A couple of years ago I made the unfortunate purchase of a S ony Reader Touch (prs-600). We had a contentious relationship from the beginning, thanks to its inability to hold a charge for more than 3 days and really bad customer support from S ony (in Texas AND India). It’s clunky interface didn’t help either.  I won’t bore you with the details but in summary, the So ny Reader sucks and So ny customer support is worse.

Two years after that misguided purchase I was so happy when I accidentally leaned my elbow on the reader, causing the screen to mush and bricking it. I don’t believe I’ve ever taken a frustrated hammer to a gadget or pc though there may have been a moment or two in the Nineties when a pc deserved it. Oh, the missed opportunities! It was truly satisfying to hammer that piece of S ony shit.

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https://www.dubyajay.com/site/uploads/2011-11-09-victory.jpg[/fusion_image] [/fancy_images] Needing a new reader, I briefly considered a Kindle but still have trouble with the Orwell incident of 2009. I also considered skipping the reader altogether and going with an ipad, but I like e-ink for outdoor reading. I also didn’t want the time-sucking temptation of surfing the web. I’ll get an ipad later.

So I bought a Nook Simple Touch. And I love it. Love. It. The interface is extremely intuitive. I didn’t read the manual and I didn’t need to. Everything is where it is supposed to be. Every action is like an easter egg (read: yay!). Compared to the Sony POS, the entire Nook is an easter egg. The added bonus of the Nook holding a charge is nirvana to a recovering Sony sufferer. I’ve had it  since early November and have charged it 3 times. Of course it helps that I don’t have the wifi on unless I’m using it, but why would I? It’s for reading, not surfing. I can see rooting it someday but I’ll wait til the warranty runs out.

The one weakness I’ve found so far is the dictionary. You can look up a word, but you can’t search for a word. Also, sometimes the dictionary will give the root of the word you looked up as the definition, but you can’t look up that word from the definition. Kinda useless.

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To protect this gem, I got a really cool cover from Oberon Design for christmas (Thanks Mom!). The cover is as equally impressive as the Nook itself, if not more-so. It’s a solid, finely crafted piece of usable art. I love the idea of mixing tech with old school – I feel like I’m reading from an old tome in a fantasy novel.

Here is a comprehensive review of the Oberon cover that illustrates features and what-not. Oberon Design makes more than just Nook covers  and are definitely worth a look for ipad, kindle and journal covers, sleeves for phones and readers, checkbooks, wallets,etc. They even have some cool jewelry. I think products are custom-made-to-order so patience is a virtue.

I know it sounds like I’m an affiliate for both Nook and Oberon, but I’m not. I truly like both and recommend them without monetary benefit. Bluehost, however is another story