ErikaSzabo
on - last edited on
If you know of Pandigital, you probably know it for its photo frames. However, the company has moved into the hot e-book reader market with a device that a lot of people have been waiting for: an affordable color screen e-book reader with ties to a major bookseller.
Integrated with the Barnes & Noble's e-book store, the Pandigital Novel is an Android-powered e-book reader that has a full color 7-inch touch-screen display, Wi-Fi connectivity and multimedia capabilities.
In addition, the Pandigital Novel is boosted by ARM11 processor, has 2GB internal memory and a SD/SDHC memory card slot. The device features a mini USB port, built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery for up to six hours of reading and orientation sensor. This new Novel supports popular eBook formats including PDF and EPUB, and comes with built-in dictionary and word/character search function.
While the Novel makes a valiant attempt at being a value-priced, full-color, Android-based e-reader, it falls short of its mark. At $175 (price as of August 10, 2010), the Novel is expensive compared with (competitor)'s newest, $139, single-purpose, E-Ink-based Kindle e-reader. And as a tablet/e-reader combo that tries to compete with Apple's iPad, the Novel is slow, and lacks the full versatility that a true tablet user expects.
Using the built-in Wi-Fi connection, you can browse and purchase e-books from the Barnes & Noble e-book store or import your own EPUB or PDF files. (You can drag and drop files from any connected Windows PC or Mac, or load them onto an SD card.) Readability is something you can expect to struggle with on the Novel. The 7-inch resistive touch, 800x600-pixel LCD is mediocre, at best. When the screen is white (as it is normally is for reading books), the background sparkles to distraction; text is fuzzy, too, with the dots clearly visible. I actually found it easier on my eyes to use the night-read option, which turns the background black, and text to white--though the pixilation of the text was even clearer.
Screen quality isn't the only thing that suffers. The device's performance is sluggish, which makes basic navigation and even tasks like page flipping a chore (tap on the side of the page to go back or forward, or drag your finger in the direction you want to change pages). Some of the issues around responsiveness might be attributable to the resistive-touch display, which has an overlay to provide touch capability but proved incredibly frustrating to use, and unresponsive. Using a simple stylus does the trick, but that defeats the purpose of touch-screen capabilities.
The many preinstalled apps are useful. They include Barnes & Noble's Reader; a Web browser; music, video, and photo players; e-mail; a "shop B&N" app for buying books and more; an alarm clock; a calendar; a search app; one for importing SD Card content; and others for stocks, Facebook, contacts, weather, games, Adobe eBooks, a dictionary, and upgrading (for firmware updates). But no Android Market app (you'll have to get Android apps via non-Market sources).
While in theory I like the idea of having a tablet that does more, with such multipurpose functionality, in practice I found using the Novel tiresome enough that these experiences are better left to a smartphone handset or a laptop.
The Pandigital Novel is far too expensive considering its numerous faults. For those that need a portable device and who don't have a smartphone, I can see where this might have appeal, but the Novel is simply too slow and the screen quality is far to low a quality to fulfill many people's needs. The Novel is a positive step into the tablet universe, but it needs a lot of work before it can survive in this thriving industry.
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