they keep it from getting scratched up. Some of B&N's cases were ridiculously expensive and I didn't like the cheaper ones so I bought a Belkin case from Target that is technically meant for a Kindle but it was purple so it was obviously meant to be mine, right? 

My overall opinion? I like my nook. I use it several times a week and love to shop on it. I have read many books on it with no problems and I find that after a while I don't even notice that I'm not reading a "real" book. I'm still using my The Hunger Games screensaver that B&N offered when Mockingjay came out but may replace it sometime with a picture or something. My only problem here is that I can collect even more books than before without all the clutter. What's a girl to do?