The good: Color e-book reader with vibrant 7-inch touch screen; zippy performance; built-in Wi-Fi; Barnes & Noble Nookbook store; 8GB onboard memory, plus microSD expansion slot; built-in Web browser works well; supports PDF, Word, and ePub files; displays images and some video formats; support for audio and MP3 playback.

The bad: Eight hours battery life for reading pales in comparison with battery life on e-ink readers; no access to Android Marketplace (or similar app store); more apps should have been available at launch; no Flash support (yet); battery isn't user-replaceable.

The bottom line: Barnes & Noble's Nook Color is a very capable color touch-screen e-book readerfor half the price of an iPad.

Back at the end of 2009, Barnes & Noble debuted an e-ink reader, the Nook, that differentiated itself from the Amazon Kindle by having a small color LCD at the bottom of the screen for navigation and keyboard entry, among other things. Now the company isn't messing around with a small strip of color and is instead betting the farm on a full-color e-reader that features a 7-inch touch-screen LCD, built-in Wi-Fi (but no 3G wireless), and has people asking: is it an e-reader or a tablet?

The short answer is both--or as Barnes & Noble is spinning it, this is a "reader's tablet." The product's design was handled by Fuseproject, the same firm behind Aliph's Jawbone headsets. The company's done a nice job of making the device look sleek and compact; it's more of a head-turner than the Samsung Galaxy Tab. But when you pick up the device, your first reaction will probably be, "Wow, this feels a little heavier than it looks."

At just a shade less than a pound, it's about twice the weight of the latest-generation Kindle, a bit more than the standard Nook (which weighs 11.2 ounces), but is significantly lighter than an iPad, which tips the scales at around 21 ounces. While you can argue over what's the ideal size for an e-reader, for a lot of folks, the Nook Color, despite a little heft, will seem geometrically appealing: it's small enough to fit in a purse or laptop bag (alongside your laptop)yet has enough screen real estate to show a good amount of text or display the children's books, graphic novels, and e-magazines Barnes & Noble's will be marketing toward owners of this device. (If you compare the Nook Color with the standard Nook, you'll notice that it's roughly the same width and only about an inch taller).

And what about the screen? Well, Barnes & Noble says it's a next-generation LED-backlit display (1,024x600-pixel resolution at 169 ppi, with more than 16 million colors) supplied by LG that is bright yet energy efficient. The product's designers added a special layer of laminate to the glass that covers the display to help cut down on glare and improve off-axis viewing. However, like any screen that has a layer of glass over it, it's not immune to glare and like the iPad's screen, it is a finger-print magnet and will potentially crack if dropped (we strongly suggest purchasing a case). That said, the touch mechanics are quite responsive and the device as a whole is satisfactorily zippy. It may not be quite as zippy as the iPad, but we didn't think the device was held back by any performance issues and we thought both text and images looked very good on the screen. Also, page turns were fast.

A lot of people wondered whether this would be classified as an Android tablet, and though the device does run on Android 2.1 (Barnes & Noble claims it will be upgradeable to Android 2.2 next year) and offers additional functionalityBarnes & Noble has deliberately left off the Android Marketplace place found on Android smartphones and such tablets as the Samsung Galaxy Tab. As a result, those interested in getting a full-fledged Android tablet for a good price will probably feel some disappointment with the Nook Color, because it clearly hasn't reached its full potential.

The Nook Color (far right) is similar in size to the Samsung Galaxy Tab (rear left) and e-ink Nook (top left), but is about half the screen size of the iPad.

Anybody who's got a smartphone will probably ask, where's Angry Birds? Or Flight Control? Or all those castle defense games? Scrabble? Some e-mail apps? Twitter? Facebook? Yes, in theory, they'll run just fine on the device, but at launch, aside from the inclusion of the Pandora music streaming service (props for that), Barnes & Noble is keeping the focus on apps and content related to the reading experience (i.e., crossword puzzles). Yawn.

So, fault Barnes & Noble all you want for not having an Android Markplace in place, but the good news is the company is planning to release a variety of add-on apps that developers are already working on. Also, just like with the iPhone, we expect alternative, non-official firmware versions to become available for more adventurous techie types to try out. In other words, it won't be long before we see a jailbroken Nook Color, so to speak.

But, of course, that's not really who Barnes & Noble is targeting with this device. No, it's decidedly geared to the average consumer, and while the user interface might not quite reach an Apple-level of user friendliness, we were generally impressed with how elegant the UI is and how easy the Nook Color is to operate and navigate. Anyone who didn't like the interaction between the touch-screen color strip and the e-ink screen on the standard Nook will find the full touch-screen interface a breath of fresh air. We also liked that the designers included a physical home buttonrather than a virtual one. The hard button makes going back to the home screen easier and it's well placed.

That home screen is different than the ones found on most Android tablets we've seen. You can drag and drop items you want to have quick access to into the middle of the screen, then navigate by touching menus on the bottom and side of the screen. Anybody who's used the iPad knows there are big advantages in moving to a touch-screen interface, especially when it comes to e-reading (you can highlight passages with a finger, look up words in the dictionary by tapping on them, and so forth).

Along with its large selection of e-books (Barnes & Noble says it offers 2 million titles in its "newly expanded" Nookbook Store), the company is making a bigger push into kids' content with its new Nook kids brand that features 130 "digital picture books" designed to take advantage of such color devices as the Nook Color and the iPad. At the same time, the company is highlighting how well the Nook Color handles periodical content, particularly magazines (one of the featured partners is National Geographic, but Barnes & Noble is also offering subscriptions for plenty of other titles).

