As discussed the other day, the Barnes & Noble nook has received a new software update via some sort of fantastical voodoo otherwise known as wifi. I’ve had a couple of days to play with the new features. Let’s make some arbitrary observations on how good or bad they are.

Speed Increase

One of the first things you’ll notice with the new update is that pretty much everything across the board is a little snappier, from the UI to page turns.

The touch screen now seems more responsive to input. In the past, for example, scrolling up and down through the menus could be a bit of a chore. If you wanted to get the bottom of the menu and you flicked to do so, a lot of the time the screen would not register what you wanted to do, scrolling down instead just a couple of menu items and halting in a jarring manner. Now everything is tighter, with one quick flick getting you were you want to go.

Opening books and page turns have been improved as well. Opening new books has received a slight increase on the Percept-o-meter; the “Opening your book” dialogue that shows up goes away in a timely manner. Simply turning pages feels much better. As soon as you click something is happening. That something usually is page turn. Before, on some books, turning a page could take a couple of seconds sometimes, usually when the next page was an illustration or a new chapter. As of now those things have disappeared, and that is nice.

Also, since I have nowhere else to put this bit of info, when looking up words in the dictionary, you now have the option to type in the word instead of scrolling. This greatly speeds up looking for words.

Games

With the update has come new software. The first we’ll talk about are the games. Only two – Sudoku and Chess – show up with the update but there are quite a few more that I can think of that’d work; pretty much any “simple” board game. Othello, Checkers, Go. Any of those could work.

I had my doubts when I heard that these games would appear. E-Ink is not famed for quick enough refresh rates to accommodate “fast” things. For whatever reason my mind lingered on the Kindle with its one screen. I felt like playing anything on it would be an absolute chore. It turns out the nook has two screens, a fact I might have noticed after two months.

The games actually work really well. The E-Ink display shows the entire board while the touch screen shows roughly a third of it. You simply scroll to the square (in Sudoku) or area of board (in Chess), tap it, and input your number or move. It all works much faster than you’d think and is a nice diversion for when you don’t feel like reading.

Browser

Some other software that was included is a web browser. It’s labeled as being in beta, and it is. Like the games, it uses both screens to view the content and that helps it from not sucking like it would with a one screen only option.

The bottom screen also allows pages to be viewed in color, so you can actually view pictures, at least portions of them. Additionally, you can scroll with either the touch screen or the hard buttons. The left hand buttons go up and down the page and the right side moves the page left and right. It all works pretty well.

It all works well, it is true, but is it worth it to use it? Realistically only in a pinch. If you have a modern cell phone, the browsing on it will be better. It just will be. Additionally, you can probably browse anywhere. The nook can only browse when you’re connected to wifi, which I’m sure is a trade off of never having to pay for the 3G service. The keyboard on your phone will undoubtedly be faster to type on, as well.

With all of that said, though, most mobile pages render pretty well on the device and you’ll see them on a larger screen than that of a cell phone, which is kind of fun. It feels like you just won’t find too many instances where you will really use the browser, given all the limitations.

In Store Browsing

The last big, and arguably most important, feature that B&N has included with the update is the ability to go to a brick and mortar B&N and read nearly any ebook while within their walls for up to an hour. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to try this feature out, so there’s not a lot that I can write. It is, however, a really interesting idea that gives nook a leg up on its direct competitors. It’s something they will assuredly promote.

Wrap Up

I was fortunate to get my nook right before they released their second big update. I only had to use the original software for a short period of time; I didn’t get to become familiar with any of its idiosyncrasies. Then 1.2 came and for all intents and purposes fixed a lot of the problems people complained about. 1.3, with its speed increases and extra features, should make much of the complaints disappear. It’s not perfect, but nothing is, and if B&N can continue to roll out updates like this I will still continue to really like my nook.