Nook receives its first update

When the Nook was first shipped out to reviewers and customers earlier in the month, there were a lot of complaints. There were issues with the e-ink display’s refresh rate, the touchscreen was slow at best, laggy more often than not among others. Barnes & Noble unofficially said an update would be out soon to right those issues, and today it made good on that promise.

The 1.1 update has been pushed to all Nooks connecting to the network. To get the update, just go to “the daily,” or “Check for new B&N content” in “my library.” The update takes a few minutes to download, install and reboot. There are some definite improvements over the 1.0 firmware, even if there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking. The refresh rates on the e-ink display are a bit faster, though still a bit slow. The touchscreen seems much improved, with less lag and more responsiveness, potentially getting rid of having to double tap, only to realize you clicked through two menus because it wasn’t responding fast enough. The reading screen has also been improved. The top of the screen now has the time and battery icon, with the bottom having the progress bar it had before, and the page count which was previously on the top of the screen.

Again, there’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but it certainly seems to be a big improvement over 1.0. Hopefully 1.2 can make the refresh rates even faster, though for those without a Kindle to compare it to, the current refresh rate should be fine. Its nice to know Barnes & Noble is updating the device while its still only in the hands of a few people. By the time most people receive it now, they won’t even know what 1.0 was like unless they read some reviews.