Nook Color Review!

Before I get started, I'll just say that my review comes from the unit we got at the bookstore to display. The overall product will still be the same, but some things (like the instruction manual) might be different.
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Reading: It's a nice clean picture & the backlit screen isn't too annoying, but I have a feeling that people will be feeling the eyestrain later. If you're looking to buy this for reading at length, you'll need to be aware of this.

Downloading: Pretty fast download times, although I only downloaded the free samples from the storefront. (Hilarious since I work at a Books-A-Million & the storefront's B&N. We're so going to lose money on ebook sales.)

Internet: Pretty decent. I pulled up facebook (didn't log in though- not on the store unit) & the page is crisp, clear & loads quickly. It'll probably get bogged down if you go to a site with tons & tons of things on the page, but that'll happen with any unit like this for the most part.

Battery: Not bad, but obviously won't last as long as the Nook or some of the e-ink units out there. You'll get about 3-4 hours if you leave the wifi on. Not sure about the non-wifi battery life right now, but since the company says it's 8 hours I'd say it's probably about 6-7 hours.

Extras: You can change the font, screen background color, & a few other things. While that's nice, I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed by it. There's also the option to be able to toggle back & forth between the publisher default & your aesthetics of choice. You can also change the background on the main page of the NookColor, which is a nice touch. Since we're not supposed to change that with our store unit, I wasn't able to play with that any.

Touch Screen: It's OK. Pretty easy to use, but a few times I found myself really having to wrestle with it to turn pages. Sometimes it would be too sensitive & I'd end up a few pages ahead of where I wanted to be. Not a deal breaker, though. It didn't happen enough to where I'd get overly irritated, but people who are all thumbs with touch screens will be irritated.

User Friendly: It's not very intuitive to use. People savvy with e-readers & gadgets will be able to figure it out pretty quickly but people who are new to the scene will be pretty confused with everything. The unit for my store didn't come with any written directions- it was all on the unit. That means that if it's like this on the sale unit then that won't be all that helpful for the people who aren't able to navigate well on the unit.

Overall: My opinion is that it's OK, but not exceptionally so. Go for the iPad if you really want something like this. It's basically a Nook/iPad hybrid, but without the option for all of the extras & apps. Overall it isn't a bad unit but it just doesn't have anything to really make it stand out. If you're a big fan of the Nook then go for this unit, but I'd play with it in the store first.

If you're curious, the EBook Reader has also reviewed the NookColor & did a pretty awesome writeup on it.