iPod touch Review

iPod touch is a great iPod, a great pocket computer, and a great portable game player. Listen to a mix of songs automatically put together by the new Genius Mixes feature. Watch a movie. Surf the web. View rich HTML email. Find your location and get directions with Google Maps. Discover games and apps you're sure to love with new Genius recommendations for apps. And since iPod touch now comes with the latest 3.1 software already installed, you can start using fun, convenient features right out of the box.

Next-Level Fun: The New iPod touch

Music
Flick through your albums. Listen to a unique mix created just for you. Or watch the video for your favorite song. With iPod touch, it's more than just hearing your music.
Cover Flow
What a song does for your ears, Cover Flow on iPod touch does for your eyes and fingers. It's a virtual party for the senses. Turn iPod touch on its side and glide through your music by album art with the flick of your finger. Tap an album cover to flip it over and display a track list. Tap again to start the music.
Genius Mixes
Now the Genius feature is even more powerful. Introducing Genius Mixes. All you do is sync iPod touch to iTunes, and Genius automatically searches your library to find songs that sound great together. Then it creates multiple mixes you'll love. These mixes are like channels programmed entirely with your music.
Genius Playlists
Say you're listening to a song you really like and want to hear other tracks that go great with it. The Genius feature finds other songs on your iPod touch that sound great with the one you were listening to and makes a Genius playlist for you. Listen to the playlist right away, save it for later, or even refresh it and give it another go. Count on Genius to create a mix you wouldn't have thought of yourself.
Shake to Shuffle
Shake things up a bit. Musically speaking, that is. The next time you're listening to your tunes, turn on Shake to Shuffle, then give iPod touch a shake to shuffle to a different song in your music library.
iTunes
Fill your iPod touch with songs and music videos from your iTunes library on your computer. Or buy and download new music on your iPod touch when you access iTunes over Wi-Fi. Songs you purchase on iPod touch transfer to your Mac or PC the next time you connect iPod touch to your computer.

Bluetooth
Look, no cables. iPod touch includes the iPhone 3.1 software, so you can pair Bluetooth stereo headphones with it. Keep your iPod in your bag or charging on your desk across the room and still listen to your music.

Carry hours of video with you and watch it on the crisp 3.5-inch color widescreen display.

With iTunes on your iPod touch and a Wi-Fi connection, you can buy movies and TV shows on the fly.

Movies + TV shows
A feature film. A video podcast. Your favorite TV show. Now appearing on a subway train or a plane near you.
Widescreen Viewing
Carry hours of video with you and watch it on the crisp 3.5-inch color widescreen display. Shop the iTunes Store and choose from thousands of movies, TV shows, and video podcasts to load up your iPod touch. From Hollywood blockbusters to independent favorites, there's something for everyone. Download and watch movies with a few taps. Prefer TV shows? Get a single episode or an entire season's worth all at once.
Onscreen Controls
While watching your video, tap the display to bring up the onscreen controls. You can play or pause, view by chapter, and adjust the volume. You can also use the volume controls on the left side of iPod touch. Want to switch between widescreen and full screen? Simply tap the display twice.
iTunes
Need some entertainment for your next flight or road trip? With iTunes on your iPod touch and a Wi-Fi connection, you can buy movies and TV shows on the fly. You can also rent movies, in case you're not sure if that flick is a keeper. And of course, you can purchase movies and TV shows on your Mac or PC, then sync them to your iPod touch.
App Store
Shop the App Store and discover over 75,000 apps that let you do even more with your iPod touch. Browse apps in categories from games to lifestyle, social networking to education, and more.

Discover apps in categories from games to lifestyle, social networking to education, and more.

The built-in Wi-Fi capability in iPod touch gives you access to the iTunes Store anywhere, anytime.

