Shannon Stacey


Ironic timing

Yesterday I blogged about my mad love for my iPod Touch as a digital reader and the reasons why I wouldn’t buy a dedicated e-book reader.

Today I ordered a Nook.

Yeah, I know. But apparently one of my personalities let one of my other personalities touch the debit card.

The good news: as soon as it gets here you can get a review of the Nook from the point of view of a totally technically-inept reader.

Why the Nook instead of the Kindle? 1) I can read digital books bought directly from eHarlequin on the Nook (that’s the rumor, anyway) and 2) I can still buy books at Fictionwise and read them on the Nook.

Why not use the Sony 505? I wanted the Nook or the Kindle because I have the Kindle app and the BN eReader app and they both claim to sync across devices. After ordering the Nook I discovered it syncs books, but not the last page read, which makes the function all kinds of useless. But at the time, that was a deciding factor—the ability to hop back and forth from e-ink to backlit at will.

Anyway. We’ll see how it goes.

UPDATE: I’ve also found out that—I think—it will only sync B&N-bought books across to the eReader app, which means not the books I buy directly from eHQN. That’s kind of a bummer. But there are only a few authors I just HAVE to take advantage of that early release benefit for, so I’ll live. Without the syncing, it probably doesn’t seem sensible not to stick with the Sony but, to be honest, I don’t like the button placement on the Sony 505. We’ll see if I like the Nook’s better.

5 comments to “Ironic timing”

  1. Annmarie
    Comment
    1
      · February 19th, 2010 at 3:16 am · Link

    You have lost your mind!

    I look forward to more details.



  2. Ellen Fisher
    Comment
    2
      · February 19th, 2010 at 2:06 am · Link

    Good luck with the Nook. My understanding is that when they were released they were woefully slow on opening books and on page turns. I tried one in the store before Christmas and it basically just sat there and looked at me:-). However, I also hear there have been software upgrades and that it’s now much more functional. The second time I played with one, the page turns seemed almost as fast as my Kindle, and it pulled up a book from its library quite efficiently. So hopefully the original issues have been resolved.

    Look forward to your review!



  3. Angela James
    Comment
    3
      · February 19th, 2010 at 2:43 pm · Link

    Ellen, the software updates put the page turn on par with the other digital readers. I don’t find the nook experience any different than the Kindle, and not necessarily better than the Sony (because I hate not being able to catalog books by tags)



  4. lacinda
    Comment
    4
      · February 24th, 2010 at 1:26 pm · Link

    You can sync books bought in epub format to your nook – but not wirelessly. Anything in epub format can be copied onto the nook – it will show up in “My Documents” (not the B&N library). I use Calibre for syncing, but you can just drag & drop the epub files into “My Documents” on the nook and they will show up when you “Check for New Content”.

    You can even put DRM-protected epubs on the nook (from kobobooks) – you just have to unlock the books in Adobe Digital Editions with the same email address you used to unlock your nook.

    I’m still trying to figure out what font I like best on the nook…



  5. Shannon
    Comment
    5
      · February 24th, 2010 at 1:47 pm · Link

    I haven’t even played with the fonts yet.

    In this instance, when I said sync, I meant automagically opening the book to the last page you read as you move back and forth between the devices, as the Kindle and Kindle app do. But, from what I understand, it’s “coming soon”. I’m hoping it’s in the next firmware update.







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