I splurged in commemoration of my birth and bought a nook from my local Barnes & Noble.
I’ve had it for four days. As a gadget, it feels good in my hand, is responsive, has a nice minimalistic design and a good user interface and its e-ink screen is incredibly crisp and readable. Because his was the first face to appear on the screensaver as it charged in my bedroom, I named the unit ‘vonnegut’.
It is a very fine gadget.
What I haven’t determined yet is whether or not it’s a gadget that I need.
I love gadgets. I’m not an early adopter and I rarely buy shiny things just to buy shiny things. There’s either an emotional component (like with the Dragon Quest PlayStation 2 controller I’ve got – it looks like a Slime for crying out loud, and what gamer doesn’t love those adorable little guys) or a utility component (a thousand songs in my pocket is pretty useful, even back when I couldn’t play Shining Force on my iPod).
I don’t really feel either of those things when I consider the nook. Why buy one? I keep hearing about how this is future and whatever. I don’t want to be late for the future.
Ultimately, I think the nook is a nice device. But I don’t know that I need it. And I’d say the same for the Kindle (and really, Kindle, crowing that you are smaller than ever is not a selling point for someone with giant ape-hands). It hasn’t saved my life and it hasn’t changed it irrevocably. It’s good at what it does, but what it does doesn’t fill a niche for me.
The main reason why?
I think the best gadget for reading stories in is probably still the book.