Browse Apps
Shop the App Store a number of ways. Tap Featured and get a list of new apps and to see what's hot. Peruse by category. Check out the Top 25 apps. Or if you know exactly what app you're looking for, find it by doing a quick search.
Genius Recommendations for Apps
There are tens of thousands of apps in the App Store, with more added every day. A new feature of iPod touch makes finding cool new apps even easier. It's Genius for apps, and it works just like Genius for your music. Tap the Genius icon and get recommendations for apps that you might like based on apps you and others have downloaded.
Download Apps
When you find an app you want, buy and download it wirelessly to your iPod touch from anywhere over Wi-Fi, and start using it right away.
Update Apps
iPod touch tells you whenever an app update is available, so you'll always have the latest versions of your favorite apps.
iTunes
Discover and download new music, movies, TV shows, and audiobooks with iTunes on your iPod touch.
Shop Anytime, Anywhere
The built-in Wi-Fi capability in iPod touch gives you access to the iTunes Store, where you can choose from millions of high- quality iTunes Plus songs and thousands of movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and free podcasts and iTunes U lectures. Browse New Releases, Top Tens, and Genres. Or find exactly what you're looking for by typing in a quick search. Play a preview of any song or video, then tap once to buy it. Not sure if that movie is worth owning? Just rent it. Everything you buy on iPod touch is the same price you pay on the iTunes Store on your computer.
Sync with iTunes
When you connect iPod touch to your computer, the music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and podcasts you downloaded on the go sync to your iTunes library on your Mac or PC. If you've partially downloaded something on iPod touch, your computer completes the download automatically.
Photos
With storage for up to 90,000 of your favorite photos, iPod touch lets you flick through and share all those remember-that-day moments.
Share Photos
Show thousands of photos from the palm of your hand. Flick to scroll through thumbnails. Tap to view full screen. Play slideshows, complete with music and transitions. Email a photo to a friend or share it in a MobileMe Gallery.

With storage for up to 90,000 of your favorite photos, iPod touch lets you flick through and share all those remember-that-day moments.

Save Photos
If you receive a great image in an email, save it to your photo library on iPod touch. Once there, it acts just like any other photo. You can set it as your wallpaper, share it on the web, or pass it on.
Sync Photos
iPod touch uses iTunes to sync photos you have in iPhoto on a Mac or in Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Photoshop Album on a PC. Just choose which photos or albums to sync to your iPod touch, then you can look at them--and share them--anywhere you go.
Home Screen
Maybe you want Maps as the first app in the second row. Or Mail down in the Dock. Whatever the arrangement, make iPod touch your own with customized Home screens.
Customize Your Home Screen
Arrange the icons on your Home screen any way you want right on iPod touch or from your computer using iTunes 9. Move an app one row up, two apps over, or even to another Home screen. Create up to 11 Home screens for quick access to the games and applications you download from the App Store and to your Safari web clips.
Home Button
No matter where you are on iPod touch, one press of the Home button at the bottom of iPod touch takes you to the main Home screen. You can also take a shortcut from any Home screen back to your main Home screen by pressing the Home button.

Search the entire contents of your iPod touch, all from one place.

iPod touch features Safari, the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device.

Spotlight Search
Looking for something? Search the entire contents of your iPod touch, all from one place. On your main Home screen, just swipe to the right to bring up Spotlight. Once you start typing, Spotlight begins searching all of your music, videos, contacts, email, calendars, notes, and even your audiobooks and podcasts.
Add Apps and Web Clips
Whenever you download an application from the App Store, a new icon appears on your Home screen. And if you check the same websites every day, just create web clips. They appear on your Home screen, and you can access the sites directly with a single tap.
Safari
iPod touch features Safari, the most advanced web browser ever on a portable device. See the web in your hands the same way you see it on a computer. All you need is a Wi-Fi connection.
Browse Anywhere
iPod touch is the only iPod with built-in wireless access to the web. Whenever you're connected via Wi-Fi, you can access your favorite websites to read news, check scores, pay bills, and go shopping. And if you're using the new 32 GB or 64 GB iPod touch, you'll notice that web pages load even faster than before.
Search the Web
iPod touch syncs your bookmarks from your PC or Mac, so you can access your favorite sites quickly. It has Google and Yahoo! search built in, so it's easy to find what you're looking for on the web.
Web Clips
If you check a website frequently--a favorite newspaper, blog, or sports site--why not create a Home screen icon, or web clip, for it? Make web clips with Safari, and your favorite sites are always just a tap away.
Zoom
Get a closer look at any web page by zooming in and out with a tap or a pinch of the Multi-Touch display. View websites in portrait or landscape. Rotate iPod touch 90 degrees and the web page rotates, too.

mail on iPod touch looks and works just like email on your computer.

With Maps and a Wi-Fi connection, you can get directions, find local businesses, and check traffic.

