Barnes and Noble nook first impressions

I finally picked up my nook yesterday after over a month’s delay due to a mixup at my post office and I thought I’d share my first impressions.

Unboxing

The nook is fixed onto a strong plastic holder that itself comes in a strong plastic tray. The plastic tray is boxed into a thin white plastic covering to further protect the unit. It all actually looks faintly Mac-like in a good way. It’s highly unlikely that any units would be damaged during shipment under regular conditions.

There’s also a small package that contains two one-pager introductions on to start using your nook, the little plug to plug into the AC power outlet which also has a USB port on the back and the cable to make the connection. This will be quite familiar to anyone who has an iPhone.

Of course the first thing they recommend is that you turn it on and put it to charge until the battery is full, which should take about three and a half hours when plugged into the outlet, provided you’re not using it while it’s charging.

The screen shows some lovely illustrations of famous authors while it’s in sleep mode, including the Bronte sisters, Jules Verne and Homer.

Upgrading to version 1.2

Coincidentally, version 1.2 of the firmware was released only a few hours before I unboxed it. The new version promises the following:

• Enhanced in-store seamless connectivity to enjoy free Wi-Fi, with our More In Store content and promotions exclusively for nook owners.
• Improved opening of eBooks and periodicals
• Improved response to Reading Now & Settings buttons
• Current reading page and bookmarks on all eBooks is properly saved when your nook is powered off
• Bookmarks display page number
• Eligible LendMe™ eBooks in My Library include a LendMe™ flag
• Easier navigation of daily subscription with issues rolled into one folder
• Improved “back” button functionality for navigating eBooks and periodicals
• Personal files downloaded onto nook and displayed in My Documents can be sorted by author & title
• Overall system improvements and battery optimization

I decided to manually update it instead of waiting for an over-the-air update as I hadn’t figured out the wireless as yet and the B&N site said they’d be rolling out the update over a week. The manual update is quite easy, just download the firmware, which clocks in at around 60MB, hook up the nook via USB and then drop the file (signed_bravo_update.dat) in the root folder and unmount. Detailed instructions are here. It will automatically install and restart the nook.

So now that it’s up and working I’m looking forward to catching up on my reading. I’ll be posting a more in-depth review in a week or two.