A Six Weeks Report With The Nook Color

When I was "on the shelf" with a summer cold last month, I decided to distract myself from my otolaryngological misery by splurging on a Barnes and Noble Nook Color, my second e-reader.

What this new gadget brought is a larger rich color screen, a decent CPU, and a Nook Apps store from which I made ezPDF my first purchase. This will be perfect for the illustration-heavy tech reference material with which I'll cuddling up in the coming months. B&N pre-loads the Nook Color with a rudimentary PDF viewer, but ezPDF will likely save you two bucks worth of your time very quickly the first couple of times you flip back and forth through a long document.

I suspect that the big reason why B&N won't officially support the full Android Market on this device is that the thought of millions of Nook Color devices with the Kindle app installed gives them the creeps. B&N-centric features are configured to inspire loyalty to the retailer. Not only does the built-in Wi-Fi give access to purchase and download "Nook Books," but if the Nook detects that it's connected to a hostspot in a brick-and-mortar Barnes and Noble store, it can download any Nook Book in full and unlocks it for reading for up to one hour per day. So there's a little prodding to get out of your cozy reading chair at home.



Nook Books are EPUB files, but with a DRM wrapper unique to Barnes and Noble and only readable on their devices. Because I want the option of enjoying novels on either one of my e-readers, I will actually be staying away from buying from BN.com unless one of these factors is true:

• It's a title that greatly benefits from the larger color screen.
• It's a BN.com exclusive.
• BN.com offering the Nook Book version significantly cheaper than the counterparts being sold by Sony, Kobo, or Google Books.
• It's a Nook Book title enabled with LendMe that I predict other Nook oners will enjoy.

So far, it's turned out to be less of a substitute for my Sony Reader Pocket Edition than it has for my netbook PC. I am keeping both e-readers around. The Nook Color has capabilities that runs circles around the Sony RPE, but it also weighs a pound and isn't very pocket friendly, unless we're talking about a cargo shorts pocket. For most of my for-fun reading, I'll choose to pick up the five-ounce e-ink screen that is happy to go weeks between charges and promises not to distract me with any icons in a notification bar.

Incidentally, Barnes and Noble launched a new version of the e-ink Nook this summer, and it looks like a winner to me. I test-drove the "Simple Touch Reader" in a store and the weight and shape had good feel for a reading device. I would have given it serious consideration if I was shopping for another e-ink device.