As I reported earlier, I had trouble purchasing an iPad 2 from the local Best Buys. I thought the claim that they were all sold out was legit, but apparently not.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20110408/tc_zd/262901
Oh, well! Best Buy lost Apple at least one customer.
Regarding my NookColor, I am discovering there are things I like about it and things I don't. As a reader (which is its main purpose in life), it is fine. I have not yet purchased a book, but I have subscribed to a couple of magazines. Also, I downloaded a sample of a cookbook to preview. Unfortunately, the sample was not large enough to include any actual recipes. Maybe that was on purpose? I wanted to see how I liked using the Nook as an electronic cookbook, but I guess I will have to do that another way.
The Gallery (where photos are stored) is kind of whacky. Sample photos that come on the device cannot be deleted, even though there is a delete button; I will try it through the PC interface. Once you enter the slide show, there is no obvious way to exit directly back to the Gallery, either. Still, I like using it as a photo album.
The fact I can load my own files onto it is another plus. So far, I have loaded PDFs, although it is supposed to support MS Office documents as well (in view only mode). I should try that feature, although I doubt I will carry the Nook out to the garden while viewing my gardening spreadsheet.
I tried downloading an audio book from my local library, but it was in WMA format, which the Nook apparently does not support. All the audio files on my laptop are also WMA, so no downloading them, either. I have not tried listening to Pandora or any other Internet radio on it yet.
B&N provides a few free books, including three for children. Only one will download; the others have "technical difficulties". Maybe I will call their help line and see just how helpful they are. The one that did download, a simple Richard Scary one, entertains my granddaughter. The Nook will read it for you, if you so desire. One negative thing about reading picture books is, if you touch the screen to point something out, sometimes you end up turning the page or changing the mode.
One area of frustration is the Web browser. I finally realized that I could upsize the text size easily, so now I can read and select items on the screen more easily. And some sites (like FB) have Android-specific versions, which makes it easy to navigate. But the Google Reader does not, plus while I can scroll the screen up and down, I cannot scroll within the feed display window. Then I read about NookFeed, so I tried that. It can be synced up with Google Reader (yay) but the navigation buttons do not appear on my Nook screen (boo). I sent NookFeed some feedback AND left a note on their FB wall, but no answer.
Officially, there are no apps for the Nook - at least, not yet - but there is a way to "root" it and download Android apps. I have not tried this because 1) I don't want to void the warranty, and 2) I don't want to screw up my Nook. After the warranty runs out and/or I find some guts, I may try it.
The NookColor is a little heavy for carrying around in my purse, but using it to look something up on the Web is faster than my laptop (which admittedly is really old). One of my coworkers has a cell phone that can act as a WiFi hot spot, so we tested it with the Nook, and that worked well. Said coworker is the guy I go to with questions about new technology, and he was favorably impressed with the Nook. That says something right there.
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