Mail
Email on iPod touch looks and works just like email on your computer. And it works with the email accounts you already have.
View Messages and Attachments
iPod touch supports rich HTML email, so images and photos appear alongside text. And you see email attachments in their original formats, not stripped-down versions. Rotate, zoom, and pan in more than a dozen standard file and image formats, including PDF; Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; and iWork.
Access All Your Accounts
Access your email from popular providers--including MobileMe, Google Gmail, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL--and most industry-standard IMAP and POP mail systems.
Compose Instantly
iPod touch recognizes email addresses in different applications. If you run across an email address on a web page or a map listing, for example, just tap it and iPod touch opens a new message and addresses it for you.
Type Smart
With its built-in dictionary,* the intelligent iPod touch keyboard predicts and suggests words as you type, making it fast and easy to write email. And when you rotate iPod touch on its side, the keyboard instantly switches from portrait to landscape for larger keys and more room to type.
Search Your Inbox
No need to scroll through message after message in your inbox looking for the right one. A quick downward flick brings up a search field that lets you find email by sender, recipient, subject, or all headers.
Maps
Find your way and a place to eat. With Maps and a Wi-Fi connection, you can get directions, find local businesses, and check traffic.
Find Yourself
iPod touch finds your location using known Wi-Fi hotspots. It also finds points of interest by keyword: Search for "coffee" and iPod touch shows you cafes nearby.
Get Directions
Just type in an address and get directions from wherever you are. Choose the method of transportation--car, public transit, or on foot--and view a list of turn-by-turn directions. See a highlighted map route with estimated travel time. You can also mark specific locations and find the best route between them.

Explore and share your favorite YouTube clips.

Track your workouts, set goals, and challenge friends with Nike+.Click to enlarge.

With Voice Memos, you can record any audio you want using the Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic or an external mic.

Switch Map Views
Just like Google Maps on your computer, Maps on iPod touch lets you switch between views of Google map data, satellite images, and a hybrid of both. Multi-Touch makes the difference. Tap to zoom, pan, and change your view on the move.
See Traffic
Maps on iPod touch shows you live traffic information, indicating traffic speed along your route in easy-to-read green, red, and yellow highlights.
YouTube
Skateboarding moves gone wrong. Hilarious commercials from another country. Whatever the video, iPod touch has your YouTube addiction covered.
Share from Anywhere
Email your favorite videos to your favorite people. Tap Share on any YouTube video detail page and iPod touch creates an email with the video link already in it.
Search YouTube
Explore Featured, Most Viewed, Most Recent, and Top Rated videos. Or search for the video you want using a keyword search. Once you find what you're looking for, bookmark it to watch later.
Nike + iPod Compatibility
Rock out your workout. iPod touch has built-in support for Nike + iPod. It's music and motivation rolled into one.
Tune Your Run
iPod touch includes built-in Nike + iPod support. Just slip the Nike + iPod Sensor (available separately) into your Nike+ shoe and start your run. The sensor communicates wirelessly with your iPod touch, tracking your time, distance, and calories burned. It even gives you voice feedback on your progress.
Tune Your Cardio Workout
This feature also works with new cardio equipment available in many fitness centers. Just look for Nike + iPod compatible treadmills, ellipticals, stair steppers, and stationary bikes.
Sync with nikeplus.com
When you get back to your computer, sync your iPod touch with iTunes and transfer your exercise data to nikeplus.com, where you can track your workouts, set goals, and challenge friends.
Voice Memos
You might have a good memory. But sometimes, it's nice to have a backup. With Voice Memos, you can record little (and big) bits of information to your iPod touch.
Record Memos (or Any Audio)
Record a simple to-do, your next big idea, or a bet between you and your friend. With Voice Memos, you can record any audio you want using the Apple Earphones with Remote and Mic or an external mic. Voice Memos will record even when you're using your iPod touch to do things such as checking email or surfing the web.
Edit Memos
You can trim recorded memos right on iPod touch. That way, you keep only what you need.
Manage Memos
Keep all your memos organized by choosing labels from a predefined list or by creating custom labels.
Share Memos
Send memos to your friends and colleagues via email. Memos you record on iPod touch sync back to your Mac or PC via iTunes, so you can share them later.

Play the latest head-to-head games with a friend--whether your friend is sitting next to you or across the country.

Want more room to type? Rotate iPod touch to landscape to use a larger keyboard in Mail, Notes, and Safari.

Download movies, TV shows, music videos, and audiobooks over Wi-Fi from the iTunes Store on iPod touch.

