Whenever I contemplate buying a gadget (like my new ereader) I usually explore Google to see what other people say about it. BUT I take everything said with a grain of salt because I have found over the years that they will let any idiot post a statement, comment or review on a blog or forum. It amazes me when someone bashes a product that I own and I find nothing wrong with it, yet the poster states all the vile things said product can't do. I have come to realize that there are stupid people out there who shouldn't operate electronic devices, or be allowed to post comments. It tells me they don't know what they are doing.

Anyways, I have purchased the Pandigital Novel Color Mutimedia Ereader from Best Buy on sale for $129 despite some of the poor reviews I read. Most of which were written last year, so not relevant now with product upgrades. I wanted the Nook, which I was going to buy at the end of the month when I received my royalty payment for my books. But the sale at Best Buy had a very good price, which made it even more tempting. I did my search and came to the conclusion that it was a good deal.

Now I have played with it for a couple days and have it almost set up to my pleasure. At first it was stubborn but I have a good knowledge of computers and gadgets so I just slogged through and got it to yield to my whims.

My decision, although it doesn't do the dishes like the Nook or Kindle, is that it functions to my approval. This tablet device is touted as an ereader, but it has the Android operating system and can do as well as it's Nook cousin. If you get the device, the first thing you should do is upgrade the firmware, which is what operates the device. The upgrade is found on the Pandigital.com website. The upgrade was easy from the computer connected to the Novel and took less than ten minutes. The upgrade improved a few things that made the unit run even better.

The unit hooks up easily to Wi-Fi to get the internet access, once I finally remembered the stupid password to get into the router, it worked fast and without bumps. I can hook up to Wi-Fi in many places around that provide free access, like the coffee shop or library. The unit is small enough to carry and not look too intrusive when out in public stealing Wi-Fi from your neighbors.

Now I can read books on it from Barnes and Noble or put them on the unit through the SD card, and download more books from the internet. I can grab and reply to my email, surf the internet once I figured out the browser that comes with it. I logged into Facebook and Twitter, I created a shortcut on the main page and now I can click to go to my FB page to read and comment. There are good number of browser features like bookmarking and zooming the pages, with buttons. I was able to go to my banking and check my funds and even check what shows are on TV.

It has a very nice music player that you can create playlists on and you can even listen to music while you do other things like reading or surfing the internet. It multitasks well. Music can be read from the SD card or internally. Got photos? If you have pictures of the family or porn you want to display, there is a great viewer and it will even do a nice slideshow that turns the unit into a nice slideshow picture frame.

I have a Sandisk device that can record TV shows on an SD card and I can load the videos directly with the SD card on the Novel and watch them. There was no stutter or dropped frames in my tests and the image is as clear as the original video. The only problem I had with the video player is that it only plays .mp4 which leaves out my collection of Divx movies. I just have to do a conversion and hopefully they will play. I tried to watch videos on Youtube but their website wouldn't let me for some reason, I will beat it into working yet.

There are tons of apps that can be downloaded for the Android system, but most are for android phones so many wouldn't work on the tablet, not the fault of the Novel, blame Android. But I did get a good number of apps to work and do all the things I require. I have a nice audiobook app that I have downloaded two books so far and will do more later. I'm not much for audiobooks but it's there, so I'll use it. I use the alarm clock now to wake me in the morning and it has a calender that reminds me when birthdays are coming up.

The touch screen works extremely well, I'm used to the touch screen on all my Palm products and this one moves and works easily with a light touch of the finger. Tapping is easy and does the job.

I like that I can put any picture as a back ground on it and the thing shows in vertical mode or horizontal just by turning the thing on it's side. Nice if I have wide pages on the browser to view. There is a volume control on top next to the SD card slot and a sliding control for Wi-Fi, then the opening for earphones or speakers. On the side is a mini USB port to hook up to the computer which makes it easy to install music, pictures or videos.

In all I'm very happy with the tablet/ereader. Sure, it's not a Nook but for half the price of the Nook it works for me. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, there are loyal Kindle fans out there as well as Nook nuts, I'm not telling people that they should buy this product, I'm just saying I like it. I may still get a Nook one day. Oh and I don't need everyone commenting on how wrong I am in buying the thing. This is my just opinion on a very nice buy. ;-).

P.S. There's a lot of nice features I don't have room to mention, just take my word for it.

April 19, to see new photos of the Novel in operation CLICK HERE