Barnes and Noble's Nook: first impressions

After a rainy evening in Palo Alto, I decided to catch the latest headlines at Hillsdale's B&N. But I was drawn to the info desk and a prominent display showcasing B&N's new Nook device. The lady at the desk scurried away, and wheeled in her resident 20-year old Whizz Kid - armed with low cut jeans, sneakers and a bad attitude T-Shirt. He let me take a look.

Having had the opportunity to play with the iPad hours before (what else can you do on a rainy Saturday, eh), I was expecting something similar in experience. But it's like comparing a bicycle with a helicopter.

Do I want a helicopter? Hell yeah! Do I need one? Am I airlifting o-type blood to a disaster zone? No. And - on pain of death, nobody near by bike!

In case you were wondering, my iPad is the bike and the Nook is Barnes and Noble's heavily engineered (in-house, I am told, B&N have a secret hoard of hardware developers) helicopter.

You see, this isn't a war of readers. This is a war of purposes.

While the Book^H^H^H^HNook is busy trying to prove it's a better mousetrap than the Kindle, the iPad is taking a bet that being an Apple Computer its superior [looks|interface|versatility|everything] will make e-ink a non-issue. The way that the iPod Touch made playing MP3s (the way that Rio did, and did very well in 2001 while being incumbent during the iPod's gestation period) pretty much a non-issue.

OK here is my two bit summary:

- Interesting
- $250
- A little on the klunky side (takes very deliberate keypresses to select and open your book)
- You get a miniature color lcd "bookshelf" at the bottom of the device. On the iPad you get a full-screen bookcase! :) Just an observation, I don't really care.
- The e-ink emulates real ink very well, and looks like a 24-pin dot matrix printout of a book (letters are the right shape, but a bit faded, and not quite black enough to fool you into thinking you're reading a book)
- Slow - the e-ink seems to "stutter" in re-drawing the page. Not a biggie, but caused a double-take the first couple of times
- Crashed when I was trying to change font
- I kept being tempted to touch the screen - that's what an iPad does to you
- I didn't start crying within 5 minutes, like I did with the iPad
- No web browser (though it features an all-you-can-eat (I mean, all-you-can-pay-B&N-for-new-content) 3G wireless connection to AT&T)

Which would I take to bed with me if I had to read War and Peace? Neither.
Which would I prefer to read the NYT on? The iPad of course, as I'd read the free edition in Safari. The Nook requires you to buy the current edition.

About e-books in general:
I won't say I'm a dot-commie by any stretch of the imagination, and I think money should flow to the creative authors and the middlemen should keep a gold coin from the pile. But come on. $10 for a title I could pay $2 used for on Amazon marketplace can and WILL get old after a while. Because two weeks after I've read the book, my utility is close to zero.

I think the Nook has its uses and will find a market. But it's B&N's marketing equivalent of the Apple Newton. Sorry, but not quite there...