More Features

iPod touch comes with the latest software already installed. And you also get convenient apps including Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Stocks, and Weather. iPhone 3.1 Software Features
Genius Mixes
This new feature acts as your personal DJ, searching your iTunes library to find songs that go great together, then organizing them into mixes you'll love. All automatically.
Genius Recommendations for Apps
With thousands of apps in the App Store, how do you find cool new ones? Let Genius help. It looks at the apps you're using and recommends others you might like.
Peer-to-Peer Gaming
Play the latest head-to-head games with a friend--whether your friend is sitting next to you or across the country.
Buy Movies, TV Shows, and Audiobooks via Wi-Fi
Download movies, TV shows, music videos, and audiobooks over Wi-Fi from the iTunes Store on iPod touch.
Landscape Keyboard
Want more room to type? Rotate iPod touch to landscape to use a larger keyboard in Mail, Notes, and Safari.
Cut, Copy & Paste
Cut, copy, and paste words and photos, even between applications. Copy and paste images and content from the web, too.
Spotlight Search
Find what you're looking for across your iPod touch, all from one convenient place. Spotlight searches all your contacts, email, calendars, and notes, as well as your music and video.
Automatic Wi-Fi Login
Log in to a Wi-Fi hotspot and iPod touch remembers your user name and password the next time you connect.
Accessibility
The new iPod touch comes with standard accessibility features that help people with disabilities experience the fun of iPod touch.
Stereo Bluetooth
Enjoy music and other audio wirelessly. Pair your iPod touch with compatible Bluetooth stereo headphones.
Shake to Shuffle
Just give your iPod touch a shake, and it shuffles to a different song in your music library. You'll always be surprised by what you hear.
Parental Controls
Decide what music, videos, and apps your kids can access.

Stocks on iPod touch shows you performance information for any stock you choose.

Check worldwide weather at home or away.

Pioneering hardware technology built into iPod touch is how you're able to flick, tap, and pinch.

iPod touch also includes these useful apps:
Calendar
Calendar works with Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft Outlook, iCal, MobileMe, and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync for enterprise. Add events. Set reminder alerts. Subscribe to calendars for things such as national holidays and sports schedules.
Contacts
Put names, email addresses, phone numbers, and more at your fingertips. Sync contacts on your Mac or PC to iPod touch using iTunes. Add new contacts on the go with a tap.
Notes
Forget the pen and paper. Use Notes on iPod touch to write yourself a quick note and keep important information on hand. A built-in email function lets you send notes to yourself or others.
Stocks
Stocks on iPod touch shows you performance information for any stock you choose. When you want more details about a stock's performance, tap the Y! for instant access to Yahoo! Finance.
Weather
Check worldwide weather at home or away. Add the cities you want, then flick back and forth to get six-day forecasts for each. Tap the Y! to open a Yahoo! city guide that shows you what's happening, rain or shine.
Calculator
Calculator on iPod touch does double duty. In portrait mode, you can use Calculator for simple calculations. Rotate iPod touch to landscape, and it becomes a sophisticated scientific calculator.

iPod touch Technology

Pioneering hardware technology built into iPod touch is how you're able to flick, tap, and pinch. It's what makes that racing game feel so real. It's why you're able to tweet what you just overheard in the cafe. And it's the reason iPod touch is the most amazing iPod you'll ever own. Multi-Touch
The Multi-Touch display layers a protective shield over a capacitive panel that senses your touch using electrical fields. It then transmits that information to the LCD screen below it. So you can glide through albums with Cover Flow, flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch, zoom in and out on a section of a web page, and control game elements precisely.
Accelerometer
The accelerometer inside iPod touch allows it to detect when you rotate iPod touch from portrait to landscape, then automatically changes the contents of the display. The accelerometer really shines when you play games, because it immerses you in the action. It's perfect for racing games, where your entire iPod touch acts as a steering wheel, and for tap-and-tilt games such as Rolando, in which your movements control the action.
Wireless
iPod touch has built-in support for 802.11b/g wireless technology. That means you can get online anywhere there's Wi-Fi. Send email from a coffee shop. Surf the web at the airport. Shop for games from your couch. Browse, buy, and download music and more from the iTunes Store. iPod touch locates nearby wireless hotspots, including protected networks. If you've never used a particular network, Wireless Icon it asks you to enter a password the first time, and it remembers the password from then on. So the next time you're within range, it connects automatically.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a form of wireless technology that lets you use devices without the hassle of cables or wires. What does that mean for iPod touch? It means you can use iPod touch with Bluetooth headphones and listen to your music no matter where in the room your iPod touch is. So lounge on your bed, while your iPod touch charges on your desk. Bluetooth on iPod touch is also great for peer-to-peer gaming.
Design
iPod touch is as remarkable outside as it is inside. Holding one is all the proof you need. With its curved design, iPod touch is a mere 8.5 mm thin. Its optical glass front and polished stainless steel back feel sleek and smooth in your hand. Turn it on, and instantly you're impressed by the brilliant 3.5-inch display. iPod touch is the perfect combination of stunning design and revolutionary technology--the total, beautiful package.

