Nook Color Review.

I've been a Kindle owner since the first one came out.  Although Amazon makes a fine piece of hardware, I think they've got their work cut out for them now if they want to stay on top of the e-reader game.  Why?  Color.  More specifically Barnes & Noble's new color touchscreen Nook.

The new Nook is $249, and you won't find a nicer gadget for that price.  Mine arrived Friday 11/19/2010. You get WiFi, a Web Browser, the ability to (above) play music (MP3 and AAC), videos (MP4), photos (JPG), and a few games on TOP of the ability to display almost every document format there is. The screen is beautiful, and the same IPS technology as is used on Apple's iPad. No color shift when viewed from an angle. 16 million color capable. Rotates to be viewed in landscape or portrait. 1024 x 600 resolution for sharp crisp text rendering. The size is about right at 8.1 x 5.0 x .48 inches and just less than one pound in weight. It come with approximately 5gb of memory space for your own content, and a microSD card slot for up to 32gb more.

Reading: The color nook will display EPUB (including Non or Adobe DRM), PDF (above), XLS, DOC, PPT, PPS, TXT, DOCM, XLSM, PPTM, PPSX, PPSM, DOCX, XLX, and PPTX files. There are 6 font sizes and you can select from 6 font styles, background color, line and margin spacing. Switching pages is as easy as a tap on the left or right edge of the screen, or you can give it a left or right swipe. Is there color in that document?  You'll love the Nook's screen then.

You also have access to magazines, newspapers, and Alive Touch™ children's books that can be interacted with and read aloud by the Nook.  No simulated voice, either.  Voice actors do the reading.

Apps: The Nook also comes with Pandora® internet radio, a Chess game, a Sudoku game, and a Crossword Puzzle app.  In addition you can lend ebooks to other Nook (or nook software) owners, as well as share book titles and lines from books to your Facebook and Twitter friends.

Pros:  The touchscreen is very sensitive, responsive, and unlike several other tablet devices I've tried hasn't induced any frustration in me yet. The industrial design is top notch as well. The back is a matte finish soft-touch surface. The intriguing notch in the lower corner (above) hides the microSD slot. The built-in speaker is plenty loud. The top edge includes a standard 3.5mm stereo jack that should fit the plug on your favorite headphones. The wide range of supported document formats is fantastic. I plan to keep copies of all my class syllabi on board.  With access to the web I also have access to my web based email. So long as any information you need with you can be saved as one of the document formats the Nook supports, the Nook could easily take the place of a laptop or netbook for content access.  The screen is also multi-touch, and a pinch or spread with two fingers will zoom out or in on most content other than movies.

Cons: There are a few glitches with the media apps that hopefully can be fixed with a firmware update. When looking at photos using the gallery application, all your photos appear in one long unsorted array. They even get mixed with the movies you have on board.  If you approach your media through the library and MyFiles option you can find them by folder.  You can only open them one-at-a-time though, and no slide show option is available there. If you have a multi-page PDF open the normal left/right tab or swipe doesn't work.  Only a vertical swipe will change pages.  With DOC files all pages are reduced to one single long page.  Only a vertical scroll will get you through the text. There is also no on-board way to delete files from the Nook.

MP4 Video Support

Conclusion:  Barnes & Noble has a winner here.   Any disadvantage (battery charge duration) is more than offset by the touchscreen interface and color screen. With a great color display, the Nook Color becomes far more than an e-book.  Not restricted to just text, the music/videos/photos you can bring along mean you won't grow tired of it.  Don't get one if you don't have WiFi access to the internet though.  WiFi is your access to the B & N bookstore, as well as the world wide web and all that can bring.  This model has no 3G connection.

4D

Archos 43 with Android. My Review!



