Nook Simple Touch upgrade hands-on (video)

The Tablet could have gotten many of the glory at today’s Nook event, but there has been quite a lot of like to go around around the line. The colour got some solid multimedia upgrades , courtesy of Hulu Plus, Pandora, Rhapsody and so on, and the Nook Touch — referred to now because the Nook Simple Touch — received a couple of bumps of its own, beyond that price drop to $99. The Nook Simple Touch 1.1 software upgrade brings among other things, longer battery life — which, for obvious reasons, we won’t actually test effectively right this moment. In line with B&N, you might want to get two months of battery life reading an hour per day post-upgrade, versus as much as two months reading half an hour day after day pre-upgrade. The upgrade also promises a crisper display, and holding a pre- and post-upgrade Nook next to one another, the adaptation is unquestionably detectable. It isn’t an enormous difference, however the slightly darker text does improve the reading experience, over all.

Also at the list of improvements is a faster turn rate. Indeed, there’s a slight difference, with the updated reader scrolling through just a little faster (though the 2 readers did travel as we had them scroll through a book) — the upgrade, in accordance with B&N, will prevent a fragment of a second per page, so don’t expect to be wowed on that front. Both readers have roughly the identical refresh rate, doing a whole page refresh every six pages or so. All in all, some welcome changes to a nicely discounted reader, making the Nook Simple Touch an excellent contender for this holiday. Video of the page turns after the break.