Barnes and Noble’s nook has been out for some time, but it hasn’t stopped making waves since its debut! After the initial successful release, B&N released a WiFi-only version, which also kicked off a price war against Amazon’s Kindle. The new WiFi version comes in at the practically bargain price of $149, but how does it stack up? Read on to find out!

Hardware:

The nook WiFi hardware isn’t that different from the 3G version. Both have white bezels, with an eInk screen on top and a small color touchscreen below. The big difference on the WiFi version is that the backing is white instead of grey like the 3G one.

My first impression upon taking it out of the box was, “Wow. Solid.” My fiancée immediately commented “It’s like Apple made an ebook reader”. And she’s not wrong. The white bezel is a huge contributing factor, but there’s a certain seamless feel to the nook that’s very Apple-esque. The page turn buttons blend right into the sides; there’s a rubbery texture to them when you actually click them, but there’s no seams or obvious lines where the buttons blend in with the bezel. My point of comparison here is my original Kindle, which has very clicky page turn buttons that clearly stick out from the rest of the frame.

On the bottom, there’s a headset jack, speakers, and a micro USB port. On top there’s a power button, which also acts as the screen lock. And on each side there are arrow keys for page left/right. Otherwise it’s fairly simple, and there’s no component or area that sticks out or breaks the smooth layout.

The rubberized backing is smooth and just has enough texture to give it a bit of grip. Everything about the overall fit of the backing and the design in general oozes quality. It has a bit of heft, but it’s a good kind of weight, and very comfortable to hold for long periods. There’s also a slightly concave curve to the backing, which makes it very comfortable to hold in your left or right hand.

While I’ll cover this in more detail in the software section, the touchscreen is responsive as well. Overall, the nook hardware is a home run. It feels like quality. In addition to my Kindle, which I use daily, I’ve reviewed the Cybook Gen 3 and the Jetbook Lite, and hands down the nook hardware is the best of the bunch. It’s obvious that it was designed to feel high-end, and it definitely succeeds! The big question, though, is the software…

Software:

First we’ll begin with a tour of the nook software. When you turn it on, the bottom screen lights up, and you have 9 brightly colored boxes to scroll through and choose from. The menu options are:

-The Daily: A place where B&N’s nook editors may choose to showcase a book sample, where the “Unbound” blog posts appear, and other interesting tidbits.
-My Library: Pretty self-explanatory. It’s where you’ll find all the content on your nook in one place.
-Shop: Again, fairly clear. It’s the nook portal for the B&N ebookstore.
-Reading now: Takes you directly to the last book you were reading (as opposed to going into your library to enter the book)
-Games: If reading gets boring, there’s Sudoku and Chess to occupy your time.
-Wifi: Lets you connect to wireless hotspots, see and edit your saved spots, etc.
-Audio: Easy access to any mp3 files you have on your device.
-Web: A much more full featured web browser than the Kindle’s, but that has its own drawbacks.
-Settings: The control center for display information, memory, etc.

Here’s where my first frustration with the nook’s software began to surface. If I enter, say, “My library”, and want to go back to “The Daily”, it’s a multi-step process. I first have to touch the n button above the touchscreen to turn the screen back on. Then I have to use the back arrow on the touchscreen to flip over to the menu. At that point, whatever I’m viewing in the library disappears and I’m back to the “n” starting screen. From there I can select any of the menu items. It’s just a clunky process, especially since you can’t flip between menu items without landing back on the bland main page.

Still, there are some bright spots in the nook software. I did like that it notes “lend me” books right on your library page. While I didn’t test the lend me feature, since it is dependent on publisher it’s great that B&N takes the guesswork out of it. In addition, the touchscreen menus work very well for drilling down into details about a book. Everything is right at your fingertips, and it’s a clever way to cram controls like lend me, font size, dictionary, annotation, etc., without layering them within several menu items. I also was surprised that the up/down arrow controls on the screen strip were not a pain. It seemed counter-intuitive to me to stick major navigation features into the touchscreen, but it was less of an issue than I expected. In fact, coming from a Kindle where everything has a hardware button, I expected a fairly steep learning curve, but it was smooth sailing after just a few minutes.

The nook works best when they really leverage the touchscreen. My personal favorite was the coverflow-style “show covers” option in “My Library”. It’s a little touch that shows B&N has paid attention from their paper book selling days. The phrase “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” is actually not true in the bookselling world. Viewing the cover of a book makes it special, makes it stand out in a way that book spines lined up across dozens of shelves can’t convey. So it’s nice to have that visual touch here, where you can scroll through covers and select your book.

Page turns are responsive and accurate, and I didn’t find the nook WiFi to be any slower or faster than my Kindle. I did think it was a bit faster than the Cybook Gen 3. The touchscreen strip turns off fairly quickly, so it isn’t a distraction from the reading experience. I also found hitting the launcher button (the n) turned the screen back on easily when you need it.

Finally, the in-store features of the nook worked very well. I took it to my local B&N and it connected to the store WiFi immediately. In addition, B&N is offering in-store incentives like free coffee, giveaway books, etc. Your nook lets you know if there’s any special offers when you’re in-store. The best in-store feature, though, is the ability to read a book in-store for up to one hour. If a small sample isn’t enough to help you determine if you want to purchase a book, having a whole hour to browse is a lot better! Also, if you read quickly (like I do), you can cover most, if not all, of a relatively easy book in an hour. I don’t recommend buying a nook and using B&N like your own personal library with espresso on tap, but it’s great for occasional use!

I did have a few things that I didn’t like about the nook, and it really comes down to personal preference. As I said, I really didn’t love the way accessing the menu took you back to a rather boring “n” screen while you made your selection. I also did not like the web browser. If you’ve ever used a Symbian handset, you’re familiar with the sliding “window” you can use to zoom in on specific areas of a website. Now imagine doing that on a tiny strip of LCD, with the selected area showing up on the eInk side. It’s not awful, it’s just not something I’d choose for a long period of time. Part of the problem is that the web browser takes you to the full web, as opposed to mobile sites. I have no doubt that Gear Diary’s mobile site would look great on the nook, but the full site is difficult to the point of painful.

In addition, and this is really specific and kind of nitpicky, I feel like the nook wants to be more than it is. It works great as an ebook reader, but it also wants to be a pseudo-tablet, with a very overqualified browser for the hardware limitations. And it wants to entertain you, with games and music built-in as well. But all of these feel more like afterthoughts than serious aspects of the nook experience. They don’t really detract from it (aside from taking up space in the menus) but they also don’t really add anything.

Conclusion:

The nook is a great device. If you aren’t already tied into an ebook ecosystem, and you don’t need Amazon’s whispersync capabilities, the nook is a fantastic device. If you spend a great deal of time shopping in B&N stores, it’s an absolute no-brainer.

The Barnes and Noble nook Wifi edition is available for $149.99 and available at your local B&N or online.

What I liked:
-Hardware is excellent quality.
-B&N ebookstore offers a huge selection.
-Special in-store offers.

What I didn’t like:
-Web browser is a pain.
-Menu navigation takes several clicks.