We can't say those magazines will be a bargain price-wise, but they do look pretty good on the device. Yes, the screen is smaller than the iPad's, but you can zoom in and out by pinching and spreading your fingers, and there's a special "article view" that blows up the text and presents it in a more readable vertical column. Also, with a tap of button, you can access a thumbnail view that lets you scroll quickly from page to page and select the page you want. It's also worth noting that the Nook Color does display video, and the company says, "Periodicals, available by subscription and single copy, will continue to become even more interactive next year."

Another big push is into the social-networking arena, as the Nook Color makes it easy to share content on Facebook and Twitter through an integrated app that allows you to tell the world what you're reading--or just call out select passages (this is being branded as "Nookfriends" technology). Also, the LendMe feature, which permits you to lend certain e-books (the publisher must allow this feature to be activated) once for up to 14 days, is now integrated into the Nook Color's reading app. You can set up a network of friends on the device and share content, though the aforementioned restrictions apply.

Initial impressions
In many CNET reviews we spend a lot of time talking about how a device is designed and what its features are, but sometimes not quite enough about what it's like to actually use the device. So, here are some observations after living with the Nook Color for three days:

•     We liked the general responsiveness of the device. It operated more smoothly than we thought it would and the screen was sharp and offered enough resolution. No, it's not a Retina display, but it's got some pop to it.


•     That said, it's not quite as smooth and responsive as the iPad.


•     Books download extremely quickly to the device. In many cases, you can be reading a new book in less than 10 seconds; in some cases 5 seconds.


•     The device is a little on the heavy side. Reading in bed, you will probably end up propping it up on your chest (same is true of the iPad).


•     When we were on a good, high-speed Wi-Fi network, the Web-browsing experience was good. Unlike with the iPad, you can't spread and pinch to zoom in Web-browsing mode (you tap to zoom). Lack of Flash support is an issue, but iPad users know all about that.


•     We had at least one browser crash that locked up the device--funnily, when trying to browse to CNET.com's home page.


•     Using built-in Quickoffice software, we thought the device did a decent job handling PDF, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. The Nook Color is definitely more adept at viewing PDF files than any e-ink based e-reader.


•     JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP image files are viewable, and you can use any personal photo as wallpaper for the device.


•     To import files to the device, you simply connect the Nook Color to your computer via USB and drag and drop files on to the device or the microSD card (if you have one installed). The device will charge when connected to your computer.


•     There's no built-in e-mail client (as on an Android phone), but most Web mail clients should work. We had no problem accessing our Gmail account--something that's hard-to-impossible on an e-ink reader like the standard Nook or the Kindle.


•     You can drag and drop ePub files to a folder on the device and have a separate library of books you can access. In this regard, the Nook Color is more versatile than the Kindle, which does not support ePub. The Nook Color also accepts "loaned" ePub files from libraries.


•     Video support is fairly limited (you're dealing with Android Media Player). We tried some AVI files and Flip Video files to no avail, but had better luck with MPEG4 files that were compatible with an iPod/iPhone, Zune or PSP.


•     When playing audio with Barnes & Noble's children's books (some of them have a voice-over track that reads to kids), the audio levels from the speaker on the back of the device were fine. However, the audio levels with some of our video files didn't play loud enough (we had to use the headphone jack).


•     The shopping experience from the device has been much improved (it's much better shopping on the Nook Color than the standard Nook.


•     Barnes & Noble says it has improved its in-store streaming of books (yes, you can go into B&N stores and stream certain books for free for an hour at a time). We haven't had a chance to try it out yet but we'll report back when we do.


•     The Nook Color is rated at 8 hours of battery life for reading. That's actually OK, but when you run into problems is if you start doing a lot of Web surfing or running video. That's probably part of the reason Barnes & Noble doesn't want to emphasize graphically rich games. Doing stuff other than reading (except audio playback) definitely has a bigger impact on battery.


•     Some people complain that reading on an LCD causes eyestrain. We're a fan of e-ink displays and they are clearly superior for outdoor use, particularly in direct sunlight. But we didn't have a problem reading for well over an hour straight using the Nook Color's display and the LCD is viewable in dark environments (there are various screen settings, including a "sepia" and "night" mode).


•     The Nook Color offers six font sizes, plus six different fonts to choose from.


•     Barnes & Noble is selling plenty of accessories for the Nook Color, including a variety of cases and even signature charms that latch onto the Nook's signature "hook" at the bottom of the device.


• Much like the iPad, the Nook Color must be charged with its special charger (included) or via the USB port on your computer.

Conclusion
At the end the day, despite the limited number of apps available at launch, the Nook Color is a much more polished e-reader than the original Nook was when it launched. We've called this the poor man's iPad in the past, and though it isn't exactly that (with all its apps the iPad simply offers much more functionality), its reading experience certainly rivals that of the iPad--just on a smaller, more portable scale.

As for comparisons to the Samsung Galaxy Tab and other Android tablets, you gain something by moving to a "true" tabletbut the extra money you pay for the added app functionality may not be worth the extra dough, especially if Barnes & Noble can improve its app offerings and continue to tweak the device.

And that's pretty much the bottom line on this device. With a handful of additional apps, such as a dedicated e-mail client, more games, more media appsand the Nook Color could be enough of an Android tablet for most users. In the meantime, it splits the difference between the iPad and the Kindle pretty well, offering the color touch-screenat a price and size that's half that of the iPad. If you're not sold on e-ink and you don't want something as pricey and as heavy as the iPad, the Nook Color is your best bet.