Read Kindle books on your iPod touch.

Read Kindle Books on the iPod touch

• No Kindle required.
• Get the best reading experience available on your iPhone or iPod touch.
• Access your Kindle books even if you don't have your Kindle with you.
• Automatically synchronizes your last page read between devices with Amazon Whispersync.
• Adjust the text size, add bookmarks, and view the annotations you created on your Kindle.
• Don't have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Shop for Books on the Kindle Store on Your iPod touch

• Buy a book from the Kindle Store, optimized for Safari, on your iPod touch or iPhone and get it auto-delivered wirelessly.
• Search and browse more than 275,000 books, including more than 107 of 112 New York Times bestsellers.
• Find New York Times bestsellers and new releases for $9.99, unless marked otherwise.
• Get free book samples; read the first chapter for free before you decide to buy.
• Books you purchase also can be read on a Kindle.
• Kindle newspapers, magazines, and blogs are not currently available on the iPod touch or iPhone.

What's in the Box

Apple iPod touch 8 GB (3rd Generation), standard Apple Earphones, USB 2.0 cable, Dock adapter, Quick Start guide

The Best Laptops, From $400 to $1500

To find out the best Windows laptops of 2009, we checked in with Mark Spoonauer who, as editor-in-chief of Laptop Magazine and Laptopmag.com, oversaw 130+ notebook and netbook reviews this year. If you're buying, buy one of these.

Under $400

Acer Aspire 1410

Starting Price: $399
This 3.2-pound ultraportable is such a sweet deal it makes us question whether netbooks are long for this world. Acer stuffed a dual-core Celeron processor (about double the performance of Atom), 2GB of RAM and Windows 7 Premium inside a 11.6-inch system with a full-size keyboard—all for just $399. Plus, you get 6.5 hours of battery life. Sure, the 160GB hard drive is a bit skimpy, but the 1410 is a real PC you can take anywhere. [Review]

Under $700

Gateway NV

Starting Price: $599.99
The NV proves that you can get a good-looking budget laptop that performs. In addition to four color choices (blue, brown, read, and black), this 15.6-inch notebook sports a fashionable metal hinge and glowing LED controls. Under the hood the NV satisfies with the combination of an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. Our only nitpick is the narrow touchpad button. [Review]

Asus UL30A

Starting Price: $649.99
If we had to pick a notebook of the year, the UL30A would be it. Why? Because this 13 incher is light enough to take anywhere yet offers enough pep to be your primary machine. This 4-pound ultraportable lasted nearly 10 hours on a charge in our tests (continuous surfing over Wi-Fi), and its ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo processor can easily handle Windows 7. Bonus: 500GB of storage is nice for the $650 price. [Review]

Under $1000

Dell Studio 14z

Starting Price: $749.99
Think of it as the poor man's MacBook—with better specs and sound. Dell's 14-inch thin and light notebook weighs in at just 4.4 pounds and features Nvidia 9400 graphics for extra multimedia punch. But unlike the entry level $999 Mac, the Dell offers 70GB more hard drive space, superior speakers, and a backlit keyboard for $160 less. The only trade-offs are the lack of a DVD drive and the need for an adapter for plugging in memory cards. [Review]

Under $1500

Toshiba Qosmio X505

Starting Price : $1399
Ideal for multimedia mavens and good enough for gamers, the 18.4-inch Qosmio X505 brings serious muscle in the $1,499 configuration, including a blazing Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GTS 250M graphics (with 1 GB of dedicated video memory). We also dig the classy glossy black design with metallic red accents, integrated Blu-ray drive, and booming Harman Kardon speakers. If you want to step up from the 1680 x 945 display to a full HD screen, splurge for the $1,899 model, which also sports 6GB of RAM and an SSD. [Review]

ThinkPad T400s

Starting Price: $1599 ($1359.15 after coupon)
If BMWs are the ultimate driving machines, ThinkPads are the ultimate business machines, and this is the flagship vehicle. The T400s measures just 0.8 inches thick and weighs 3.9 pounds, and it's decked out in supersturdy magnesium (for the bottom and deck) and carbon fiber (for the lid). More important, this 14-incher blows away the competition in terms of ergonomic comfort and performance—when you spring for the 2.53-GHz processor and 128GB solid state drive. [Review]

To see all of Laptop's top picks of the year, click here.

