Saying Barnes & Noble clearly rushed the Nook out prematurely “in hopes of stealing some of the Kindle’s holiday cheer,” tech columnist David Pogue issued a sharp critique of the device in the New York Times.

Here’s an abstract of Pogue’s analysis:

• “That ‘color touch screen,’ for example, is actually just a horizontal strip beneath the regular Kindle-style gray screen…Worse, the touch screen is balky and nonresponsive…It takes nearly three seconds to turn a page — three times longer than the Kindle — which is really disruptive if you’re in midsentence.“
• “It takes four seconds for the Settings panel to open, 18 seconds for the bookstore to appear (over Wi-Fi), and 8 to 15 seconds to open a book or newspaper for the first time, during which you stare at a message that says ‘Formatting’.”
• “’Over one million titles?’” Yes, but well over half of those are junky Google scans of free, obscure, pre-1923 out-of-copyright books, filled with typos.“
• “Fact is, Amazon’s e-book store is still much better. Of the current 175 New York Times best sellers, 12 of them aren’t available for Kindle; 21 are unavailable for the Nook.”
• “Kindle books are less expensive.”
• “What about the Nook’s built-in Wi-Fi? It’s there, but you get no notification when you’re in a hot spot. And if the hot spot requires a login or welcome screen, you can’t get onto it.“
• “And the ‘loan e-books to friends?’ part? You can’t lend a book unless its publisher has O.K.’ed this feature...Furthermore, the book is gone from your own Nook during the loan period (a maximum of two weeks). And each book can be lent only once, ever.“
• “It’s buggy. In four days, my Nook locked up twice and displayed an ‘Android operating system has crashed’ message twice.“

Does Pogue have anything good to say? Well…”Now, the Nook may have some hardware advantages — a removable battery, a memory-card slot and (because of narrower plastic margins) a slightly trimmer shape — but the Kindle is still a better machine. It’s faster, thinner, lighter and much easier to figure out. Its battery lasts more than three times as long (seven days versus two).”

The bottom line for Pogue? “Those missing features are symptoms of B&N’s bad case of Ship-at-All-Costs-itis.”

Read the full review here.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.