I purchased the original Nook e-reader back in 2010 and found my reading time sky-rocketing.  I downloaded free classic books, took advantage of “Free Friday” books, and found myself rebuilding my hard copy library with digital copies.  I’ve found so many new authors and books through my Nook that I wanted to share with the world I decided to create my own website – and thus RiffsAndReviews was born.  Since that first Nook purchase, I have gone on to own the Nook Color and the Nook Simple Touch and passed that original Nook on to my mother, who loves it as much as I did.  Today I’m going to take a look at each one of these devices so you can decide if a Nook e-reader is right for you.  (I am focusing on the e-readers here; I don’t own the Nook Tablet, so it’s not included.)

Nook First Edition(7.7″H x 4.9″W x 0.50″D, 11.6 – 12.1 oz)
3 stars (out of 5)

This is the original Nook and is no longer in production, but may be found on e-bay or other websites for purchase.  It includes a navigation touchscreen at the bottom of the device, hard buttons on the left and right of the bezel to navigate through your screens or books, a web browser (extremely slow and clunky), built-in dictionary, two games (Chess and Sudoku), audio player, speaker, and 3.5mm headphone jack.  The power button is on the top, and the USB connector is on the bottom with the jack and speaker.

Nook First Edition was an okay start to Barnes & Noble’s e-reader experience.  The touch screen at the bottom is a little touchy and awkward to navigate, but it works.  The Nook First Edition has eInk technology, which provides a nice emulation of an actual book page, and approximately 1.2GB internal storage for up to 1,500 e-books.  E-books can be in EPUB, eReader PDB, or PDF formats.  The device also comes with 3G and Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi only, to purchase books through the Barnes & Noble shop and download them to the device. (more…)