There is an ever-growing market out there for e-readers and tablets. That leaves one confused as to which one is the best choice. Fear not, however, because I’m about to review one of these devices from the many available: The Nook Touch.

We’ll begin with the obvious factors: size, weight, battery life, and memory. I can tell you after a week or two of use that it’s very light (7.48 ounces), extremely portable (6.5 inches high by 5 inches wide and .47 inches in depth), and I’ve only had to charge it maybe twice after near-constant use—and the battery wasn’t even that low! As for memory, there’s a good amount: 1GB for content and 750 MB for B&N content, plus you can add a micro SD card, so I’m not worried about filling up the space too. The colour? You can have any colour as long as it’s black.

I’ll sum up how the device works in one sentence: If the original Nook and the Nook Colour had a baby, it would be the Nook Touch. It’s got a touch screen with the famous e-ink technology in it, and I love it. I used the original Nook for a long time, and then I used the Nook Colour for a while, (and the Nook Tablet isn’t much different from the Colour), and I found that as much as I thought the touch-screen was fantastic, I missed my e-ink screen. I couldn’t stand reading text on the Nook Colour screen for very long. I’m one of those people who, when I sit down to read, I usually don’t get back up for some time. If you read on a back-lit screen for too long, your brain starts to send subtle messages that it just can’t take much more of this. With the combination of touch and e-ink, my problem is solved. (Yeah you can’t read in the dark anymore, but you’re not supposed to anyway, silly.)

The screen (and really the whole body) is smooth and finger-print resistant. That means if you eat something sticky or really oily, you’re going to leave some fingerprints. So don’t come back, bashing this review because you snack while you read and you’re upset the Nook doesn’t have food-absorbing capabilities. The body, as I said, is smooth but with a nice grip texture on it, so that it will stay in your hand. The buttons are easy to push and quiet. I know ‘quiet’ sounds odd, but the buttons on the original Nook “clicked” and after a while it got on my nerves.

A few negatives? The unlocking sequence where you swipe your finger at the bottom seems to be a little buggy, but I’ve never had to swipe more than three times, so it’s really not that big of a deal. Even though it’s a touch screen, you also have page buttons on either side, and you can also change which buttons do what in your settings. While this isn’t actually a negative, it just seems rather arbitrary to fuss over your buttons when you can swipe away to your heart’s content. I was a little disappointed there was no colour on the screen, but that’s just me.

So is it a good device? Well it’s been claimed to be ‘the best e-reader’, and I’m highly inclined to believe it. It’s just an e-reader—no fancy internet browsing or silly game-playing or weird widgets, and it still has all your favourite in-store goodies like looking up unfamiliar words while reading with the 11^th edition of Merriam-Webster, and connecting to your local library. Yes, it does flash considerably less than the original Nook and the e-ink is lightning fast. Is it better than the other Nooks? I would think so, yes, but it’s all a matter of personal taste. Some people like the Nook Colour/Nook Tablet, and hate the e-ink, but I can’t imagine reading a book without it. So should you get it? For only 99$? Yes. Do it. Do it now.