Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

Finally have a detailed Nook Review up and there were two big surprises -

1. That the Nook got a 8 stars out of 10 rating which puts it just a little behind the Kindle’s 8.5.
2. The ridiculous number of bugs and errors the Nook has.

Hold on for better Nook review videos in a few days using a tripod. However, shooting the videos helped illustrate the stark contrast between -

1. The 9/10 rating when reading a book without using the touchscreen. 
2. The 5/10 rating when working with the touchscreen or the features or even B&N’s download service.

Are the software issues really that bad?

Yes.

The current 8/10 rating for the Nook is ONLY based on the promise of the issues being fixed.

My recommendation really is the same as Walt Mossberg – hold off until they fix most of the issues.

Across reading 2 books (plus a few articles) and shooting 9 videos here are the issues encountered -

1. Books missing chunks of pages. Twice out of 4 book downloads. For some reason this bothered me a lot.
2. B&N’s servers not working and having to wait 15-30 minutes to get downloads.
3. B&N eReader iPhone App crashing – every single time. Couldn’t read on it. Couldn’t download books a lot of the time.
4. Android error messages – a couple of times. 
5. The ‘Shop’ feature not working – a couple of times.
6. Slow page turns i.e. over 1 second. 40-50% of the time.
7. Nook randomly going to the home page – a few times.
8. Touchscreen not recognizing touch – get this on and off.
9. Touching the wrong function/key on the touchscreen – 20% of the time.
10. Everything being slow i.e. formatting the book to open it, search, changing fonts – literally everything is a bit slower than on the Kindle or the Sony Reader.
11. Too many messages – you always get pointless messages like ‘Changing Font’ – Wouldn’t the instant changing of fonts be a better option than slow changes accompanied by dialog boxes?

That’s just the ones off of the top of my head. Going through the videos would bring up another 5-10 at least.

Why give it 8 stars out of 10 then?

 Two reasons -

1. The screen is really good and when you are in ‘read on eInk, turn pages via buttons, forget touchscreen exists’ mode it really is a good eReader. 
2. The promise – promise of Android, promise of bugs being fixed, promise of things being made faster.

It’s a conundrum because the Nook has the potential to be as good as the Kindle and that makes for great competition and an arms race.

So a lot of people want it to be good, and at some level Amazon should too.

It also makes sense to give it 8 stars because by February 2010 Nook could be an 8.5 stars out of 10 eReader. Why?

1. Almost every single problem has to do with software implementation or the implementation of the service.
2. If you drew up a list of Nook’s 10 biggest negatives, 7 or 8 would be software – That’s just 2 good months of debugging and polishing up.

The Nook is literally 2 months of fixes away from being the joint best eReader on the market.

How do we write a Nook Review and make a Recommendation?

We suddenly get this strange situation -

1. The Nook is markedly worse than the Kindle at the moment because it’s too buggy. 
2. In 2 months the Nook might be as good as the Kindle. Perhaps even better.
3. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

That means you choose between three options -

1. A review like the Pogue Nook Review focuses on things as they are now and crucifies the Nook.
2. Walt Mossberg’s Review of the Nook says wait until fixes are made.
3. Optimistic people start writing the Nook is better than the Kindle because there is promise and issues will be fixed.

The third sort of review is wrong because there’s no guarantee issues will be fixed -

• If you have ever coded or fixed bugs or shipped software you know that ‘the bugs will be easily fixed’ is a huge illusion.
• Lots of bugs means the coding is shoddy and that might be an unsolvable problem.
• Even when bugs can be fixed they can’t be fixed in 1-2 weeks.
• It might be an Android 1.5 issue – which means the sluggishness won’t go away until  B&N move to Android 2.0 or 2.1 or later.

The first (David Pogue) type of review is wrong because the Nook is obviously going to get better - A single software update could potentially fix 50% of the issues. Although not one sent out in 1 week.

That only leaves the ‘it’s sort of good, it could be great, wait and see’ recommendation.

Walt Mossberg’s Nook Review is the best

It really comes down to the Walt Mossberg type recommendation i.e.

1. The Nook has a lot of issues which prevent it from being the joint best or best eReader. 
2. The Nook also has a lot of promise and potential.
3. If the Nook’s strengths appeal to you then wait until the bugs are fixed.
4. If the Kindle’s strengths appeal to you then buy the Kindle – no waiting till February and no hoping ‘promise’ is fulfilled and errors are fixed.
5. Do try the Nook out yourself at a B&N store.

Really wish B&N had spent enough time on the Nook – then every Nook Review wouldn’t have to come with a disclaimer.

Filed under: Barnes Noble Nook Tagged: | nook ereader, nook review