Friday, December 11, 2009

Barnes & Noble Nook | Wired.com Product Reviews

See the full review for more details and a video

Unfortunately, the Nook is marred by a frustrating interface and persistent slowness. Switching between the lower and upper screens is sometimes confusing, and the lower screen's "back" button sometimes takes you all the way back to the top menu, clearing out whatever was on the upper screen. Occasionally the lower screen takes a few seconds to respond to a tap, so you impatiently tap again, accidentally triggering something you didn't expect. The upper, E Ink screen is slightly slower to refresh than the Kindle's — it takes about a second, instead of about half a second — which means these kinds of interface glitches quickly get very frustrating.

It seems reasonable to expect that the Nook's software engineers will iron out these glitches in the next few months, and they've promised to deliver software updates wirelessly, with the first, minor update rolling out next week. When they finally get the kinks worked out, the Nook will be an elegant, customizable, competitive alternative to Amazon's Kindle. Until then, it's a slightly awkward runner-up.

Barnes & Noble Nook | Wired.com Product Reviews

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