Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch Reader Review

Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch Reader

Review Summary:

The Nook STR is the perfect eReader device for anyone who just wants to read, without a lot of the bells & whistles found on the NOOK Color or the iPad.

Pros

• Simple to use
• Crisp eInk screen
• Great touchscreen
• Extremely long battery life

Cons

• Wi-Fi only, no 3G
• No full web browser
• Lacks features

Barnes & Noble NOOK Simple Touch Reader Full Review

 

Barnes & Noble has just launched their newest NOOK device, the third in the series. The latest, dubbed the NOOK Simple Touch Reader, or NOOK STR for short, has a 6-inch eInk touchscreen display, 2GB of on-board memory, with support for microSD cards up to 32GB in capacity, Wi-Fi wireless networking, and a much improved battery designed to last up to two months between charges. It is available online and in B&N retail stores for $139.

BUILD & DESIGN

The new NOOK STR is very small, slightly narrower and much shorter than the original NOOK device. That's expected, since this model doesn't have a secondary LCD underneath the eInk display. It's also incredibly thin, with a comfortably molded back that fits nicely in your hand. The device is very light, and won't add any weight at all to your bag or purse.

The exterior case is made of black plastic, and feels quite solid--there's no bending or creaking here, just a well-made device. I wouldn't toss it down on a concrete sidewalk, but it does seem sturdily built and, with reasonable care, should stand up to long use.

DisplayThe eInk Pearl display is simply fantastic. The text is sharp and clear, no matter which font or font size I choose. There is no glare, and the screen is even more readable in sunlight than it is indoors; the brighter the ambient light, the better the display looks.

Of course, the tradeoff here is that you won't be able to read in low light or dark conditions unless you have either a clip-on backlight or a lighted case. If that's a major concern for you, you might consider either a NOOK Color or an iPod Touch, iPad, or other device with an LCD display.

Page turns are super fast, with no noticeable delay. That annoying flash that is the hallmark of current generation touchscreen displays has almost been eliminated. I only saw it very rarely, usually when I used a large font, so I was turning pages rather fast. When I used a smaller font and minimized page turns, I never saw that flash. Perhaps the NOOK STR is pre-loading pages in the background while I read? I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but it's a marked improvement over the original NOOK and even the current generation Kindle.

The touchscreen aspect of the display is extremely responsive, requiring just the lightest of touches. It makes the NOOK STR so much more fun to use, and faster to use as well, because you don't have to laboriously move from line to line using virtual arrow keys or five way navigator buttons.

Other Buttons & ControlsThere are only a few buttons to be found on the NOOK STR. The power button is on the back, in the top center section. It seems like a strange placement, but it works well enough. There's a small n button on the front, just under the display. At first it looks like nothing more than a branding element, but it brings up the main menu when pressed.

The charge/sync port is at the bottom, and the microSD card slot is on the right side of the device. It's covered by a small flexible door. There are numbers printed just above the card slot; I suspect that's the serial number of the device.

PERFORMANCE

Where the NOOK Color is a fully featured "reader's tablet" capable of surfing the web, playing games, even reading children's books aloud, the NOOK STR has an entirely different focus. It's all about reading, nothing more. While a limited web browsing capability has been unearthed as an easter egg of sorts, you won't find a lot of extras on this device.

The NOOK STR supports a variety of formats, including ePub and PDF, as well as JPG, GIF, PNG, and BMP graphics. If you already have things you want to read on your NOOK, such as PDF instruction manuals or DRM-free ebooks purchased from another source, you can transfer them to your NOOK STR by plugging it into your computer or copying the files to a memory expansion card.

You can drag and drop on your Windows computer, or use a free utility like Calibre. Calibre also has the advantage of being able to convert eBooks between formats, so that if you have mobipocket files or some other format, for example, Calibre can convert them for you and send them to your NOOK with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Basic Features and NavigationWhat you will find is ease-of-use, and plenty of it. There is a tutorial that takes you through the basics when the device is first powered up, but it really isn't necessary. Even the screensaver tells you exactly what to do to turn on the device; just touch the power button in the top center section of the rear panel, or the small n button located underneath the screen, then swipe your finger across the bottom of the screen to bring the eReader to life. If you've used an iPhone or an Android phone, you're already familiar with the concept.

