Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch Adds Touchscreen, Improves Interface

Updated: 11/22/2011

As soon as I separate the new Barnes & Noble Nook from its box, I could tell that this petite e-reader was departure to be a worthy challenger to the fractional-generation Amazon Kindle. Impressively, when I tested the Nook and its new touch screen, I found that it does indeed out-Kindle the Kindle at its own game in some respects; but in others, the Nook waterfall shy of topping Amazon's e-reading staple fiber.

The new Nook Oblanceolate Touch ($99 as of 11/22/2011) has been completely redesigned, still retains the identical moniker as the pilot Nook, which is instantly referred to as Nook First Edition. That class-and-a-half-gaga Nook missed the home run with a clumsy LCD screen for navigating the E-Ink display supra it. This new Corner is lighter, more svelte, and introduces Neonode's Zeforce infrared touch engineering science to simplify access and seafaring, equally cured as a Wi-Fi connector.

An E-Referee for Reading

Where the Corner First Edition's weight and size made information technology bulky, unwieldly, and generally unpleasant to wont, the new Corner is the frigid opposite: It weighs 0.47 pounds–35 percent lighter than the original Nook, and slightly lighter than the third base-generation Elicit Keyboard (0.60 pounds), and slightly heavier than the fourth-generation $79 Kindle With Special Offers (0.37 pounds). Information technology's also more compact–6 percent thinner and more than an inch shorter the showtime Nook. It now measures 6.5 aside 5.0 by 0.47 inches–notably smaller than its older sibling. That makes it half-an-inch wider than the fourth-gen Elicit.

At issue, the conflict 'tween the two versions is perceptible. The new Nook is clearly made for curling up with and holding in unrivalled give for an hours-mindful dive into another universe; that's exactly what I did with information technology happening its opening voyage. Its size up and weight do make it easier to hold than the First Variant, and it's symmetric slightly easier to support than the current Amazon River Provok, which integrates a physical keyboard and has nobelium touch screen presentation. It's signally well-balanced to hold, be information technology in one hand operating theatre two; I found information technology quite homy to hold with my thumbs along the stern bezel, and my index fingers and forefingers bracing the back.

The carnal shape of Nook is pleasing in-hand, to a fault: The e-reviewer's front and back both have a unsmooth India rubber finish, much like you'll find on a cell phone. The backplate cover dips in; those millimeters in effect give the Nook a built-in suitcase to make it even easier to give. Nice touch.

At present that the Corner has a touchscreen, just about navigation will be done connected the display, non via the buttons. As on the Nook Color/Reader's Tablet, the main home button is a lower-case letter "n" beneath the screen. Here, the "n" starts the display's wake-up process (every bit with cell phones, you also have to slide your finger along the blind to wake it fully), and returns you to the quick navigation buttons on-shield. These buttons are exchangeable to the ones that were the focal sailing fashion on Nook First Edition, but they've been refreshed and updated to reflect the new Nook's interface, and bring it in line with the Corner Color/Reader's Tablet. Departed are options like "the daily" and "reading now"–both of these options have been compounded under the "home" screen, which shows what you're reading now, what's new in your program library (cost they new purchases or newly delivered subscriptions), and, at bottom, what to read following based on B&N's recommendation engine.

Design

The Corner has a power button on the book binding top that feels compatible to a fingertip, but the button is astonishingly noisy, and borderline chintzy, when I ironed on IT. This button doubles as other way to wake the e-reader, and can power down the unit entirely. Good matter you can, because this was the only way to fix a snafu I ran into with the on-board Shop: Later on about use, the Shop would no more connect to the server, in spite of the Wisconsin-Fi connection working fine. To remediate this, I had to power off the device and reboot it. B&N is looking into the problem, but didn't undergo an answer for Maine as to wherefore it happened in the first place. (Editors' Note: Six months later, this hasn't been an issue.)

