Got to see a NOOKcolor AND a Sony 950 this week!

[graycyn]

We drove out to the Tri-Cities and got to visit a BestBuy and of course, Barnes & Noble. So I got to look at and play with a NOOKcolor and a Sony 950.

Must say, was NOT impressed with the NOOKcolor. I had high hopes for it as a possible device for reading magazines or cookbooks or occasionally referencing a book that had color illustrations, but in fact, the text was awful and bothered my eyes so much that I would not have wanted to read *anything* on it, not websites, not magazines, not newspapers, not books. It may be my eyes, which generally don't care much for backlit devices, but yikes that was SO much worse than I'd expected! I can read a bit on my LCD computer monitor (enough to proofread a few chapters at a time of scanned books for concentrated reading, and clearly, I surf the web plenty) and text on my $30 Tracfone screen is crisp and clear and solid looking, so I didn't think NOOKcolor would be a problem, but wow, sorely disappointed in how my eyes reacted to it!

I could hardly stand to keep my eyes on the NOOKcolor screen! Viewing pictures was fine, but viewing and reading text made my eyes hurt within 30 seconds! I did try playing with different background colors and adjusting brightness, but nothing made the text look good to me. I could SEE the dots each letter was made of, and that made it fuzzy looking, because it was not solid. I won't be buying one of these! That was my worst reading experience ever!

I don't know if it's my eyes, or the device. But I now have zero desire for one. Which is probably a good thing for my pocketbook!


EXCEPT...


The Sony 950 was BRILLIANT! I loved it! Sexy & sleek with that lovely 7" Pearl e-ink touchscreen. Slots for two memory cards! A stylus included! You can draw or take freehand notes on it! I left a quick sketch on the demo for posterity! Hubby got to play with the 350 model, and he let out a "WOW!" after playing with it for maybe 5 seconds. Now he wants a 950 too. Wish they were more affordable! Refurb prices are better than new, but still. However, I have to say that I feel like it would be worth it in pleasure of use! Size is about like the Nook, only thinner and a bit lighter. Battery life MUCH better according to the specs.

So my pocketbook has probably not escaped a hit after all... though I sure can't afford one right now. Hubby does now know what he could surprise me with though if he wants to hear screams of delight!


Not entirely sorry we went to Barnes & Noble, we did get to try out the in-store experience for the first time. Which, honestly, wasn't much, as we weren't interested in any of the free book downloads, there were no coupons for tasty goodies and we didn't have time to read in store and didn't really want to, since the BN is so far away from us. I did have an interesting reaction to all the paper books on the shelves and tables... I didn't feel interested in them at all! SO unlike me! But so many titles I saw I knew were available from my library in ebook form, and I just didn't feel like picking up heavy paper books to thumb through them. Anyone else ever get like that in a bookstore after having an e-reader?

[RobertY]

Either my old eyes can not see all the dots in text or you have got eagle eyes. I have had a NC almost a week now and can not see the dots in the text. To me they look sharp and clear. I have the text set on medium size. Wife has a Nook wifi/3G and the text on it is sharp and clear also.

As for your feeling on paperbacks I to also have no interest in them anymore. I have not been in a book store since reading ebooks. But, I have been in thrift stores and such that are always loaded with used paperbacks. I used to go straightway to that section to browse. No longer.

Oh, to clarify I have been reading ebooks for quite a while using my Iphone. Have not bought a single paperback since I started.

[miksons]

I really cannot say anything about the Sony, but I noticed something unexpected about the Nook Color (well, my Nook Color).

I read a lot of history books and they come full of maps, tables and graphs. I bought the Nook Color because I did not believe the Kindle, with its small monochrome screen, would display maps well. The NC does display them very well, but they are still small, so I solved this problem by taking a photo of the map and printing it to an 8x10 piece of paper. This makes the map large enough to read and also allows me to consult the map along with reading the text. I had tried this before with the reader app on my iPad and that worked very well.

I should first say that I find reading the NC easier on my eyes than the iPad. Even with the iPad screen brightness turned down, it makes my eyes tired much more quickly than the NC with its brightness turned down. But when I compared the photos from the 2 devices I was startled.

