Nooks
Barnes & Noble is selling refurbished Nooks for $99. The recent update to its firmware has eliminated, to my satisfaction, one of the biggest drawbacks e-ink screens have had: the screen flash and the time it takes to change a page. It's now very noticeably faster, and close enough to instant.
While I remain not a fan of the capacitive touchscreen, and I consider buying DRM-ed books a non-starter, having a pleasant way to read all the public domain and other freely available books and stories out there makes it well worth it.
Instapaper does a pretty amazing job of converting web content for reading on an ebook reader. I've barely scratched how useful it could be for reading long articles or stories not distributed as an epub. Instasaver makes it even easier for Firefox users.
I've now read Starfish, Dracula, Four and Twenty Blackbirds (it was one of several ebooks available free for a limited time through a tor.com promotion), The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and a lot of shorter things. I've also taken to reading my writers group's stories for critique on my Nook instead of printing them out.
And I have enough interesting things stacked in it to guarantee I won't run out of reading material on a trip (barring device failure or electrical shortage, of course.)
On balance, I'm happy to have an e-reader.
Taste in personal tech being entirely subjective in most cases, I've read a lot of positive and negative about all the ereaders.
Good to have your feedback on the Nook.
Posted by Gary Farber
on
December 27 2010 19:38
Your loyal readers think you should post more to your fine blog.
It's a good niche to write about your Nooks and Crannies.
Posted by Gary Farber
on
March 6 2011 09:20