Image from Archos.com



Hints of the new Archos 43 media player caught my attention the last month or so. From the early press releases it seemed like the one to get.   It is now available, so I ordered one to see if it would live up to the specifications.  The name gives away the display size, as it has a 4.3" (diagonal) screen with 480 x 854 pixels and 16 million color support.  All the basic underhood technology seems there with WiFi and Bluetooth, Accelerometer, Camera, a graphic accelerator, and Android Froyo 2.2 (soon) as the operating system. I've been tricked by specs from Archos before.  Will the 43 be any different?  It is a beautiful beast with a mirror-finish back to compliment the big glass front.  Very sturdy, with an overmoulded stainless steel interior structure.

Archos didn't leave much out when they built the 43. The missing GPS and 3G (phone) chip are the only things that keep the 43 from being a smartphone.  Some hardware specifics below.

 

- External Controls:  You get a volume level rocker and a power/sleep/reset button.  That's it.

- Ports:  MicroUSB for syncing and charging, a mini-HDMI  port, and the expected 3.5mm headphone jack. You'll need a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable to connect to a TV.  About $10 if you shop around.

- RAM:  16gb internal (roughly 14.3gb for your use).  A MicroSD-HC slot on the side for up to 32gb more.  Media on the microSD card is merged with any internal media, and shows up together in the media apps. The Files program lets you browse content on both the internal an microSD memory.  

- Wireless:  WiFi (802.11 b/g/n) and Bluetooth (2.1 EDR)

- Display:  Single touch (not multi-touch) screen, resistive (pressure sensitive), 480x854 pixels (FWVGA), 4.3'' TFT LCD, 16 million colors

- Dimensions:  135 x 65 x 9 mm – 5.3” x 2.6” x 0.4”

- Weight: 132 grams (4.65 ounces).  For comparison my new iPod Touch weighs 103 grams (3.63 ounces)

- Kickstand (Fold out leg stand)

- Speakers: Above and below the screen. Mono output however.  Sound good. Better than most phone speakers.  Not as good as most headphones. 

- Microphone: Should do fine when shooting video. There is also an included voice recording app.

- Camera:  2 MP - recording format: 720p H264 / AAC .MP4.

Sample taken from the 43.

The camera is best used holding the 43 upside down IMO.  I can confirm that it isn't good enough to use with barcode scanning apps. I tried three different barcode scanning apps, and none could focus well enough on any barcode I tried to decode it.  No autofocus or macro mode.  This isn't as good as most cheap pocket cameras.  Video would be best take outdoor and on a tripod if the 43 had such a tripod mount.

This is at best a token feature. It may come in handy when no other camera is available, but I wouldn't buy the 43 just for the camera feature.  You'll be disappointed.  Camera gets a C from me.

- G-Sensor: Works as expected. Detects screen orientation. The Whole UI will re-orient quickly unless turned off.  You can turn it off in Settings.

- Bluetooth: I've had a chance to check out the Bluetooth capabilities now. I succeeded in pairing with and using my Freedom Pro keyboard with the 43. I had an initial conflict when both WiFi and Bluetooth were turned on, but a reboot cleared it up and the keyboard was usable entering text in any app that required it, including the web browser, email, and the trial document editor that came with the 43.  I also was able to pair three different Bluetooth headsets and one Bluetooth speaker dock with no difficulty.  There was the occasional signal glitch. I believe it relates to WiFi being on and email notices distracting the 43's attention. I couldn't get it to reliably repeat though, and I was able to use the bluetooth keyboard, listen to music over bluetooth headset, all while browsing the web or sending emails.  I have no doubt a bluetooth mouse would also work, but don't have one to test. I was able to do a file transfer over bluetooth using a dedicated app for that purpose, as well as "bump" a contact to my cell phone using the Bump apps on both devices via bluetooth. I give bluetooth on the 43 an A.

From Archos you can expect complete Music, Video and Photo Players.  These are NOT the standard android media applications.

