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elfsI stopped by a Barnes & Noble yesterday, and took in my Nook to show the two guys behind the Nook desk a problem I've been having with it.
I'll just say that I like my Nook. I don't love it, not the way I love other pieces of hardware I've owned, but I like it. It's very readable, it stores a metric ton of books, and when using Wget and Calibre lets me rip whole collections of websites. Basically, I can now pack any ASSTR collection into an EPUB in about ten minutes. Project Gutenberg publishes in EPUB, and many of my early Microsoft .lit books, as well as the PDFs from Samhain and Ellora's Cave, converted over nicely. The "find stuff in my library" functionality is weak when you have more than 100 books. I have 137 on there, exactly two of which (both Iain M. Banks books) I've bought from B&N.
The web browser is okay. It doesn't like many Ajax-based apps; it doesn't do Google Calendar very well, for example, and Google Reader is just right out. Given that it's the Android browser, I would have expected better. But the bookmarking facility is nice enough.
But it has a problem. The brightness control has a nice range, but between 25% and 50% brightness, the screen has a really headache-inducing flicker. It's only visible on color backgrounds; in black-and-white it's unnoticeable. But on color backgrounds, especially when web-browsing, it's very annoying.
I asked the guys at the Barnes & Noble desk about it. Both claimed they'd never had that complaint before, and when I showed it to them, both said they couldn't see it. Yeah, right.
Another woman was there, asking about the Nook, and they were going through the spiel with her. I more or less praised it, mentioned that there were lots of other sources of books than Barnes & Noble and was very happy with the way Calibre loaded them onto my Nook, but also pointed out the flicker issue. When I showed it to her, she said "Oh, yes, I see it very clearly."
She still bought one.
I don't know if it's just my Nook, or if it's common to many Nooks or whatever. But I don't know what I can get done about it. It annoys me that I can't read in modestly low light without risking a headache.
I'll just say that I like my Nook. I don't love it, not the way I love other pieces of hardware I've owned, but I like it. It's very readable, it stores a metric ton of books, and when using Wget and Calibre lets me rip whole collections of websites. Basically, I can now pack any ASSTR collection into an EPUB in about ten minutes. Project Gutenberg publishes in EPUB, and many of my early Microsoft .lit books, as well as the PDFs from Samhain and Ellora's Cave, converted over nicely. The "find stuff in my library" functionality is weak when you have more than 100 books. I have 137 on there, exactly two of which (both Iain M. Banks books) I've bought from B&N.
The web browser is okay. It doesn't like many Ajax-based apps; it doesn't do Google Calendar very well, for example, and Google Reader is just right out. Given that it's the Android browser, I would have expected better. But the bookmarking facility is nice enough.
But it has a problem. The brightness control has a nice range, but between 25% and 50% brightness, the screen has a really headache-inducing flicker. It's only visible on color backgrounds; in black-and-white it's unnoticeable. But on color backgrounds, especially when web-browsing, it's very annoying.
I asked the guys at the Barnes & Noble desk about it. Both claimed they'd never had that complaint before, and when I showed it to them, both said they couldn't see it. Yeah, right.
Another woman was there, asking about the Nook, and they were going through the spiel with her. I more or less praised it, mentioned that there were lots of other sources of books than Barnes & Noble and was very happy with the way Calibre loaded them onto my Nook, but also pointed out the flicker issue. When I showed it to her, she said "Oh, yes, I see it very clearly."
She still bought one.
I don't know if it's just my Nook, or if it's common to many Nooks or whatever. But I don't know what I can get done about it. It annoys me that I can't read in modestly low light without risking a headache.
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Some folks just can't perceive flicker.
Date: 2011-01-31 02:57 am (UTC)Re: Some folks just can't perceive flicker.
Date: 2011-02-02 08:33 am (UTC)It's like saying "Have you noticed that your horse is really slow" to someone who has never seen a car. Of course they can't notice.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 03:22 am (UTC)Me, my Mom and my brother could all hear it when we got home.
Maybe see if you can find a B&N helper who can see it.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 06:23 am (UTC)When you have it plugged in to the charger, does the on-screen keyboard go nuts?
So far I haven't liked Calibre. It feels like it's trying to be too clever, and ends up being very difficult to use. I tried using Calibre to convert The C++ Annotations to an EPUB, but it completely botched it, and I was unable to discover why. I had better luck using Sigil, but it still screwed up the internal links.
I presume you've rooted the unit...
no subject
Date: 2011-01-31 06:35 am (UTC)You can also load any app from the Android Marketplace, including the Google Calendar app.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-01 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-02 08:34 am (UTC)