Last night, the family and I went to Best Buy.
Now, I usually avoid retail stores as much as possible. Even going to the grocery store is something I dislike. Sadly, I couldn’t escape it last night, but I did come away with some random thoughts.
E-book Readers
The store had the Kindle, the Nook, the Nook Color and Sony’s reader all on display, as well as some models I didn’t recognize. Clearly, the Kindle is the machine to beat. At $139, it was the cheapest contender, and by far the best. The screen is simply wonderful.
Reading on an iPad, laptop or even the Nook (based on last night alone, granted) makes my eyes tired. Maybe it’s the backlight, the glare or something else, but I just don’t enjoy it.
However, the E Ink screen on the Kindle is great. While it’s far more limited than the other products out there — no backlight, no color — it’s perfect for reading.
I think my wife will be getting a graphite Wi-Fi model for her birthday.
Google TV
While it is clear Google TV is in trouble, let me tell you — it really is. Best Buy had the Logitech Revue and Sony’s Internet TV on display. Apart from the hardware being laughable, the software is a mess. It feels … janky. Moving between TV and the Internet just feels weird and hobbled-together. The interface is slick looking, but slow at time.
In my 20 minutes of playing with it, I was the only one who touched any of the demo systems. Just sad.
3-D TV
Let me say this now — I don’t own a television. My wife and I have a 24" iMac, and it is our media hub. It gets the job done nicely.
Let me also say this — I just saw my first 3-D movie. It was Tron: Legacy two weeks ago. I didn’t like 3-D at all. Maybe I did it wrong, but I had a headache after seeing Tron. It didn’t add much to the experience of the film, and just felt gimmiky.
I had the same experience watching part of a football game on a 3-D TV at Best Buy. Yes, it’s neat, but it doesn’t add anything for me. Except eye strain. And a set of glasses that makes everyone look like a goober.
However, the 3-D demos drew people in at the store. Several people — including an elderly couple — liked the demo, and spoke highly of the experience.
I just don’t get it.
DVDs
We spent a few minutes checking out the DVD section at the store. Best Buy has always had a great collection of media, but in a world with iTunes, buying physical media just doesn’t make any sense to me. Yes, physical media doesn’t go away if I have a hard drive crash, but I have a sweet backup system in place for my media.
Physical media is pricey. Toy Story 3 was like $20 at Best Buy. I paid $9.99[1. Yes, the HD version is $19.99, like the DVD, but I don’t often go for HD versions of media quite yet.] for it this weekend on the iTunes Store.
Best Buy Itself
Best Buy is usually a pretty horrible place. However, the store we visited just opened a few months ago, and all of the staff were helpful and nice. And even clean, which is an improvement over the store’s other locations in Memphis.
While things like Amazon and eBay are great, it is really nice to be able to go and play with devices in real life. That’s something the Internet just can’t pull off.