Thanks: http://gizmodo.com/5421823/the-best-windows-laptops-from-400-to-1500?skyline=true&s=x

500GB G-Drive mini external hard drive

Everyone needs more storage. But why spend the cash an external drive when we’re giving away a sexy 500GB G-Drive mini? It’s small, has both USB and Firewire interfaces, and sexy like it’s big brother I just reviewed.

All you need to do is leave a comment with the storage capacity of your first computer with a dedicated hard drive. Mine was a 1.2GB drive in a Compaq desktop. I thought I would never fill that up.

Vote only once and the winner must have a US shipping address. We’ll pick the winner on 12/15/2009. Good luck!

Thanks : http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/12/08/giveaway-500gb-g-drive-mini-external-hard-drive/

YouTube Microwave Makes Cooking Hot Pockets More Entertaining

The Castoven is a microwave with an LCD screen in the door. It automatically plays a video as long as the cooking time you specify. Because god knows you can't go two goddamned minutes without being entertained. [Castoven via CrunchGear]

Thanks: http://gizmodo.com/5420893/youtube-microwave-makes-cooking-hot-pockets-more-entertaining

Barnes & Noble Nook Review

It's a relief to finally lay hands on the Nook. The dual-screen reader was just a prop at its unveiling so I'm happy to report it works (pretty) well. It can't kill Kindle yet, but it's an alternative worth considering.

A Two-Horse Race

Do this now: Disregard all other ebook readers on the market besides Nook and Kindle. Unless you plan to get all of your books from back-alley torrents, or stick to self-published and out-of-copyright PDFs, you are going to need a reader with a good content-delivery system, one it connects to directly via wide-area network. And as long as you're set on e-ink as your preferred means of digital reading—and it's still the choice that's easiest on the eyes and the battery—you're going to need a reader that isn't crapped up with gimmicks that supposedly compensate for the slow display.

Sony messed up by putting a glare-inducing film over its screen to provide questionably beneficial touch controls; iRex avoided that, but made a "touch" interface that requires a stylus. Kindle plays it straight, developing a user interface that works well enough with physical buttons and e-ink (as long as you don't use the "experimental" browser). Nook preserves the same pleasurable reading experience, but tucks in the capacitive-touch LCD screen for added control. In its 1.0 implementation, Nook is not as fast or as smooth as it should be, but already it's showing that the second screen is not a gimmick.

Still, I need to get this out of the way: The second screen is not a sudden and miraculous cure for what ails ebook readers. It may prove to be, but B&N's current implementation is conservative. As yet, there are too few occasions on the Nook when I notice an LCD feature and say "Kindle can't do that." In fact, the Kindle development team hasn't been sitting on their asses—the latest firmware makes Kindle more sprightly than ever, with subtle but awesome user-interface improvements. But Barnes & Noble is itself promising round-the-clock enhancing, optimizing and debugging over the next few months, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were three or four updates pushed through the Nook by March—the first possibly before Christmas.

Does that mean it's not ready now? Let me put it this way: If you are lucky enough to have pre-ordered one in the first wave for the Dec. 7 shipping, or patient enough to wait until mid-January for the next wave, you are going to get a gadget worth being excited about.

And when Barnes & Noble gets its in-store offers and book-lending operation underway, Amazon will have to step up, or sit down.

Big Screen, Little Screen

The first thing I noticed about the LCD was that it was too bright. E-ink is all about eyeball comfort, and I hadn't really thought about how the LCD underneath would compromise that. Because you don't want your eyes to have to adjust every time you look down and back up again, it turns out you want that thing a lot dimmer than you might if it was a standalone device. The automatic brightness adjuster isn't really up to the job, but I found that by dialing it all the way down when reading in bed, and bumping it up a tad, like to 20%, when reading in sunlight, my eyes could look up and down without any annoyance.

