I know, I know.  Isn’t this supposed to be an illustrator’s blog?  Well, it’s mine, so I’ll veer off the topic when I feel like it. Today I’d like to talk about my nook.

I had a 1st generation nook with 3G. I must say I was pretty impressed with Barnes & Noble’s customer support. My original never had working 3G and they replaced it, no questions asked. Well, it was in the warranty period, so I suppose they were just honoring that. So, no serious brownie points there. Still, I appreciated it.

For more than a year, I hummed along with no complaints about my nook at all. I love the eInk. I love being able to bring all my books with me wherever I want to. Especially on vacations. I love the “Don’t Panic” bumper sticker I put on the cover because I thought it was funny. (If you don’t get the reference, go read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. You will thank me.)

But a couple weeks ago I had another problem. Somehow between page turns something broke in the screen. (No, I did NOT drop it!)  There was a stripe of the screen that wouldn’t refresh. Effectively obscuring the first character or character-and-a-half on the lower half of the page. It was annoying to read that way.

So, I took it to B&N, knowing that at a year and a half of age, the thing was out of warranty. They confirmed that the screen was broken and I’d have to buy a whole new nook. However, they kindly offered me what they called an out-of-warranty exchange. This is a deep discount on the price of a replacement Simple Touch to replace my broken 1st gen. I could have a $30 reconditioned one or a $50 new one. Since I was resigned to paying $139 for a new Simple Touch Glowlight (or $99 without the glowlight) I figured that was a pretty good deal. Plus, I’m cheap. So, why pay $99 when I don’t have to?

I ordered the replacement and a new cover for it. I got both of those in the mail today.

A few things I didn’t realize about the nook Simple Touch.

1. Simple Touch (and Simple Touch with Glowlight) do not have 3G. Bummer. But I don’t use it THAT often. So, deep breath, relax. I can deal.
2. It does not have any games. I’m not talking about anything sophisticated, but my 1st gen had Sudoku and chess. I liked my little Sudoku game. *sigh* But it’s a eReader, not a gameboy, so I’ll suck it up.
3. It has no web browser. I was in disbelief over this because I knew I’d talked to someone awhile ago after the touch screen first came out and she said it did have a browser. Am I remembering wrong? No, I am not. It used to have a browser. Not a good browser, but a browser none-the-less. But some internet research has informed me that it no longer exists. B&N took the web browser off of its Simple Touch.This is really annoying. The 1st gen had a rudimentary browser which was useful when traveling and away from the computer. We don’t have any smart phones or ipads in our house and I rarely take the laptop out with me. So, the 1st gen’s browser was kinda useful on occasion.

So, why am I not feeling all disappointed over my new nook which isn’t living up to my expectations?  (Okay, I am a little disappointed, but not too bad.)

‘Cause now I have a really good excuse to try rooting it.  If all goes well, I’ll end up with an eInk tablet.  If not, I end up with a $50 brick.  What do you think?  Should I void the warranty?  *evil grin*