Playing some Sudoku and reading Engadget
on our Nook? Yeah, we are! Obviously, after hearing about the
Nook 1.3 firmware update this morning, us bookworms nabbed the latest software to check out the added features. The over-the-air update took about a total of ten minutes from start to finish, and when the e-reader had restarted the new Games, Wi-Fi, Audio, and Web shortcuts were more than obvious on the main menu. The browsing experience, which is clearly marked beta, is very similar to that on the
Spring Design Alex -- you input the address on the touchscreen and an expanded view of whatever site you're visiting appears on the E-Ink display. You can use the LCD to navigate the page, though the physical page turn buttons work as well, which is actually a nice trick. It isn't the fastest browsing experience, but it'll definitely be useful for quickly reading some news or checking the weather when you are near a WiFi network – we got a page not found message over 3G.
As for the Sudoku and chess games, it's all pretty standard -- the boards appear on the E-Ink screen and you use the touchscreen to input numbers or move pieces. We weren't near a Barnes & Noble to check out the borrow-a-book feature, but the navigation seems to have gotten even snappier since the
1.2 update, and the lower screen is refreshing noticeably faster. Our early verdict? Those
Best Buy shoppers are getting a heck of a much better Nook than we did
a few months ago.
posted April 23rd 2010 3:13PM
still hoping for an RSS "app"...
@Smkmn13 google.com/reader? doesn't that work?
@mrbusche yeah, but i want it to download so i can read when i'm not on a wi-fi network...anybody use google reader offline?
@Smkmn13 i've google reader offline, the only thing i don't like is the inability to mark all as read isn't available. other than that no major issues
@Smkmn13
Yeah but does it play flash? :/
@mrbusche
I hope that they let you flip the e-ink screen sideways for a better experience not having to pan left and right all the time. That'd be a good update in the future..
@Smkmn13
Yea, but does it have Flash???
@macmann
Ha, didn't even notice that you already asked...
@Smkmn13 Native email (gmail) app for me. I've been developing one myself but no such luck yet. Gotta mail those nookdevs....
color browsers are so overrated.
@camokatu
Actually, the lower portion DOES show a colored browser, while the top is monochrome. It's the best of both worlds!
@WhitecollarcriminalFinancial Obviously I was making a joke there. I am sure there would be times when I wouldn't care if web page is color, but I think most of time I would.
Regarding your "alot" problem, read this: http://bit.ly/cXh0QZ pretty funny :)
@CharlesSaint007 I think they mistakenly made the wrong part of the Nook's screen color :)
@WhitecollarcriminalFinancial
Dude, no one said anything about the iPad.
Step up your game, troll.
Would be nice if you could use kindle books on the nook.
@Vdek you can add any ebook you would like into the My Documents folder
@Vdek
It would be nice if Amazon supported ePub.
@CDice stop crying, Calibre can convert anything non-DRM to Kindle
Lynx anyone?
But can it run Pong?
It's very nice that they added some bells and whistles (and in their defense did do some bug fixing). But where is "Go to page", which everyone and their brother has been asking for for months?
It would be trivial to add and would *really* improve the nook as an *eBook* reader. Gah! I'm not even mentioning sorting of sideloaded books or anything else. I just want bloody "Go to page"!
@zuvembi I'm with you there. My sideloaded books are from ereader.com (owned by B&N) and they don't all format correctly in the content list.
Go to a certain page would be nice since they haven't delivered on their now vanished claim that they were working on a way to auto-sync your place in a book across devices (like Kindle's whispersync). Failing that, I want to go to a particular page directly. Right now, I like to whip out the iPhone when I have a few minutes while I'm out. I spend most of that time finding my place.
Wish I could give one of these a try, all of the ones in my local B&N are dead shells.
reading on this browser would feel like watching on a black and white TV.
I have never read the internet in black and white not even when we had black and white CRT monitors..
It will be awful. No reading an ebook a whole different story
@sycamore714 what about google books?
I don't really get the point of these devices. hmm. But it is cool what they can do. I hope it turns into having devices like this that are paper thin instead of actual books though.
@kiden this is thinner than my lg dare. it's not like these are inches thick
@mrbusche I hope you are about to get rid of your LG Dare on the 29th. Cause it's time.
@kiden, yeah when I go for 2 weeks vacation, I don't have to bring 6 thick books with me, amazon eBooks are much cheaper than actual books, you can get newspaper and read it on patio while you sip coffee, ... do you need to keep going?
@Slimnutz i am actually, getting the incredible on the 2nd. long overdue.
e-ink - making people believe that reading on an LCD is painful since 2009/
@OSXsucks e-ink - giving me one less thing to charge every other day. Not to mention, try reading an LCD outside for more than a couple minutes.
@OSXsucks
e-ink... horribly marketed since 2009
my dad is the vice president of a marketing and outsourcing company that deals pretty much with every big name in the business and I had to explain to him what e-ink is...since it just looks like a crappy b/w lcd thats what he though it was. Very few people (read: everyday consumers) actually know what e ink is and therefore think they are just crappy lcd screens
Reading on an LCD *IS* a painful experience.
If that's a subtle hint that iPad is a good eBook reader, that was a fail.
@OSXsucks
I don't know how painful it is to read an LCD in direct sunlight (I avoid it whenever I can), but I do know it's awesome to see e-ink in anything except complete darkness. Honestly, I just love the way it looks. Wish I had one.
@Elranzer .. No it's not. Millions of people are reading on their LCD screen right now. This "computers are hard to read" argument is dumb given how many millions of people are reading websites right this instant.
Since the nook is easily rooted, couldn't it be faked into thinking it's on wifi when on 3G...
@jboxer Yes it could. But you would be a complete asshole to do that. It would mess up 3G for everyone else that uses it for purchasing books online. There is no way At&t would stand for that.
@4nth0ny
Kindle does web browsing on 3G. How is that messing anything up for anybody? Seems like AT&T needs to worry about their smartphone traffic issues, not a couple rooted Nooks.
I guess it's cool that it has games and stuff, but I'm not sure how often I'd use them. The kindle has had a web browser built into it for a while now (or since launch I only got mine in Feb so I'm not sure).
Why bother with any of these second class citizen devices? When perfection awaits you at any Apple store or Apple.com.......
@SteveAlmighty
Thats a funny avatar.
Joanna: has the response of the touch screen improved at all?
@kobachi
It feels like it has. The swipe to turn page feature is working better (Could just be that I'm getting used to it though).
@RayVoid How about browsing menus? Last time I tried a nook, the color LCD responded to taps with a rate similar to an e-ink screen. It was kind of a joke.
@kobachi
Scrolling through the menu options is a lot better, but the display still has a bit of a choppieness when drawing it.
I downloaded the update one, the Nook rebooted, mounted the partitions, rebooted again and I'm left with 1.2... I checked for new B&N content again and the update is downloading again. Hmm...
I'm still not convinced about browsing the web in black n white. Colour definitely sounds like the way forward. I think I'll stick with my iPad.
I bet the Nook would allow Flash if it could ...
Back in my day we didn't have the interwebs in color my boy. we had to live with 0.75 second refresh rates and not flash, that's just new fangled stuff, well except not on all new fangled dohickies, what you ever thought you saw in that macsipad.