- Music: Supported formats include Stereo MP3 CBR & VBR,  WMA, WAV (PCM/ADPCM), AAC3, AAC+ stereo audio files, OGG Vorbis,  and FLAC. It will also play consecutive song with no audible gap in between.  The display rotates with the device, and you'll get larger album art playing vertically, or the now playing song can fill a screen with it's art.  You can sort by albums, artists, songs, playlists, or by folders.  Sorting a large collection of songs brings up a thumb tab that when used displays the alphabet as you pan up and down through the list. Songs from the microSD card are integrated with any songs that are on internal memory.  You also get a nice cover roll of the recently played album songs. You can add to playlists or favorites.  There is a Party Shuffle option.  Very detailed Info is available about any song, album, or folder.  As far as I can tell the only shortcoming of the Music app is the lack of sorting by genre. As such, Music gets an A from me.

Music playback time: up to 36 hours.

- Video: AVI (480 x 272)(720 x 404) (320 x 240), WMV (1280 x 720)(720 x 416)(540 x 360), MP4 (1280 x 720)(640 x 480) are the resolution and codec I was able to play with no trouble on the 43. Nothing larger than 720p would play. The video player gives you all the info that matters. Simply listing the files there are options for All Videos, Recently Played, Not Player Yet, and Folder Search. You can browse for and play videos on locally accessible network shared folders as well as media servers.  Fast-Forward/Rewind and relative positioning within a file are both supported. You can call up detailed file info, set bookmarks, resize video to fit the screen or not, and adjust brightness. A Settings sub menu also provides Play mode, Sound, and volume/title display toggles. Play mode lets you choose Single, Folder, Repeat Single, or Repeat Folder options. Choosing Folder lets you play in sequence all the videos the same folder.   Sound options include setting the EQ Presets, Bass, Treble, 3D, and L/R Balance of the audio output.  You can send video out through the (optional) HDMI cable to a big TV too!  Video playback get an A+ from me.

Video playback time: Up to 10 hours.

- Photo Gallery: JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF files can be displayed. You get a panning array or sorted group view of the available photos, both using the creation date of each photo to sort by. In the arrayed view the entire collection is show by date from left to right, with the dates appearing as you use the slider bar to move over the group. Once you've selected a photo, zooming is great. Zoom in to what appears to be one-to-one pixels displayed on the screen. Smooth Pan and Zoom is easily handled by the graphic processor. You can zoom in five steps to full resolution, or double-tap the screen to zoom all the way in/out instantly. You can slide show with transitions and music in the background. All the basic features seem to be there.  You can crop, rotate, Set as (contact icon or wallpaper), You also get a SHARE option with sharing via Bluetooth, Email, Touiteur (Twitter), Facebook, or Gmail, shown as well as any other choice related to apps you may have installed.   I'll give Photo viewing an A.

- Web Browser: Web surfing: up to 12 hours on a battery charge. A double-tap on any web page paragraph enlarges it to fill the screen. There are several "Favorites" already stored for you, and you can add your own page to the favorites/bookmarks page.  Not quite as nice as the Safari browser on the latest iPhone or iPod Touch, but easily second best.  I've seen far worse browsers. This web browser gets a B+.

- App Store:  There is a decent selection of applications already on the 43. They include Webbrowser, Email, Contacts, Appslib, Twitter, Wikipedia, Weather Channel, Ebuddy, Deezer, Mewbox (UK), Napster (US), Racing Thunderlight, Weather Channel, World Newspaper, and more.  The Appslib program gives you access to hundreds of other applications.  A search on the web will find you can also add the Google/android market app as well, which gives access to almost every other android app out there.  A+

UI: The screen reacts quickly to the touch of your finger or a stylus.  Graphics flow smoothly, and there are five home pages to layout anyway you want.  Add widgets or shortcuts.  Arrange them anyway that makes sense to you.  Delete apps you don't have a need for.  I found that using my thumb isn't the best at controlling the screen, but any other finger works fine.  This may be peculiar to just me and not you. I love that the whole UI and most apps will re-orient themselves as you rotate the 43.  You can change screen brightness. You can turn on or off any audible alerts or notices.  This is as good as any other android device I've used, and better than many. I give the UI an A.

Conclusion?   Archos has a winner here. I highly recommend this to anyone who want a better media player than an iPod, yet doesn't want to give up the apps store or web browsing that come with WiFi. Now to find a case for mine.

4D