The photos from the iPad reader were bright and clear. The photos from the NC were mottled with shadowy areas alternating with bright ones. I do not actually see such things when I look at the screen, but they are clear in the photos. This makes me wonder about the screen refresh rates on both devices and whether or not that is having an effect on making the devices easier or harder to read. Perhaps the trouble you are seeing has to do with the screen refresh rate on the NC. I think this could be a problem for some people with back-lighted devices.

Just a comment.

[WillysJeepMan]

We drove out to the Tri-Cities and got to visit a BestBuy and of course, Barnes & Noble. So I got to look at and play with a NOOKcolor and a Sony 950.

Must say, was NOT impressed with the NOOKcolor. I had high hopes for it as a possible device for reading magazines or cookbooks or occasionally referencing a book that had color illustrations, but in fact, the text was awful and bothered my eyes so much that I would not have wanted to read *anything* on it, not websites, not magazines, not newspapers, not books. It may be my eyes, which generally don't care much for backlit devices, but yikes that was SO much worse than I'd expected! I can read a bit on my LCD computer monitor (enough to proofread a few chapters at a time of scanned books for concentrated reading, and clearly, I surf the web plenty) and text on my $30 Tracfone screen is crisp and clear and solid looking, so I didn't think NOOKcolor would be a problem, but wow, sorely disappointed in how my eyes reacted to it!

I could hardly stand to keep my eyes on the NOOKcolor screen! Viewing pictures was fine, but viewing and reading text made my eyes hurt within 30 seconds! I did try playing with different background colors and adjusting brightness, but nothing made the text look good to me. I could SEE the dots each letter was made of, and that made it fuzzy looking, because it was not solid. I won't be buying one of these! That was my worst reading experience ever!

I don't know if it's my eyes, or the device. But I now have zero desire for one. Which is probably a good thing for my pocketbook!


EXCEPT...


The Sony 950 was BRILLIANT! I loved it! Sexy & sleek with that lovely 7" Pearl e-ink touchscreen. Slots for two memory cards! A stylus included! You can draw or take freehand notes on it! I left a quick sketch on the demo for posterity! Hubby got to play with the 350 model, and he let out a "WOW!" after playing with it for maybe 5 seconds. Now he wants a 950 too. Wish they were more affordable! Refurb prices are better than new, but still. However, I have to say that I feel like it would be worth it in pleasure of use! Size is about like the Nook, only thinner and a bit lighter. Battery life MUCH better according to the specs.

So my pocketbook has probably not escaped a hit after all... though I sure can't afford one right now. Hubby does now know what he could surprise me with though if he wants to hear screams of delight!


Not entirely sorry we went to Barnes & Noble, we did get to try out the in-store experience for the first time. Which, honestly, wasn't much, as we weren't interested in any of the free book downloads, there were no coupons for tasty goodies and we didn't have time to read in store and didn't really want to, since the BN is so far away from us. I did have an interesting reaction to all the paper books on the shelves and tables... I didn't feel interested in them at all! SO unlike me! But so many titles I saw I knew were available from my library in ebook form, and I just didn't feel like picking up heavy paper books to thumb through them. Anyone else ever get like that in a bookstore after having an e-reader?

It is your eyes. If your $30 TracFone screen appears sharp but the nook color screen does not then there is something wrong. The pixel density on the nook color is higher than the iPad (and probably higher than the Android tablets out there) and far, far higher than that $30 TracFone.

The nook color isn't for everybody.

[graycyn]

The photos from the iPad reader were bright and clear. The photos from the NC were mottled with shadowy areas alternating with bright ones. I do not actually see such things when I look at the screen, but they are clear in the photos. This makes me wonder about the screen refresh rates on both devices and whether or not that is having an effect on making the devices easier or harder to read. Perhaps the trouble you are seeing has to do with the screen refresh rate on the NC. I think this could be a problem for some people with back-lighted devices.

Just a comment.

THAT is interesting! It might well be something like that! Whatever, it almost seemed like the text dots were vibrating. It wasn't a comfortable reading experience. I don't know yet if it would be all backlighted devices or just touch screen ones. I don't have any trouble reading the LCD screen on my Nook Classic though. Of course, that is not a page of text either! At any rate, the only other backlighted LCD screens I have are my 24" Dell LCD monitor (U2410) and the Tracfone, which I don't use much. Neither of those gives me trouble. I have no experience with tablet devices, but it was clear the NOOKcolor and I didn't get along.

