I love my NOOK Color. Absolutely love it. I got it as a gift from my parents last Christmas and almost asked them to return it- I’d been reading books on the kindle app on my phone (Droid X, with its nice large screen) and didn’t see the need for it.

I WAS WRONG.

The thing doesn’t leave my side lately. The fact that you can borrorow books from libraries, on top of the massive amount of authors that are putting their books out for around 3-5 bucks a pop has meant that I’ve been reading almost nonstop every free minute I get. I can’t even count how many books I’ve read in the last few months. The NOOK Color’s gotten a few firmware upgrades over time and become more of a little tablet, with an upgrade to Android 2.2. The processor still feels slower than my phone, but the internet is a nice touch. Wish there was a better browser for it but now they have an app store so there’s hope in the future. Unless you’ve rooted it, of course, in which case you can pretty much get anything you want.It reads epub files, pdfs, text, doc… hell, you can put music and even movies on the thing, thanks to the great screen. There’s also full-color kids books on there, a few of which I’ve read to my daughter, who got a kick out of the fact that she could slap the screen and turn the page.

This reads like a goddamn ad, but I really do love the thing. I’ve been borrowing the Song of Ice and Fire series from a friend of mine and been actually pissed at having to carry around these gigantic paperbacks. Also, I love reading before going to sleep and this saves me the trouble of turning off the light.

So what I’m saying is that I’m a complete digital convert and you should all buy one. Mostly because there’s also a feature that allows you to lend certain books to your friends, and not nearly enough of my friends have it. Course, there is that price tag that will drive people away- if you think of it as a lighter tablet $250 certainly isn’t bad, but most people will likely go for a cheaper ebook reader. I don’t see myself getting one that isn’t backlit in the future, though- I’m more likely to be reading in the dark versus outside in the sunlight. (Guess you’d never expect that from someone who writes on the web, right?) 

One thing that drives me nuts, though? They’ve got magazines and newspapers on the nook, which is excellent- the color screen really makes these almost as good as the real thing. But for some reason The New Yorker is only available for people with the original nook. Drives me nuts. It’s only 3 bucks a month on there and I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Get on that shit, Condé Nast- they’ve sold a couple million of these things already, you’re missing out on a nice readership.