My biggest gripe with the Nook's design happens to equal with its physical piloting buttons. The easy-to-depress, outward-facing buttons on Nook First Edition have been replaced by cheap-feeling, raised rubber strips that line the far left and conservative bezel. The buttons are stiff and expect a rattling punctilious and abstruse press to activate; and even though your finger can bleed a bit towards the edge of the e-reviewer and still manage to activate the push action, ultimately the receive is nothing like the buttons on Nook Inaugural Edition and connected Kindle, which are both easier to dispirit and toilet work with your whole finger, not fair-and-square your fingertip. If you're wedded to the use of buttons for changing pages, I'd really steer you away from this Nook–that's how poorly enforced I believe these buttons. And that's a disappointment, since the new Corner gets so much other right.

Now, if you're comfortable with the idea of swipes and on-screen touches, and then Nook is a outstanding choice. The full redesigned port is finger-friendly, and makes it easy to pilot and perform operations with the touch of a finger. And I found the touch screen highly responsive; the on-screen keyboard true kept ascending with my speedy touch-typewriting. (See "Remodeled Interface" below for more on the touchscreen pilotage.)

The case is now oxford gray, as conflicting to white, a go down that helps enhance readability. But that wasn't the only step B&N took to boost the readability of the display.

The evidential remaining add-on to the Nook is its new E-Ink Pearl display. E-Ink Pearl brings Nook adequate to speed with the other monochrome e-readers along the market today. The new-sprung Nook uses the same 6-inch, 800-by-600-pel Pearl exhibit that Amazon and Sony integrated in their e-readers endmost summer and fall, respectively, and the homophonic reveal as in Kobo's eReader Bear upon Edition. The Bone display is known for providing punter contrast than earlier-generation E-Ink displays, but oddly, in my active tests with the ternary e-readers side-by-side, I ascertained different results.

As it originally shipped, I found that the parvenue Nook's display provided only nominally better direct contrast than the one on Nook First Variation, and that the Amazon Kindle actually has the best contrast of the three, with blacker blacks, and a brighter gray background than connected the new Corner. I had the 3 e-readers set to similar textbook passages, with closely matching if not identical fonts (at the to the lowest degree, I discovered behavior with all e-readers set to nonserif fonts, and to serif fonts). However, the Kindle and the new Nook flipped places on the home-screen display: There, the Nook looked better than the Arouse. I chalk this dormie to the vagaries of the distinguishable fonts and textual matter sizes, and to the fact that these differences cause the blacks to come out different happening the different devices. They're close, only by no agency identical, in spite of exploitation the unchanged display technology.

In November 2020, Corner Simple Touch got a microcode update that greatlly developed the direct contrast of the text and graphics. Blacks made are darker than before, which makes text easier to read and graphics jump off the screen. I'd set the Nook's textual matter quality now as the best I've seen among E Ink e-readers. And the screening options are more compromising than Amazon River's Kindle or Evoke Touch; Nook has six fonts and eight font sizes to choose from.

The update also developed on B&N's already fast pageboy refreshen rates and page turns. The e-lector still does a full refresh once every sixth page, only by doing what manifest as fast dissolves between pages, B&N lets you effectively apace page ahead dozens of pages, while mitigating the annoying varlet-flashing consequence long associated with E Ink. B&N does targeted refreshes on a page that has just graphics changing (for example, in the e-reader's bookshop), and on areas that volition have a heavy redraw.

Remodeled Port

Though trace makes the Nook easy to navigate, at times where you can swipe and where you can't isn't always clear. For instance, you can swipe through some modules in the bookstore, down on some pages, just non on others. For the most part, this is gorge you'll se through trial and erroneous belief, and doing so is not velar.

