The Nook Simple Touch went on fire sale recently dropping from £69 RRP to a mere £29. Was it a clever ruse to increase market share, a way to clean out their inventory or the prelude to B&N selling
Nook.com? Whatever, it was too good a bargain to pass by.
I confess that I don't actually read e-books that much except when I am on holiday so I bought the device primarily for that. Being able to store a library of books on something the size of a paperback is hugely appealing. I already have a 5" Sony Touch reader for this purpose but the screen is a little on the small side. A 6" Nook doesn't sound like a huge increase over a 5" screen but it's an extra 44% surface area.
The Simple Touch also benefits from supporting EPUB format and Adobe Digital Editions so it's relatively simple to share a collection from one to the other, especially with a tool like Calibre.
First impressions
First impressions were mixed. The Nook arrived in a tidy box containing the device, small manual and charge cable. The Nook's e-ink display showed some instructions to fully charge the device and where the power button was. Most devices have some charge so I hit the power button and nothing happened. I held the power button down for much longer seconds and still nothing happened.
So I plugged it in and left it to charge for 20 minutes, tried again and still nothing happened. I went searching to see if this was a known issue. One site advised holding power down and the Nook n symbol for 20 seconds to revive it. So I did that and was greeted by an error that charge was too low to start and come back in 15 minutes. That message never went away but after an hour I held power and n down again and finally it booted.
So not a good start. I would not be surprised if these devices have been sitting in warehouses for over a year and are run down. It took an inordinately long time to charge it fully - 3 and 1/2 hours.
Once I was over this hump I was able to power it up and complete the registration process. I wish I could have used the device without registering, but it's unavoidable.
The hardware
The hardware itself is quite nondescript. It has a black plastic shell with a rubberised front and back. There is a micro sd slot under a hatch on the side. The back has a large power button at the top, there is a n (home) button at the bottom. Each side of the screen has a vertical ridges which act as page turning buttons. There is a large bezel around the edge and the IR touch technology means the screen is recessed by about 3mm. In the hand it feels about the same as a paperback book.
The device actually sits in the hand extremely well thanks to the curved edges and a hollow in the back to grip it with. The rubber back does attract smudges and grease but it would stop the reader from flying off a table.
The e-ink screen is a second generation 800x600 pearl screen and so the Nook responds pretty much like other readers that use it. The screen has a matt finish and the background is a light grey - not paper white but readable. Like most e-ink screens it looks brighter in strong sunlight. Refresh times are also similar to other e-ink devices and nothing to write home about. Basically you put up with it for the long battery life.
The screen is IR touch sensitive, with sensors around the edge which use a break in the beam to simulate a touch. This is similar to the Sony Touch and it works very well. I had no trouble navigating the device's UI or using the keyboard. I would actually argue that the page turning buttons are so redundant that they should have been done away with entirely.
The software
The software is simple to use and attractive but quite sparse. Pushing the n button offers a small navigation bar with destinations for Home, Library, Shop, Search and Settings.
- Home is mostly redundant, summarising the last book you read with a link to Nook.com's top 100 books at the bottom.
- Library shows all the books found on the device shown in thumbnail or as a list. The library is easy to navigate but it's perplexing at the same time. If you have 200-300 books, you would be could be tapping through 60 pages of books because the font used to list them is so large.
- Shop takes you to the Nook.com shop which is very easy to navigate. But it has the same problem as Library - the font is too big. Search for something the results appear a handful per page. While it's just annoying in the library screen, I could see Nook.com losing money just by presenting so few results at a time.
- Search is a generic search page
- Settings is settings
Every screen features a "back to book" icon at the top but it's jammed up against the top edge of the screen and its a little fiddly. So you can jump to a screen and jump back to the book but I would not be surprised if some people failed to see the icon or understand what it did. I am surprised that the n menu doesn't feature a prominent icon for the same purpose.
As a reader
The reader software is very straightforward to use and perfectly acceptable for EPUB format books. Books can be read in a range of fonts, sizes and margin widths and there is note taking, dictionary and bookmarking.
Page turning is accomplished with the rubbery buttons, a tap on the left or right of the screen or a swipe gesture. I thought the buttons are dire because they need too much pressure and often don't click even when they respond. Fortunately the gestures work just fine.
Holding down on a word triggers a menu where the word or phrase can be hilighted, a note added, shared or looked up. Bookmarks can be added by tapping the n tab that appears at the top of a page. Just like the "back to book" option, it's jammed up against the top and fiddly to tap on it and again there is enough space in the reader settings menu that it could be displayed more prominently.
The reader settings such as font and font size are reached by tapping the centre of the screen or on the page number at the bottom. However these seem to be global settings which might not suit all books. It would have been nice to remember the settings on a per book basis.
What isn't so good is the PDF format. You get a full page view with no way that I can tell to zoom in or pan around. This makes it essentially useless for technical documents, or comics or anything else which might have reason to use the format.
Loading books
The Nook presents itself as a storage device so installing EPUBs or PDFs is as simple as attaching it to a computer, waiting for the NOOK volume to be mounted and then dragging and dropping files. If you have Calibre, it works perfectly with the device.
Rooting Potential
Lots of tutorials exist
such as this one on how to root the device. Given the limitations in the software I think I will be doing this sooner or later. This is another example of B&N shooting themselves in the foot. If the software were more advanced, there may be less reason for users to root around the limitations.
Verdict
The Nook Simple Touch is a decent enough device and lives up to its name - it is simple to use. But that could be a problem if you want advanced functionality like PDF reading, or have a lot of books because it lacks a degree of configuration which could make it more powerful.
But for £29 it's a bargain and as a reader it works really well. And if you don't like the software, rooting is possible with little effort.
