Nook Color Review: Is It Worth It to Upgrade?
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Most people who purchase the Nook Color are very happy with their purchase, until they see Barnes and Noble’s next product up, the Nook Tablet. The Nook Color has an incredibly color display on a larger screen than the Nook Simple Touch, which may seem like a big upgrade to many people. On the other hand, battery live is compromised by all the fancy features. The Nook Color is a good product but it is somewhere between an eReader and a tablet, which may not be ideal for everyone.
Of course, if you have kids and are hoping to entertain them with an eReader, you’re more likely to get their attention with the Nook Color than the Nook Simple Touch. Where the Simple Touch is designed for people who read books but don’t want to lug around a library, the Nook Color has fun features for people of all ages. Barnes and Noble features a huge selection of books, children’s books, magazines, and newspapers, as well as videos from Netflix. Now we get into the tablet features.
You can browse the web, check email, watch videos – and the Nook Color has Adobe Flash Player already installed – as well as read comic books, listen to thousands of songs, and lend books to other Nook Color users. The Nook Color has all the features that one could want in an eReader, with WiFi for easy downloading, page saving, adjustable font size, and now they even show you books just the way you were meant to see them with their PagePerfect books. This feature may or may not interest you, but picture books are more fun this way.
On the downside, compared to the Nook Simple Touch, battery life is a bit of a joke. Barnes and Noble claims the batter will last for 8 hours, but that assumes you are not watching videos, browsing the web, or downloading emails. Keep the WiFi off and you might get 8 hours of reading time, but those numbers are always the maximum possible anyway. Compared to the Nook Simple Touch claim of 60 hours, also without using WiFi, the Nook Color feels much more like a tablet than an eReader.
Click here to visit the Nook Color page
The Nook Color features a bright, responsive screen.
The Nook Color is the same width of the Nook Simple Touch, but much longer. At 5 inches by 8.1 inches with a 7 inch screen that you can rotate, the benefits are obvious. Of course, with size comes weight; the Nook Color weighs just under 16 ounces to the Simple Touch’s 7.5 ounces. Then again, perhaps comparing the Simple Touch and the Nook Color doesn’t make sense. They really are different products, just with the same Barnes and Noble selection as well as the same poor Barnes and Noble service. Angry owners in both categories are mostly frustrated with the lack of care they get if they do have a problem. Be warned that the charging cable connection is also quite fragile, and users find they spend money replacing them regularly if they are not very cautious.
The Nook Color offers Pandora internet radio, Netflix movies and TV shows, as well as games and a fast processor. The storage space is also increased, to 8GB, or room for 5,000 books. But you can imagine how fast that gets filled up if you are downloading email, photos, and other Apps. The real comparison lies in the differences between the Nook Color and the Nook Tablet. The two are virtually identical, but the Nook Tablet has twice the space, a few newer features, and only costs an additional $50. If you are going to get a tablet, you might as well spend the extra money and get the upgraded version. Or if you are looking for an eReader that keeps it simple, save $100 and get the Nook Simple Touch. The Nook Color is still a nice product, but it doesn’t seem to fill a niche that makes sense.
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Nook Color Technical Specs
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| Price | $199 |
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| Design | |
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| Touch Screen | Yes |
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| Screen Size | 7” |
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| Screen Type | LCD |
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| Resolution | 1024 x 600 |
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| Overall Size | 8.1” x 5” x .48” |
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| Weight | 15.8 ounces |
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| Content | |
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| EBooks | 2.5 million |
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| Magazines | 345 |
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| Newspapers | 10 |
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| Memory & Battery | |
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| Memory | 8GB for 5,000 books |
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| Battery Life | 8 hours |
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