Nook Color

SUMMARY

Pros: Color ereader with vivid 7-inch touch screen display; quick performance; built-in Wi-Fi; Barnes & Noble Nookbook shop; 8 GB onboard storage, in addition to microSD expansion slot; built-in Internet browser is useful; can handle PDF, Word, and ePub documents; shows pictures plus some movie types; support for sound and MP3 playback; new Nook apps increase performance of the unit and allow it to be more like a full-featured tablet pc; Flash support for Internet browser.

Cons: 8 hours life of the battery for reading is terrible when compared with the battery life on e-ink readers; no use of complete Android Market; battery pack is not user-replaceable; cpu could also be quicker.

Overview: Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color is an extremely effective color touch-screen e-reader that provides a lot of the features of an Android tablet for one half the cost of an ipad tablet.

DETAILS

Size
Constructed around a 7-inch color Liquid crystal display, nook Color is tiny, slim, and lightweight enough for comfy one-handed use. I have found myself personally grasping the unit with my thumb and fingers down one facet of the bezel as well as palming the whole thing using one hand extended around the rear of the device. Considerably smaller compared to pc tablets with 10-inch screens, and lighter in weight than units with metal body frames such as the iPad, nook Color’s actual physical layout easily results in relaxed surfing around as well as longer-term reading times alike. The mixture of glossy although not slick frame plastic along with an additional rubber-like product around the rear created for a mostly slip-free encounter

Screen
The color display on the Nook is incredible. The Nook Color offers a 1024-by-600-pixel liquid crystal display which can display 16 million colors. Looking at magazines and children’s publications, as well as color images in eBooks and color annotations, truly produces a massive difference. And it is almost as well as reading could be on a back lit glass display. Looking at material apart from electronic books is an intriguing set of tradeoffs, mainly due to the restrictions of a 7-inch screen. Magazines are offered as full-page, unreadable facsimiles of the real thing, that you can zoom in and pan all over. Just like any gadget with glass, glare is definitely an issue plus well lit surroundings like a sunlit day, looking at the Nook color can be difficult.

While reading, it is easy to modify the font, screen settings, and more so it will be as comfortable as it can be on the vision. During the night I change the lumination down and find it very pleasant for my eyes while reading in bed. I’ve read for many hours on end with no kind of headache.

Speed
Nook Color cannot contend with full functioning Google android pc tablets and iPads in terms of raw power and amount of available programs, however it effortlessly works as good as any of the ebook readers which are presently in the marketplace. As a child of parents tablet and ereader, the Nook functions the way it should as a hybrid product.

Storage
The Nook Color has 8 GB of on-board storage space, and it also provides expansion using a microSD slot that can add an extra 32GB. That is plenty of books, magazines, songs and movies!

Battery life
The WiFi and color screen of the Nook take a big toll on life of the battery. If you are fortunate, your device can last 8 hours of reading and high web use before requiring a charge. As an e-reader this is not good simply because you essentially have to recharge the unit each day or so of use.

Weight
At nearly one pound, it is a little hefty. Certainly not as heavy as an Apple ipad, but heavier compared to the Amazon Kindle. But it is precisely what the unit is, one step above other ebook readers and a step beneath a full blown tablet. It is a crossbreed of both therefore it is in its very own class of gadget device.

NOOK COLOR SPECIFICATIONS

Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble

General
Product Type eBook reader
Dimensions (W x D x H) 5 in x 0.48 in x 8.1 in
Weight 15.8 oz
Slot provided type microSD

Display
Display Type 7 in,
Color IPS TFT active matrix
Display Resolution 1024 x 600

Memory
Flash Memory installed 8 GB
Supported Flash Memory Cards microSD, microSDHC

Communications
Wireless Connectivity 802.11b/g/n

Multimedia Functionality
Supported Digital Video Formats MPEG-4
Audio speaker(s)

Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support 1 year warranty