[graycyn]

It is your eyes. If your $30 TracFone screen appears sharp but the nook color screen does not then there is something wrong. The pixel density on the nook color is higher than the iPad (and probably higher than the Android tablets out there) and far, far higher than that $30 TracFone.

The nook color isn't for everybody.

Yes, I realized the pixel density was higher, that's why I was so shocked! Everything I'd heard indicated sharp, clear text and a lovely screen. But for *me* it was not, or at least not for reading, though picture viewing was certainly nice! My eyes didn't get along with it.

Even if the text had been A-OK, the glossy, glare reflecting screen would have probably nixed it as a reader for me. I didn't realize how bad that would be until I had checked out the device in person. The thing is, I love reading. I don't care about posting passages on Facebook, I wouldn't likely have subscribed to many magazines, if any. I do like cookbooks, but color is nice, not a requirement, there. I don't play games. The web surfing was clearly far nicer than on NookClassic, but marred by the poor readability of the text. So for me to be interested in it, it had to be a great reader. And my eyes didn't like it so it isn't, as you say, for me.

'Tis OK, we mostly just went to see it out of curiosity, and we wouldn't have bought one until prices dropped at some point even if we had liked it, so I can't be heartbroken about it not working out for my eyes. It didn't get a WOW out of hubby either. He's content to wait and see what other tablet devices come along in the next year or so.

[RobertY]

I have found that if the room or outside lighting is brighter than the back lit screen I will get annoying reflections and glare that do make it hard to read. That part I understand perfectly.

But still for the reading part in a darkened environment is very pleasant. Possibly something was wrong with the NC that you demo'ed. It does sound like a refresh rate problem now because even if the refresh rate on a PC monitor is set to low then you would have the symptoms you describe.

[jimh12345]

People's perceptual systems are different. I was always greatly annoyed by CRT monitors with 60 Hz refresh rates; other people weren't bothered at all. I'm considering the NC but will go back for a closer look.

[graycyn]

I did wonder later, if, since it was a demo unit, it wasn't working as well as one that wasn't being constantly played with. But I dismissed that thought, since you wouldn't think that BN would want to be displaying a unit that had gone bad in any regard. (I'd understand it at, say, a BestBuy, or non-BN retailer. Demo units can get really banged up.) Also the clerk didn't suggest that it could be a bad unit on display and it otherwise seemed fully operable and responsive. She said that some folks didn't like reading on it and it wasn't for everyone.

Maybe I should've asked if there was another unit I could see, but I was sort of in shock by how bad the reading experience on it was and didn't think of it.

One other thing, in the process of trying to adjust brightness and "make it better", the brightness slider seemed awfully sensitive. I.E. turning brightness down also REALLY bumped contrast down, way down so nearly anything much less than full brightness was unreadable. Slid about halfway, the slider gave a screen that mostly looked on the darker side of gray and the not-very-black text in the first place started blending right into it.

I found that odd, because I keep my Nook Classic LCD screen at around 10% or less and it is perfectly and easily readable. And I had gotten the impression that the NC device was quite adjustable to suit different people.

At any rate, there's no other BN within a reasonable drive, so not much chance I'll get to see a different unit anytime soon.

[Pandorra]

We didn't have time to read in store and didn't really want to, since the BN is so far away from us. I did have an interesting reaction to all the paper books on the shelves and tables... I didn't feel interested in them at all! SO unlike me! But so many titles I saw I knew were available from my library in ebook form, and I just didn't feel like picking up heavy paper books to thumb through them. Anyone else ever get like that in a bookstore after having an e-reader?

No! I still LOVE going to Barnes & Noble. But maybe because I have one so close to me. I love finding a comfy chair and using the in-store free reading. I still love to browse all the new colorful and latest books they have released or thumbing through the colorful cookbooks. And the smell of a new book and the sound of pages turning is not transmitted through my nook...yet. I still love that about old-fashioned paper books. I also love to browse through the games and stationary and non-book trinkets that B&N has and I get a lot of gifts there.

Also, there are still a lot of books that are not available in e-reader form, so I still have some old fashioned books by my bed, but I won't lug those heavy tomes around. My Nook goes withme everywhere.