hey youtube this is detroit borg with a
look at the new barnes noble nooks
simple touch e-reader this is the
successor to the first generation e-ink
display reader this also accompanies the
nook color so this is going to be sold
alongside it retails for only 139 in
wi-fi form currently there isn't a 3g
version available and i'm not sure if
one is coming now this is a much simpler
device
than the original nook there is no web
browser no speakers headphone jack
and quite a few other features like that
that also add weight so this is just an
e-reader if you want to use this for
other things you're going to have to
hack it this is running
android 2.1 and on top of android 2.1 is
the barnes noble ui so let's go ahead
and crack this open and take a look
so at the bottom we have this little
compartment down here which houses
the
charger this is a usb charger and the
micro usb cable
we're just going to lift up the cover
and there is our nook inside the
styrofoam cradle
so underneath that is the instruction
booklet which is just a quick start
guide and how to use it so here we have
the nook with this ample bezel around
the side you can actually see there are
little bridges here which are the page
turn buttons and we'll demonstrate that
once we get powered up we have the nook
logo embossed up here we have this
little menu key right here
on the back we have this soft grip
rubber texture it's plastic
back here is the power button on this
side we have a little sd card slot see
that opens up to reveal just a simple sd
card slot so this means you can upgrade
storage to up to 32 gigabytes uh there
is 2 gigabyte 2 gigabytes of internal
storage already that holds up to 1 000
bucks on the top we have these little
fasteners which help to connect the back
plate to the nook
and on the bottom same story and here is
the micro usb connector with a little
led light so the first thing they want
us to do is fully charge the nook it
takes about three hours so let's go
ahead and connect it up and get that
going
now with the power connector you can see
we have a little led light and it's
glowing amber right now because it's
charging and will be green once it's
fully charged all right we're going to
power on the nook for the first time
we're going to hold the power button
so we have our welcome screen and again
this is a touch screen so we're going to
click next
we can read our agreement here and of
course
we're just going to agree to that we're
not going to read 178 pages of that
we're going to select our time zone i'm
in in the eastern time zone
and now we're checking for wi-fi
connections
now i'm going to sign in with my barnes
and noble account
okay we're successful click ok
now we're at our basic home screen here
and you can see there are three sections
here we have what we're reading now uh
this is my current library or what has
recently been added and these are
recommendations basically the barnes
noble top 100 books now on the top you
see some basic information here we have
the time the battery life the wi-fi
strength and the current read so
whatever i'm currently reading you just
tap that and it'll bring you right to it
so let's go ahead and test that out
so there you go this is the basic manual
and what we're going to do is go back
home so in order to get home all you
have to do is press the launcher key
down here and when you tap the menu key
you have your options to go home go to
your library go to the store search or
settings so let's go home
so again that brings me back to the main
screen and from here i can launch one of
my books so i can tap to see library
and let's just launch evolution by
stephen baxter so you can see i
remembered where i last left off so page
143 of 576 in order to swipe to the next
page just swipe
i want to go back a page swipe back
now you can also tap the side of the
page to go back or forward
and tap the left side to go back you can
also use these to go forward so that's
page forward
that's page back same story here
and if you hold it you can scan pretty
quickly
and you can also swipe your finger
pretty quickly
so you can see the refresh rate is
pretty fast for e-ink now in order to
get to some of the options you just tap
the center of the page here you can go
to content so here you can see the
contents you can see notes and
highlights
bookmarks
etc you can click close
let's again tap the center of the page
you can find so you can search text so
let's search for i don't know tree
so page 9 14 16 16 16 17 17 and i'm sure
there's a lot of mentions of trees here
so if you want to jump to one of them
let's just tap that it brings me to the
page
and you can see it's highlighted again
tap the center
and let's go to
so here you have a little scrubber bar
you can basically drag that to a page
again hide that by tapping the center of
the screen tap the center of the screen
again to bring up your menu here we can
change our text so we can go to larger
text
you can also change your line spacing to
wider
or narrower
you can also change your fonts here so
we have helvetica
let's choose helvetica
and we can also change the margins
so a wider margin
or a smaller margin
we're going to close that
tap the center again go to more
so from here you have some social media
aspects you can share this
so you can recommend this on facebook or
twitter or use one of your contacts
you can also read reviews
you can also write your own review so
you just type in a heading
and i have to say the keyboard works
very well this appears to be a resistive
touchscreen that's not capacitive and
just type in your review this is great
so there you go we're not going to post
that but that gives you an idea and you
can see related titles
now let's take a look at the store so
we're going to go to shop
you can search by books
so you can search by category let's do
computers
let's search let's do apple
so here you see the top search results
for apple and we have a list view here
and you can scroll through that list
view and you can tap the thumbnail
version and actually see the cover
artwork you can see it refreshes pretty
quickly
so if we tap that one apple script
we can see a free sample
and we'll download the free sample
read free sample
we can also select text here so if we
hold our finger over a word
we have a highlight and we can drag it
to select all so we can do
a highlight
so we've highlighted that text now let's
uh select trademarks
and we're going to add a note
so there you go you can see a little
note here if i tap that note icon you
see my notes and let's uh select another
word here written
we're gonna go to share
and again we can share part of that with
our contacts facebook or twitter or we
can also look up
and this will search our dictionary so
registered here's our dictionary
definition now let's go to settings
and we can see our device info wireless
we can manipulate our screen here so we
can do a screen time out of five minutes
