A solid choice with excellent portability, interfaces and battery life.

I bought this particular tablet/e-reader for my mother as a Christmas gift. She was absolutely thrilled when she unwrapped it, and has continued to be with her fairly regular use of it for podcasts and books. I will be honest and say that I have ended up "borrowing" it on more than one occasion for YouTube and Netflix, and although this is not a particularly powerful piece of hardware, it more than does the job. The interface is very simple, and though the location for some things might not be considered "intuitive" (the settings menu in particular), it's been easy enough for my mother to navigate without feeling like she needs my help at every turn. The reader programmed into this is also excellent, though I suppose that is a bit of a given, as that is where Barnes & Noble really excels with their handheld devices. No lagging, easy to use, and the perfect amount of customization for the text to make your reading experience as pleasant as possible. I'm also very impressed with the battery life on this thing -- even if I watch videos for a few hours straight unplugged, I can't recall having to do any mad dashes for the charge cord in the past few months it has been in my family's possession. Also fantastic for my mother, who normally forgets to plug in her phone and laptop until notifications begin to pop up. Overall, this is a fantastic device. I would like to repeat that it is by no means a powerful one, but it works as it should without any trouble for the user. More importantly, it has made my mother's life easier and a little more pleasant, and I'm very happy to have purchased this for her.Read full review