Nook Color Review

Back in mid 2010, I bought an Amazon Kindle. Just having the ability to order a book and have it "beam" into your possession within 60 seconds, blew my socks off. I read with the Kindle for about a week and it was nice. The screen was crystal clear and easy to read. I liked the fact that I could have all of my books stored and accessible from one compact device. I then saw that Barnes & Noble was getting into the eReader market. They came out with a product that appeared to be able to do what the Kindle did, plus there was a snazzy color portion of the screen that displayed your book selection. I'm a sucker for snazzy stuff and I quickly returned the black & white only Kindle.

Fast forward to the present...my gamble to wait for the eReader technology to mature paid off. My Christmas wishes came true and I now have a Nook Color in my possession. I've been using it for about two weeks now and I think I can honestly say, this is the perfect eReading machine. I cannot find any flaws with this thing and I'm usually pretty critical.

Nook Color is black with a large touch screen. It is a little bit heavier than the Amazon Kindle, but still nowhere heavier than a large book. There are no page-turning buttons; you literally tap the right side of the screen to turn the page and tapping the left side will go backwards. The home screen is the first thing you see when you turn the machine on. From the home screen, you will see a full color list of the current publications you are reading by way of the book/magazine covers. The home screen itself can get customized with any imagery you want - it comes with a couple nice backgrounds to choose from. To read a book, simply tap the book's cover with your finger and it zooms in with an animation and goes to the last page you left off on, automatically. The font type, font size and even the page margins can all be customized to fit your visual needs. The screen is bright and serves a very smooth reading experience.

Want to bookmark a page for future reference? Simply tap the upper right corner of the screen and a little bookmark image will show up. Tap it again and it disappears. Turn the Nook Color on its side and you can read in landscape mode. You can highlight words and look-up their meaning or add notes to a page to help you remember key points.

Tapping the menu button on the bottom of the screen pops the main menu up. From there, you can shop for new books, play games or manage your bookshelf. Shopping is a breeze. Once your card information is stored, simply find a book, click to purchase it and it downloads within seconds. I like the fact that you can sample a few pages from a book and read other reader reviews. Nook Color even has a feature that allows you to lend a book to another Nook Color user. I haven't tried it yet, but I could see that coming in handy some day. The book shelf is similar to Windows Explorer or the folder system in your computer's operating system. You can create "shelves," similar to folders and then store books on those shelves. It's a great way to organize your readings.

Everything I have talked about is just the tip of the iceberg. Nook Color offers much more. You can play chess, browse the internet or even listen to music (there is a 1/8" headphone jack in the upper right corner of the unit). One thing I would suggest, is purchasing a nice protective cover for it. It will prolong the life of the touch screen. In the lower left corner, there is a standard SD card slot. The unit already has enough space to store thousands of books, but if needed, you can expand that storage with an SD card. A full charged battery lasts a little over a week and it can recharge in a matter of a couple hours.

Bottom line: Barnes & Noble always seemed to be following in the shadow of the big gorilla in the room and Amazon has always had cheaper prices for books. On the other hand, B&N really did their homework this time around and built a flawless eReader. Amazon, I think it's your turn to take notes.