The Home Screen is nicely organized into three main areas. The top left half of the screen shows what you're reading now, with the book cover and the page number. Just touch there to go straight to your book, exactly where you left off. The top right panel of the screen highlights your new reads, books that you've recently purchased or samples you've added to your library. That quick access can be quite handy, especially if you have a very large library of books. If you want to see all of your books, touch the screen where it says "see library" to see all of your books.

The bottom of the screen is where you're tempted to shop for more cookbooks. There's room for four large bookcover images that are recommended for you based on your recent purchases. You can touch any of them to learn more, or tap "see all B&N picks" to explore the online store. While there are a few more areas of the device to explore, you can basically navigate anywhere you want to go from the homescreen of the NOOK STR.

If you have something more advanced in mind, pressing the n button underneath the screen brings up a few more options: Home, Library, Shop, Search, and Settings. The Home screen has already been fully explained, so we'll start with the Library screen. It's almost identical to what you would find on the NOOK Color; you can view your books by cover or title, sort by author, title, or most recent. The menu at the top left corner of the screen allows you to view specific portions of your library, such as books, magazines, newspapers, LendMe books, Shelves (personal collections you've created), your personal files, archived titles, and everything else (cookbooks you can't read on this device, such as enhanced titles with video, etc.).

The 'Shop' menu item will take you to the B&N online store, which is organized exactly like the home screen. The top left portion is where you can start browsing for books, magazines, or newspapers. The top right section of the screen is where you'll see lists, such as the B&N Top 100, current New York Times bestsellers, and new releases. The bottom portion of the screen rotates through several different sections, from recommended reads to topical highlights such as beach reads or current events, and even special offers available in the in-store cafe.

'Search' will search book titles and author names, and will also search within the B&N online store, but it will not search within a book. This will be a disappointment for anyone who might be switching over from a Kindle, or anyone who wants to use the NOOK STR as a portable reference library. You can search within a book as you're reading it, but not across all of the books in your library--you'll have to know which title you want to search before you try to look up something specific.

The Search function is also the key to accessing the hidden web browser. It only works with certain kinds of URLs; mail.google.com works fine, but trying to type in "www.tabletpcreview.com" just doesn't work. You don't get an error message, but the site never loads. You'll have to experiment to see what works; it's nice when it does, but this is not a fully supported feature at this time. Perhaps it will be improved in a future firmware update, but there's no way to know for sure.

The Settings menu is broken down into eight different areas. 'Device info' is where you can check out how much battery power is left, how much storage space is available on the device or on the memory card, if inserted, or where you can go to erase and de-register your device. Wireless is where you can turn Wi-Fi wireless networking on or off, and see the available networks nearby. Screen is where you set the timeout limit and choose whether you want the authors or nature set of screensavers; you can't use your own on the STR. Time is where you'll choose your time zone and whether or not to use a 24 hour clock.

Reader allows you to customize the buttons beside the screen, so that either the top or the bottom button is page forward. 'Shop' allows you to choose whether or not a password is required for purchases (which is great if you're sharing this device with your kids) and clear either your wishlist or list of recently viewed titles. 'Social' is where you'll link your Facebook, Twitter, and Google accounts if you like (you can share your notes and highlights directly with others if you choose), manage your contacts, your NOOK Friends, and the visibility of your LendMe books. You can control which of your LendMe books are visible to your friends, which is a great feature if you don't want anyone to know about your secret obsession with romance novels. Finally, 'Search' is where you'll go if you want to clear your list of recent searches from the device.

The Reading ExperienceThe reading experience on the NOOK STR is a great one. The screen (discussed previously) shows sharp, clear text that really does look like a page in a book. There's nothing to distract you from the task at hand, because the only things you'll see aside from the text is the book's title at the top of the screen and the page number at the bottom.

To move from page to page, you can use the buttons on each side of the screen, or simply tap on one side of the screen or the other (left to go back and right to go forward). You can also swipe your finger left or right, but that was a little more difficult than just tapping.

If you want to set a bookmark, just tap on the top right corner of the screen. If you want to look up a particular word in the built-in dictionary, tap and hold on that word. If you want to highlight a passage, tap and hold on a word and then run your finger along the screen to select everything that you want to highlight. You can also add notes if you like. The highlighting process is significantly easier than it was on the original NOOK, thanks to the touchscreen, and a real pleasure to use.

