A few months ago, I wrote a post called, “What’s the Best eReader?” In that post, I listed several eReaders and my initial thoughts about them. After much deliberation and thought, I decided to purchase the Nook Color by Barnes and Noble.
Here’s why:
- I’m used to touchscreen devices since I have an iPhone. I kept trying to touch the screen whenever I looked at the Kindle.
- The Nook Color will read children’s stories out loud.
- You can borrow books from the library for free on the Nook Color. You can also lend purchased eBooks to friends and borrow their eBooks.
Here is how the Nook Color came packaged:
I chose a really cute pink leather case to go with it.
I pulled the Nook Color out of the box, which had the accessories packed tightly in a section under the eReader. I got the charger and USB cord out after about five minutes of pulling, tugging, and tearing the green tab.
The green tab wouldn't work for me! I ended up having to tear the box to get that section open.
Unlike Apple products, the Nook Color does not come fully charged. The manual says that it takes 3 hours to charge, but I found that it only took about 2.5 hours to fully charge. I was able to use it while it was charging.
The Nook Color came with a Quick Start Guide and information about magazine subscriptions.
The Quick Start Guide is also available for viewing on the Nook Color, along with the User Guide. When you first turn it on, you are taken to a setup section.
Now for the Pros and Cons!
Pros:
-I love the color graphics! I like everything to be colorful, which was a large part of the reason that I didn’t choose the Kindle.
-Barnes and Noble has a “Free Friday” program. An eBook is available for you to download for free every friday. One of the free eBooks that I downloaded was “Divine” by Karen Kingsbury. I’m looking forward to reading it! There are other free eBooks that you can find on the Barnes and Noble website. Another place you can find free eBooks is: epubBooks. I downloaded a lot of classics from this website.
-Screen glare has not been an issue for me. You can easily adjust the brightness of the screen to fit the setting you are in. Anti-glare screens are available for purchase. However, Barnes and Noble employees told me that an antiglare screen would affect the clarity and brilliance of the colors on the eReader.
-The Nook Color comes with a section called, “My Shelves”. This allows you to sort your eBooks. I have about 4 categories now: Children’s Books, Fiction, Non-Fiction, & Classics.
-Your local library may have a program that allows them to lend e-books out to persons with a library card. I borrowed an eBook from my public library, but I needed a tutorial to help me figure out the process. Check out this wonderful tutorial by Being Ruth.
-A recent upgrade to the Nook Color allows you to download apps, such as the popular Angry Birds, UNO, and others.
Cons:
-It doesn’t have 3G! At first, I didn’t think this would be a problem. But one day, I was at my son’s therapy appointment and I wanted to download a book. Unfortunately, I was unable to do it because I couldn’t connect to the WiFi network and 3G isn’t available for the Nook Color.
-The battery life doesn’t last as long as I thought it would. I have to charge it up every two days or so. I’m assuming it’s because of all the color graphics and animation for page swipes. The automatic screen timeout helps some with the battery power. It is at a default setting of shutting down after 2 minutes of not being used. I think I may have to adjust that to 5 minutes because I found that sometimes the screen would go black while reading a page.
-Viewing PDF files can be somewhat difficult. Sometimes, you have the option to use the eReader to view PDF files, which is great. But the default option is Quick Office, which doesn’t work well in my opinion for viewing PDF files. Hopefully, this will be addressed in a future upgrade.
-Barnes and Noble coupons cannot be used on Nook products and eBooks. I had a Groupon that I used to help buy my Nook Color Case ($10 for a $20 Barnes and Noble Gift Certificate). But you know how Barnes and Noble sends email coupons for 10% – 33% off certain books? Well, that’s only for paperback books. The problem is that I can often get hard copy books for cheaper than the price of eBooks. In my mind, it should be the other way around…eBooks should be cheaper than hard copy books. But I digress…
Conclusion:
Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase of the Nook Color. The pluses definitely outweigh the minuses for me. I could go on and on, but this review is getting pretty long. The first eBook that I’m reading? Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien! If you have questions, or want me to talk about another aspect of the Nook Color, let me know in the comments section and I’ll address it in another post.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have a Kindle. I used to live in HI so I didn’t want sun glare and with the Kindle I could read at the pool. Also my battery last for days as long as I turn wireless off for reading. Books run around $9. Many free available. My sister has a Nook but she went on a cruise and complained about it all the time. I’m glad you like yours.
Hi Christina!
I only use my Nook indoors, so I haven’t had any issues. I’m not an outdoorsy kind of person so that works well for me!
Though I must admit that reading by a pool sounds fun!
I still may check out the Kindle later…I have several ebooks that I got for free that I have on my computer that are only for Kindle.
I am so glad you are enjoying your Nook. This is what I am giving to my daughter for her birthday. The thing I do like about this over the Kindle is the vibrant colors. Especially if you are using this to purchase kids books, you know how visual kids are.