The second thing I noticed about the LCD was how nice its keyboard was. Unlike the Kindle, the Nook's keyboard is only visible when you need it, and as an iPhone user, I found it natural and accurate. The capacitive touch is a real boon, especially on a screen so small.

Besides the keyboard and assorted lists of settings and files, the little screen can display a directional pad for moving around text when highlighting or looking up words in the dictionary; it can give you a search box and a place to type notations; it can pop up the music player without leaving the page; it flows book covers in your library and in the store. And when the screen goes dark, you can make horizontal swipe gestures to turn the pages of the e-ink screen above.

Between the LCD and the e-ink screens is a little upside-down U, actually an "N" from the Nook's logo. This is covered with a capacitive-touch layer too, and serves as the "home" button, which wakes up the LCD with a tap, and takes you to the home screen with a double-tap. (There are physical buttons, too: Two page-turn buttons on each side, and a power button on the top, which work as billed and have no hidden features.)

I found the capacitive interface to be handy, but it also revealed the bugginess of the early software. Scrolling could be sticky, tapping the home button or the screen occasionally did nothing, and using the directional pad to navigate text made me yearn for the Kindle's physical mini-joystick. The biggest disappointment was the page-turning swipe gesture. It failed to work half the time I tried it, and when it did work, I noticed that it responded slower than pressing the physical page-turn buttons.

I raised all of these issues with Barnes & Noble, and fortunately they are on top of this. Fixing bugs and speeding up the UI are the primary goals for the first software revision, and I have no doubt that they will achieve their goals in due time, probably before most people can even buy their Nooks.

While U Read

The Nook won't beat the Kindle if all that LCD is for is facilitating navigation—the interface isn't a bad one, but in its current implementation, it's just an alternative, not an upgrade. The way B&N will beat Amazon is by making that damn screen do crazy stuff. It should start by targeting people who read while doing 12 other things.

Me, I require concentration to get through a page, and even music is a distraction. But for some people, it's not hard to read a book while jamming to tunes, periodically glancing at news tickers, and responding to email or text messages. This is the promise of Nook's second screen.

It already does this to some extent. The music player isn't much yet—and has a few kinks B&N is still working out, like automatically and unpleasantly alphabetizing all your songs—but it's a real applet, unlike the Kindle's. On the Kindle, you type Alt-Space to get a song to play, and you click F to advance to the next song. That's about it. With the Nook, you can load up songs and then scroll through them all, picking one you want to hear, or shuffling the tracks. There's no physical volume button, but you can pull up a slider to adjust it, and another slider to jump around a song. And you can do all of this without leaving the page of your book.

But when you look up a word in the dictionary, the definition pops up on the e-ink screen, not the LCD. When you get an error message, again, the pop-up is on the e-ink. Barnes & Noble designated the e-ink as the place where all "reading" would be done, and that includes messages and sidebar content. I disagree with this, if only because the second screen seems tailor-made for alerts and other pop-up info.

The second screen is also a place for third-party developers to create fun and unexpected applets. Barnes & Noble loves to remind reviewers and customers alike that this baby is powered by Android: In other words, Nook may not look like a Motorola Droid, but developers could write apps for it just as easily.

Right now, the integrated Wi-Fi doesn't feel like much of a bonus. (Though it offers certain benefits when abroad, it only works with Wi-Fi networks that don't require a pop-up webpage. Free or not, those are few and far between.) But Wi-Fi means that developers could write internet apps without fearing a crackdown by AT&T, which provides the no-fee wireless connectivity. Paging Pandora!

Built on Bricks and Mortar

When it comes to shopping for books (and reading them), the Nook is the Kindle's equal, and may soon leverage Barnes & Noble's 800 physical locations to knock it out of first place. I was not able to test these features, because they are only starting to roll out this week, but when you take a Nook to a B&N, it will automatically jump on the store's Wi-Fi network, and offer you free goodies—not just downloads but cookies from the café and other treats. Soon, there will be a way to skim an entire ebook while you're in the store, too. You might say, "Big deal, if I'm in the store, I'll just look at the real book." But that's just the point: How nice will it be to compare real and ebook editions before you buy? I asked B&N about bundles of real book and digital download, and they said discussions with publishers are underway.

Needless to say, one of the biggest advantages the Nook has over the Kindle is the chance for people to touch it before buying it. B&N will start showing off Nooks this week, and will add a few more ebook readers to its lineup, too. People who were afraid of taking the plunge will see the benefits and buy.