Tapping on the middle of the screen brings up the reading menu, with five different options. Content takes you to a screen that shows the available chapters in the book, your personal notes and highlights, and your bookmarks. You can quickly navigate to any of those spots, or tap the top right corner of the screen to exit the menu.

'Find' does exactly that; you can type in a word using the onscreen virtual keyboard that pops up, or you can choose one of your previous searches. Once you start a search, you can go forward and back to find the exact instance of the word or phrase that you're looking for.

'Go to' is how you navigate to a specific page number, either by typing in a page number or sliding your finger along the progress bar at the bottom of the screen. You can also access this function while you're reading by tapping on the page number, saving yourself a tap if you're so inclined.

The 'Text' button is where you'll go to personalize your reading experience. Do you want tiny text to fit more words on the screen, or do you want larger text to make it easier on the eyes? You've got your choice of seven font sizes and six different fonts. You can also choose your line spacing and the size of the margins, or just use the publisher's default formatting options.

The More menu gives you some basic information about the book, such as the title and author, the book cover, the size, where the file is located on your device, and the last time that it was modified.

WirelessThe NOOK STR has Wi-Fi wireless networking, but there is no 3G option. That means that when you purchase new books, you must either have WiFi in your home or office to download them, or else you can use the supplied cable to attach the NOOK to your computer to transfer the books.

You can also use the free Wi-Fi available in any B&N store; your NOOK STR will automatically connect to the store's network if the wireless function is turned on. You can download your purchases that way, or use the free 'More in Store' feature to read any eBook in the store for up to one hour per day.

Battery LifeBattery life on the NOOK STR is simply outstanding. That's to be expected considering that the eInk screen only uses power when the display is being updated. There's no backlight to suck all of the life out of the battery, so it seems to last forever.

I had the device for almost a month, reading for 30-45 minutes a day with the wireless turned on, and the battery meter was still at 35%. Unlike the NOOK Color, it will charge with any old charger, or when plugged in to your computer.

Kindle ComparisonAs mentioned previously, you cannot search across books in your library, only within a book as you're reading it. There are a couple of other differences as well that I'll mention briefly; the NOOK STR doesn't show you where you are in each book when you're looking at your library, unlike the Kindle, which uses a series of dashes that are made bold as you progress through a book.

There is no audiobook or text-to-speech support on the NOOK STR, and while you can bookmark and highlight your cookbooks, and those annotations are backed up on your B&N account and transfer to other devices (such as your iPod Touch or iPad if you're reading the same book on both your NOOK STR and one of the free NOOK apps), they are not accessible on your computer as a simple text file when you connect your device. Most folks won't notice or care, but that feature is especially useful to students who are doing research and/or creating a bibliography for academic use.

Physically speaking, the NOOK STR is smaller than the current generation Kindle. It is very slightly wider, but much shorter, because it has no keyboard. The NOOK STR does have a microSD card slot though, making it easier to transfer books to the device using the card reader on your computer rather than having to connect the device via USB cable.

The page forward and back buttons on the Kindle are definitely better than the buttons on the NOOK STR, but since the latter has a touchscreen it's rather unlikely that you'll use the buttons all that much.

CONCLUSION

The NOOK STR is the perfect eReader device for anyone who just wants to read, without a lot of the bells & whistles found on the NOOK Color or the much higher price tag of something like the iPad. It's dead simple to use, so you can safely hand it to your mother or even your grandmother and not worry about whether or not she'll be able to use it.

The screen is crisp, the touchscreen navigation is far superior to the Kindle, and the battery life is excellent. If it were a 3G device like the original NOOK, or like the Kindle, it would be almost perfect, and the best eInk reader device on the market. As it is, it's still highly recommended, but if the user/gift recipient doesn't have Wi-Fi and doesn't regularly visit a B&N store (which has a Wi-Fi network to which the NOOK STR will automatically connect, no setup required), actually getting books onto the device could be a slight problem, especially for less tech-savvy users.

It's definitely worth a closer look, however, and definitely recommended. If you don't have to have 3G access and a full web browser, it's a budget priced alternative that is worth serious consideration. It's a great addition to Barnes & Noble's lineup of eReader devices, filling an important niche with fantastic ease-of-use and killer touchscreen navigation.

Pros Simple to use Crisp eInk screen Great touchscreen Extremely long battery life

Cons Wi-Fi only, no 3G No full web browser Lacks features