Why I Got a Nook
Friday, January 15, 2010
One of the my rotten fibromyalgia symptoms is very sore hands. It's gotten so that holding a book is often very painful. I've tried various bookstands, but what worked best, much to my everlasting surprise, was reading ebooks on my iPhone. I tried it out of curisoity and got hooked! My favorite feature is being able to adjust the print font and size, a feature that I really miss when reading print books now. Plus the instant gratification of being able to get the next book in a series immediately, at any hour of the day or night, is pretty addictive. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed reading on my iPhone and how much more comfortable it was for me. Except when I had a migraine or felt like one might be coming on. The backlighting did become a problem under those (all too frequent) circumstances.
This combination of circumstances made me start researching ebook readers. My primary goals were having easy-on-the-eyes e-Ink and supported formats that would give me the ability to borrow from my local library. I tried the Sony reader with the touch screen and really didn't like it. It was really clunky in both software and hardware. But worst of all, the reports I'd read about the glare off of the touch screen were totally correct. Since my main reason for wanting an e-Ink reader was to prevent causing migraines, this just wasn't acceptable. I was lucky enough to be able to return it without paying a restocking fee because the battery on the device was also defective.
Moving on and being unwilling to wait months for any then-hypothetical options (very much pre-CES), that pretty much left me with Kindle or Nook. Kindle would not let me read library books and would primarily limit me to their proprietary DRM, which really bothered me. Nook seemed like the best option. After checking it out online (the only way at the time) it seemed more and more likely to be terrific for me. And it turned out to also support the .pdb format of most of the books I'd purchased for the iPhone! Based on the best information available at the time and willing to risk a 10% restocking fee on non-defective returns, I pre-ordered the nook just in time for a deliver date of December 24.
After using the nook for several weeks now, I'm nothing but happy with my decision. It's comfortable to hold and intuitive to use. B&N had already released the first software update by the time mine arrived, so the initial complaints about slow page turns never bothered me. And I expect even more software updates in the future to add even better functionality and prehaps even some Android apps. So count me in as one satisfied nook customer.
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