You give the axe turn pages past tapping on either the unexhausted or right side of the covert; or you can pilfer larboard to right (and, connected some screens, fifty-fifty vertically) to change pages, excessively. While reading, tap at the pass of the screen to reveal a position bar–the barricade will show battery status, a clock, and a tap-to-add bookmark; it volition also reveal the same book sailing buttons you'd start out if you solicit in the center of the page. The buttons jump you to the table of contents, let you search for a word or passage inside a book, run short to a particularized page within a book using a slider (and kudos to B&N for including here just how umteen pages are left in the chapter), or adjust text options (take from six not-so-different fonts and seven very different baptismal font sizes). The "much" selection was confusing, though: I'm already in the book, and reading it, so why would I want to conk out to the book's profile from the Shop, showing editorial content, reviews, and collateral titles? I develop the share and LendMe options as being appropriate spell reading, merely the rest of this fare option left ME puzzled.

Similarly, I found it annoying that in the interface, I'd often have to move my hand each the way up to the top to find the X to equal out of a page. Practically all other on-screen navigation is in the lower one-half of the block out, which made that finger jaunt feel inefficient.

Beyond that one user interface annoyance, though, I was largely impressed by the B&N's otherwise clean, logical software design. B&N distinctly gave some thought to the layout, and to how things operate. The interface is good, at times even great–but non perfect.

An example is how B&N has implemented its notes and highlights features. Really, these are the most useable examples of such features that I've seen happening an e-reader to date. Tap and take for your finger on a Good Book to select IT; then you can either drag the pins to select a passage, or choose an action such as adding a bank note or looking up the word in the Merriam-John Webster Desk dictionary. Unfortunately, I had trouble grabbing quotation marks to complete a passage; also, right now you can't view each notes, highlights, Beaver State a combining of the cardinal. Instead, you just see a teaser of the passage under a tab for Notes and Highlights in the hold over of contents. B&N says it expects to offer some way of life to view and share notes and highlights when it launches the My Nook portal, but that portal vein isn't ready as of this update.

For now, you can view and ploughshare highlighted quotes with Gmail contacts, via Facebook or Twitter. You can besides divvy up information about books you're recitation, to prepar a passport, post your reading status, rate and review a Word, or like it on Facebook. Nook has the same Nook Friends capabilities as on Nook Color; this social platform moves reading outside from organism a solitary exercise, but information technology does so in a less intrusive, less all-more or less-me way than along competitor Kobo's social platform. And IT makes these functions furthermost easier than on Amazon's Kindle.

Other Features

The bookshop portal has as wel been redesigned, and its new interface, coupled with the touchscreen, does make shopping far simpler than before. The Corner has 2GB of shapely-in storage, and a microSDHC card slot hidden beneath a secure tizzy door on the position for additional storage. In addition to sideloading ePub and PDF files, Nook reads JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP image files. Unequal many former e-readers, Nook reflows the PDF text, which makes it dandy for reading text, but a mixed handbag if you're trying to study a document that's heavy on its particular layout.

The e-reader runs Android 2.1, which makes changes and tweaks via firmware update viable. Sadly, as of now B&N says it has zero plans for opening up its E Ink Nook to apps. The device as wel has no WWW browser, and no on-circuit card e-mail, disappointing omissions given how central these can follow to reading.

Setting up the 802.11 b/g/n WI-Fi was easy, and the device automatically searches for and reconnects to your go network, straight when booting sprouted subsequently a complete shutdown. Users get justify Wisconsin-Fi memory access at AT&A;T hotspots nationwide.

Battery life should comprise up notably: Barnes & Noble says that the Nook bum last adequate 2 months on a single agitate, with the Wi-Fi turned off. We'll have to check in later with an update on how its battery lifespan does in the real life.

At $99, the Nook SimpleTouch is competitively priced, and a bargain compared with other touchscreen E Ink e-readers, which only achieve this Mary Leontyne Pric by adding advertisements to the home screen and lock screen. Corner wins favor for its interface and touch navigation. Those factors, linked with its light weight and long-acting barrage life rating, defecate Nook a solid choice, as long as you plan to use the touchscreen and not the buttons to page through your books.