Nook test drive
News, Media ·Friday February 11, 2011 @ 23:38 EST (link)
We drove over to the Woodinville Barnes & Noble tonight to try out the Nook—I'd read all about it, and think I prefer it to Kindle for various reasons (seems more supportive of diverse formats, allow reading library e-books, and easier to jailbreak, among others), but I'd never got to play with one. Page turning with the e-ink was a little slow and the XOR-flip is a bit distracting; the Nook color is better in that regard, and isn't hard to read on—I was thinking e-ink would be the way to go, forgetting that I read off LCD screens all the time, and have no issues. $250 each is a bit steep, though, so we'll wait for a price drop. We don't really need them now—library books are convenient enough (and aren't all available as e-books), but it would be nice to transfer many of our books to them (with backups, of course) and sell the hard copies for any eventual move.
Unfortunately "transfer" means "buy again": there's no "new books for old" deal, although since the idea is that one buys a license to use the material (not the physical book, which is only a dollar or two of the price), there should be (or at least owning one form should eliminate the content costs); and note that the first-sale doctrine (and natural property rights) implies an ability to sell e-books that is generally prevented by the DRM with which they are burdened: and as much as possible I will attempt to buy (or produce) DRM-free works, for purposes of format-shifting, cross-file search (with grep even), and so forth. Of course, there are legal excuses against the first-sale doctrine but they're merely purchased violence as usual.
Books finished: Lincoln Unmasked, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten.
