"My reservations: it had a weak speaker, it felt a bit bendy, and it didn't seem to rotate the screen too often when I switched from horizontal to vertical orie

"My reservations: it had a weak speaker, it felt a bit bendy, and it didn't seem to rotate the screen too often when I switched from horizontal to vertical orientation." The speaker is positioned in the rear and it pushes sound away. I'm sure they did that for aesthetic (decluttered front bezel) and functional (no worrying about getting schmutz in the speaker grill) reasons. But, yeah, that causes distant, disembodied sound. I find my Nook Color solidly built for the price. The nice glass screen (I use an anti-glare screen protector to use it outside) is super-responsive almost to a fault. The plastic bezel is solid and finished well and doesn't seem to flex or pop when I hold it. The back plastic has a really grippy rubber coating that makes it nice to hold in one hand, as well. I think if they were to iterate, they should do away with the front plastic bezel and rock a total glass front, but I give it nice marks. I'd certainly consider paying up to 100 more for it and not be dissatisfied. About rotation, I think it's Apple's use of transitional animation that makes it feel like it's more responsive and, thus, more "accustomed" to it. The NC has the same accelerometer chip as the Xoom, so I think if you perceive any lag, it could be in the redrawing of the screen. That said, if you'd ever buy one, forgo all the installed software, root the device, and put a version of Cyanogenmod 7 (2.3 Gingerbread) on it. I use phiredrop 6. Stable as a table, full Android Market (and Amazon, btw), and youtube in fullscreen and flash in the browser.