or we can do shorter or longer than that
we have a screen saver here so we can uh
select uh off nature or authors you can
also add our own screen saver if we
upload a jpeg gif png or bitmap and we
also have reader settings and this is
where you can change the behavior of
these buttons whether the top button is
page back or page forward there's also
quite a few social aspects to this nook
so we can link to facebook twitter and
google this is where we would enter
those passwords you can also manage your
nook friends account here now this works
with your contact list so if you want to
add invite people through your contacts
list to become a barnes noble nook
friend assuming they have a barnes noble
nook account this is where you would see
those requests so the advantage to being
a barnes noble nook friend is that they
can borrow one of your books for a
limited time you can also see what your
nook friends are reading and vice versa
so there's some social aspects to it
just like facebook you can also manage
the visibility of your library to your
nook friends so if you don't want them
to see certain books you're reading and
you don't want them to borrow them
you can manage that here and it's
important to note that not all books are
lendable that again it has to be
authorized by the publisher so uh i
actually don't have any that are
lendable actually i don't think i've
ever purchased a book that i could lend
out so anyway that's possibly for some
books now to wake the nook just press
the nook key or menu key and you have a
swipe to unlock feature here so again
that's just very similar to an ios
device it brings you right to where you
left off which is my book now if we
compare the nook simple touch to the
kindle 3 and the original nook you can
see there's quite a bit different in
terms of their dimensionality
the new nook is 7.6 ounces this is 7.8
ounces and this is over 12 ounces so
this is quite a bit heavier
both of these devices are actually more
fully featured with the exception of the
touch screen uh so these actually had
speakers headphone jacks uh you could
play music you could browse the web that
sort of thing but with the kindle or
with the new nook simple touch none of
that's possible it's just a bookstore
and
an e-book reader now besides the frame
and all the features bolted onto it you
can see they have the same size screen
they're both six inch
e ink screens the touch screen doesn't
seem to affect the readability at all
they look exactly the same
now it's it's a little sharper than the
original nook you can see it's a little
darker it's a little muddier so there's
a higher contrast ratio on both these
devices if i were to compare these two
they look identical i don't think
there's any any difference now if we
compare the new nook to the old nook you
can see the old nook was a bit thicker
you can see of course the the old nook
also had those rails along the side to
grip onto it so ergonomics has always
been important to the nook design you
can see the same characteristic here but
again if you look at the bottom again
you can see there's quite a few less
features here evident there's no
speakers or a headphone jack at the top
we have the power button up here and
this time the power button is on the
back of the device if we look at the
kindle 3 versus the nokia again you can
see the new nook is thinner
there are a few more features on the
kindle 3 again you see these there's a
headphone jack there's also speakers on
the back
they both feature the soft plastic or
soft touch material for group ability
but of course the kindle is flat on the
back versus the cup design of the new
knife one thing i can really complain
about on the nook is the fact that there
is a deeper ridge here than i would like
to see i like to see this more flush so
if you look at the kindle 3 is almost
completely flush i prefer that it's
easier to clean it just looks better
we're just going to test the speed of
the ink display this is where things
have improved a lot since the original
nook so let's just tap the page forward
now speed doesn't seem to be the issue
here but you can see that this screen
flashes every time it has to refresh the
entire page the new nook with the latest
ink display doesn't have to do that it
looks like they're about the same speed
so let's just hold down the button and
see what happens
now you can see there's a huge
difference here you can speed through
this a lot faster you can't do that on
the original nook if i hold down the
button nothing happens i basically have
to keep tapping it
now let's compare the kindle three to
the new nook
actually looks like the kindle three is
faster but you can see the difference
here again the kindle three has to flash
to refresh the page
now let's see if we can do a speed
forward
again the kindle 3 cannot do that now
again speed isn't the issue here is the
fact that the kindle 3 has to flash the
entire page in negative in order to
refresh the entire e-ink display this
does not have to do that
overall i can absolutely say that the
new nook is the best e-ink device on
this table i think it's got to be the
best device out there it's the only
really good touch display besides the
sony e-readers
but this is very cheap only only 139
dollars so it's similarly priced to the
kindle 3. it's a lot cheaper than the
original nook you do lose some features
nobody's going to really want to browse
the web with these things because the
e-ink technology is poor for that so
they've eliminated those features
they've made an incredible battery life
this lasts for two months this lasts for
one month this doesn't last that long
i'm not sure what it is but
this is definitely a superior device i
think for an e-ink this for an e-ink
reader
it's lighter weight
it's more ergonomic to hold and handle
it's well balanced has a nice grippable
surface on the back i also think the ui
is much better on this again having
touch on the device is far superior to
having physical keys this sort of
interface i think was better and more
flexible than the kindle three
but still it's a little clunky and most
people are used to touching screens now
so this was still something hard to get
used to it never was really intuitive i
wouldn't recommend this for everybody
and in reality if you want a more fully
featured device really the device to get
is the nook color i really like this
device i think it's bad for reading
anything i don't really like reading
reading on lcd displays at all
but this is a great little tablet and if
you like having a little more
functionality such as web browsing this
is a way to go this is 249 dollars uh so
it you can get this pretty cheap
so you have the best of both worlds in
the nook universe so once again guys
this is detroit taking a look at the new
second generation nook simple touch
e-reader thanks for watching
so let's go ahead and crack this open
and take a look
so let's go ahead and crack this open
and take a look