Speaking For All Mankind

I received it last week after a little confusion at the UPS store over when the package actually arrived.  I have to agree with other reviewers who complain about the slow refresh of the reading screen and the controls on the color screen can be confusing.  The WiFi works great and I had no trouble registering it on my home network.  The books look great and it’s quite easy to read on the Metro.

An unexpected bonus is when you pair the Nook with O’Reilly’s Safari Online.  If you have a personal account with Safari, you can access every book published by O’Reilly and download it as a PDF (with even some as an ePub).  I’ve downloaded a large primer on VB 3.5 in the ePub format that rendered well on the Nook.  I’ve also downloaded two different books as PDFs and it rendered well including images.  The other PDF rendered the text correctly but no images.  Considering how big tech books can be, it’s great to be able to carry around a tech library on a micro-SD instead of an overstuffed backpack.

Yes, I know most would rather read Sports Illustrated than the Federal Register.  But imagine a government report that can provide instant updated information and allow you create ad-hoc reporting on the data in the report.

I get a Nook tomorrow and I am anxious to try out the Android operating system.  I know it is a stripped-down version of Android but I bet in a couple of years from now that e-readers will be like this future look at Sports Illustrated.

So, I preordered a Nook because I like the fact that it is based on Android and has built-in WiFi.  Can’t wait to see the hacks for it.  Here’s one suggestion: the ability to access social networks based around individual books.  Maybe for Nook 2.0?