For my birthday my wife and kids moved my reading into the 22nd century by betting me the Barns & Noble NOOK. This is a quick review of this great product.

First.. I really like the way it works, however there are some little issues that a someone thinking about purchasing it needs to be aware of.

 What I like

1.  The screen is great! Reading at night with the black on white is easier than reading a book. I can read with less light in bed with my NOOK than I can comfortably with a paper based book. This means I disturb my wife less (maybe not great if I am trying to disturb her, but she sleeps better : )

2. Not sure how they do it, but the screen doesn't tend to reflect too much light and offers good viewing angles. (not like most notebooks.)

3. The screen can be easily read in broard daylight.

4. The navigation is easy and lets you hold the book with a single hand and flip back and forward thorugh the pages.

5. Cool to be able the load in my favorite MP3's and listen to them with the "tinny little speekers" or with my headphones.

6. The ability of the NOOK to remember the last page of any book that I was reading and automatically jump to that page.

7. the wide range of formats it supports. Word documents/PDF/Amazon Ebook/Google books/and B&N Ebook + I am guessing some i haven't found yet.

8. It comes with games! (ok the touchpad is lame and makes it hard to use the games.)

What makes me wonder about if it is a great deal...... 

1. I am really not sure about battery life.. It seems to be advantageous to turn the system off between boots. - My guess is that if you read for a week - more than a few hours a day, it will run out of juce.. (I will keep you apprised)

2. Custom desktops and "screensavers" are supported.. However you MUST Size them correctly and making them color may degrade the quality of the greyscale output. (there seems to be some

3. IF you are reading in the evenings (in bed). The nice (astheticly pleasing) shape with it's chrisp top edge tends to cut into the palm of your hand. This forces you to hold it with two hands to make it comfortable.. A rounder top curve would make a more pleasing grip.

4. Beware of "Release Date/Publish Date" when buying books from B & N> I bought a book that I hadn't read in 15 years because 1. The release date as 2010 and 2. It was 15 years ago that I read it, so the plot/synopsis didn't trigger the memory banks as having been read.. (I actually got about 6 chapters in before i realized.) B& N will allow you to return a paper book if you have already read it, but that doesn't seem to be an option with the e copy

5. On the topic of purchasing books.. They are surprisingly EXPENSIVE.. atleast $2 more than the paper equiv - but you can't lend them (except for 14 day periods) and you can't sell them on the 2nd hand market. (YOU CAN WITH A PAPER BOOK!)

(the last point is making me think about only buying books for my nook from Amazon as the Kindle book will play in a NOOK.)

6. IT seems a bit quirky (buggy).. Sometimes when i hit the "Forward" button, it flips 2 pages.. (a single quick click)... When it is plugged into my pc, it doesn't seem to charge and if I "Unmount" the device, I can't read it till I unplug it from the laptop.. (both on a new Toshiba running Windows 7 and an Gateway running Vista  Ultimate)  - Update on the Unmount.. Dont do this via the USB devices.. You need to go to MyComputer - Right Click the nook and select "Eject" then the nook comes online..

7. At this point Amazon has a much better selection of Ebooks. :(