(My pet theory as to why Sony and others have sold any ebook readers at all in the US is that they appear in retail locations, unlike Kindle. Because if anything but the Nook was showcased side-by-side with the Kindle in a showroom, the decision to go with Amazon would be easy.)

Barnes & Noble has adopted a more natural attitude toward the books they sell, too, allowing you to access what you buy via ebook readers on Macs and PCs, iPhones and BlackBerrys (and in a few months, Android phones) as well as the Nook. Amazon has an iPhone app but as yet there's no way to read your Kindle book purchases on your own computer, and is now (finally) rolling out PC and Mac Kindle clients, as well as a BlackBerry app.

Speaking of Kindle downloads, some noise has been made about Kindle books being cheaper than B&N ebooks, but Barnes & Noble says that they are in the process of correcting their prices, basically evening them all out so that they're no higher than Amazon's. In my own experience, I found David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest for $10 and George RR Martin's A Game of Thrones for just $7. I was pretty pleased, though I was a tad annoyed that sales tax wasn't included in the base price. Be warned there.

Lending is another non-Kindle function rolling out this week that I'll be following up on. You select a book from your collection, lend it to someone listed in your Nook contacts, and they receive a message via email and on their Nook's "Daily" screen, where periodicals, offers and other notices show up. When they accept, they can read the book for two weeks. During that time, you can't read it, and when it reverts back to you, they get a notice to buy. You can't lend the same book to the same person twice.

You can also lend books to someone who doesn't have a Nook, to read on their computer or iPhone or BlackBerry, though the notification only comes from email. (Expect a radically redesigned iPhone client in January with lending and other features.) The new readers from iRex and Plastic Logic will include the Barnes & Noble store, and all your purchases will be accessible on those devices. However, at this point, those two devices won't have the lending capability.

Work in Progress

If I haven't said much about reading books on the Nook itself, it's because it feels very much like a Kindle, right down to the page-turn buttons. The screen is the same—there's no discernible difference whatsoever.

Aesthetically, the Nook is better looking, less busy, with a more proportionate bezel (and a wee bit more girth). I like the gray rubber backing as much as I loved in on the original Kindle—I still don't know why Amazon abandoned that.

The only hardware bummer was the sound of the integrated speakers—Kindle beats Nook here (soundly?), but since both have a 3.5mm jack for headphones, it's mostly a moot point.

The hardware is fully baked, but as I have mentioned the software isn't. Aside from the stickiness of the interface and the flaws in the music player, I found a definite bug in the highlights-and-notes system. I have already listed a what feels like a hundred tiny gripes, but I still have more, like why isn't there AAC playback? And why do I have to get to the home screen to see the clock? (Kindle now shows the time with a single tap of the Menu button, no matter where you are.) I do know why there's no Audible DRM support—because even the devices that supposedly support Audible files don't support the ones most people buy from iTunes, so it's a confusing mess for customers. But I'd still expect the nation's biggest bookstore chain to get serious about audiobooks.

The great thing is that the fixes will come fast and steady, and like the iPhone, this thing will grow. For those of you who took the plunge already, I don't need to tell you to be careful with 1.0 software, because as early adopters you are prepared. And for those of you who missed out on the first batch, guess what? That just means you can wait for the key bugglies to get fixed before you pony up $259. And for those who went for the Kindle this season instead? Congratulations, you have a very nice ebook reader too—for exactly the same price.

In fact, if you have to pick one right now, stick with the Kindle. It's a tough call, because I see a lot of potential in Nook that might not be in Kindle, but damn if the Kindle hasn't grown to comfortably inhabit its e-ink skin. As long as you don't expect apps and extras on a Kindle, it delivers the best ebook experience there is at this moment. And it just went international. But while the limitations of a Kindle are clear, the limitations of the Nook are hazier, presumably further out.

For now, no one will laugh at you for owning either, though you will now surely be ridiculed for spending $400 on a Sony with glare issues, or—pardon me, iRex—anything that requires a stylus. And since many third-party readers are going with the Barnes & Noble store, you'd be dumb to buy any of them instead of the Nook. That may change in the future (can you believe I made it this far without mentioning Apple Tablet?) but for now, in the ebook department, there's just these two big dogs surrounded by a bunch of poodles.

Thanks: http://gizmodo.com/5420216/barnes--noble-nook-review