A couple of years ago I made the unfortunate purchase of a S ony Reader Touch (prs-600). We had a contentious relationship from the beginning, thanks to its inability to hold a charge for more than 3 days and really bad customer support from S ony (in Texas AND India). It’s clunky interface didn’t help either. I won’t bore you with the details but in summary, the So ny Reader sucks and So ny customer support is worse.
Two years after that misguided purchase I was so happy when I accidentally leaned my elbow on the reader, causing the screen to mush and bricking it. I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a frustrated hammer to a gadget or pc though there may have been a moment or two in the Nineties when a pc deserved it. Oh, the missed opportunities! It was truly satisfying to hammer that piece of S ony shit.
So I bought a Nook Simple Touch. And I love it. Love. It. The interface is extremely intuitive. I didn’t read the manual and I didn’t need to. Everything is where it is supposed to be. Every action is like an easter egg (read: yay!). Compared to the Sony POS, the entire Nook is an easter egg. The added bonus of the Nook holding a charge is nirvana to a recovering Sony sufferer. I’ve had it since early November and have charged it 3 times. Of course it helps that I don’t have the wifi on unless I’m using it, but why would I? It’s for reading, not surfing. I can see rooting it someday but I’ll wait til the warranty runs out.
The one weakness I’ve found so far is the dictionary. You can look up a word, but you can’t search for a word. Also, sometimes the dictionary will give the root of the word you looked up as the definition, but you can’t look up that word from the definition. Kinda useless.
To protect this gem, I got a really cool cover from Oberon Design for christmas (Thanks Mom!). The cover is as equally impressive as the Nook itself, if not more-so. It’s a solid, finely crafted piece of usable art. I love the idea of mixing tech with old school – I feel like I’m reading from an old tome in a fantasy novel.
Here is a comprehensive review of the Oberon cover that illustrates features and what-not. Oberon Design makes more than just Nook covers and are definitely worth a look for ipad, kindle and journal covers, sleeves for phones and readers, checkbooks, wallets,etc. They even have some cool jewelry. I think products are custom-made-to-order so patience is a virtue.
I know it sounds like I’m an affiliate for both Nook and Oberon, but I’m not. I truly like both and recommend them without monetary benefit. Bluehost, however is another story
I love your post! I had a Sony ereader as well, and hated it….everything you said, I agreed with! My mom bought it for me in 2008 for Christmas. It died over a year ago. Stupid. I broke down in October of last year and bought the kindle, not the touch. LOVE it, but I am a HUGE Amazon fan. I was not aware of the Orwell incident until I read your post and haven’t had any problems. So for Christmas, the whole Bell family got Kindle Fires for Christmas. I don’t like reading books on the Fire, but I absolutely love the graphics and we are Amazon Prime members so we get to stream some awesome video for free.
Technology is wonderful!