The Minneapolis Star Tribune [NOOK Newspaper]

eBook captures the basics, but that's it. And yet it's full price?

I bought a Saturday copy for my nook. The eBook has most of the major stories of the paper version. I found it convenient to have on the nook, particularly for my train rides into work. However, it's missing a lot of items in the paper version. Specifically, small snippets of stats and short news items, as well as the comics, puzzles, movie listings, calendars, etc.

Basically, the Nook version gives you the major stories of each section, and that's it, but yet the price suggests you're getting a full version of the paper. If the price reflected the reduced content, I'd buy, but I probably won't pay full price for such reduced value.

41 out of 41 people found this review helpful.

Reduced content at full price

I was disappointed that the full paper is not included with the eReader version. It has the main sections, Front section, Metro, Business but is missing the Variety section (movie listings, comics, puzzles). I wouldn't expect full price for only partial content. The overall interface works, just disappointed that I can't replace the printed version with the eVersion.

18 out of 19 people found this review helpful.

Do not reccommend

This is not the entire paper. So very disappointed. No comics, no obitiaries.

Dynacard

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Do you really get less for the same price? Maybe Not Anymore.

OK firstly I am a nook user of about 2 months now so part of what I'm doing is to compare it to say the average eBook as well as the actual print version of the paper. My guess is that my comments might hold for other papers as well.

The big thing that is really different of course is in photographs. The nook is ok at displaying those little woodcuts of people in the Wall Street Journal kind of thing but not the big splashy images you probably take for granted on the print version of Star-Trib.

The first thing I noted in my .50 copy of the Star-Trib is the length which today comes in at 338 pages. Now that is a pretty good bargain compared to a lot of books you get on this venue and even better with a subscription I suppose but I have one major caveat on this. Unlike the books where there is a table of contents this "newspaper" does not fire up to one. HOWEVER if you use the small color cross section at the base there is a function to move through the edition by sections for instance finding the Sports section (page 136 today).

Frankly I was pretty surprised at how long it was. You could spend a lot more time reading this than you would the paper version typically. The length of the Friday edition I'm trying read right now as I mentioned is that of a 328 page book which does not square with some other interviews I've seen leading me to guess either they are gradually building in more or that the interviewer may have missed some things or been talking about the Star-Trib website or something. Frankly I myself expected it to be a repackaged version of the website but since when did you get the equivalent of a book on there?

Another thing I've seen in other reviews is questioning of the liberalness of the paper but to be honest I'm not one of the politicos who has to put politics into everything they eat, sleep, and breath. Still a newspaper is a vehicle of opinion so it merits mention but I wanted to point out that it's hard to read the Sports Section and say the paper is 100% liberal biased. I don't know but my understanding of Liberal versus Conservative is that conservative by and large resists change and limits it whereas Liberal is the yang to the conservative yin at least in a balanced format. If the Star-Trib is liberal then it's mainly a reflection of the state residents because it seems to me there is other ways to define a papers political stance which is whether they are inclusive or not. I mean heck they sure didn't leave out Jesse Ventura now did they? You can read conservative columnists every day in the opinion section if that is your thing and I'm not commenting on the liberal voices because it is always without exception the same bunch complaining about media in general. Mind you I don't care that much one way or another as I'm one of those classical judge the person by their actions sort of fellow but it seems to me the critique of this paper as liberal is a bunch of hogwash. Then again my favorite section is the one with the Twin/Wolves/Vikings and so on not to mention all the high school and college coverage.

So anyways back to a final pros and cons to reinforce what I think is the number one detraction of the Nook version at least and that is the display of images. Basically if you think of the images the nook displays of the B&N authors when it goes on standby then you know what I mean by a sort of woodcut look. Photos can be a bit better but it's not like paper. It'

3 out of 9 people found this review helpful.

A developing genre (with promise)

Firstly I gave it an overall fives star rating for one simple fact that I think the surviving newspapers need to get on top of a model like this to continue the work they do. The dissemination of information that has actual research and a reporter on the ground covering major events and issues simply is not something the American electorate can afford to do without.

As a life long resident I can attest that the Star Tribune has held up a higher standard and been less influenced by it's ownership than it's unfortunate sibling in St. Paul. As long as the paper basically criticizes any and all policy you'll hear complaints from left and right but in recent years it's been right wing dogma that the paper is overly liberal. I think it's a effect of their candidates holding the governorship and other offices not editorial bias. If you actually read the paper you'll note that they employ a number of conservative commentators but IMHO it's useful to ponder both points of view which reinforces the point I made initially why electronic versions are important.

Star Tribune is not unique in failing to fully incorporate all the print content it is an issue faced by all major regional newspapers. This is another point that undercuts charges of bias in that there is more than one version of the paper put out each day. The version in the Metro Twin Cities Area is not the same as the one delivered to out laying portions of the state. The one you get here will be the metro version so if you live in Rochester and St. Cloud you may notice some variation in articles for example.

The big caveat though is the question of charging full admission for a less than full product. What I would suggest is if you are on the fence to consider the daily edition particularly if say there is one big news story that you want more information on. For some people I suspect who establish a daily routine the ePaper will save time and paper.

That of course is another issue to be considered. One of the oft evoked points on these things is the savings to the environment. It's up to you to determine how much value you'd assign to this but even if you routinely recycle the print version it is still the source of massive amounts of chemicals and such. I suspect in the long run the big cost benefit will be in the lowered delivery cost but I personally do take environmental issue fairly seriously.

Finally I'd note that it seems to be all the rage to label folks either liberal or not these days to be honest I am neither and reject such a blanket approach. The paper is not 100% one way or the other any more than the people who work there are. In fact as is often the case I'd say it misses some of the bigger points of whether you want to adopt this version.

I think the point is it's as good a start as any and StarTrib like others are probably looking to some vehicle like this in the future as it's subscription and sales base grows.

3 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Good to see my local newspaper here, but...

It's missing a lot of stories. For example, the other day, my daily edition only had one story in the "News" section. I understand that the digital edition doesn't have all of the articles, but it should have more than it does.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

I was hoping for more

I thought maybe the newspaper would be simular to to my newsweek subscription which I works really good on my Nook. Missing to many items and it's easier to surf the tribune website on my nook.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Disappointed

I have read and enjoyed the Star for over 20 years. Unfortunately this NOOK version leaves much to be desired. It is missing many of the articles in addition to the comic section which I looked forward to every day. Let me know when they upgrade this...I might rejoin. Until then I am discontinuing.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Missing parts

I live in the area and have daily access to the published paper. This version is missing front page stories, several of the letters on the opinion page, the games and comics of the varity section.

I also contacted the Star Tribune, and they said they do not manage B&N paper subscriptions. So what's up B&N?

I will not be going beyond the trial period

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

The Best Newspaper out there for the Nook!!!

Love the Star Tribune newspaper for the nook. It may not give you everything the printed version will have, but it gives you enough to keep up with the news in Minnesota. I live in Atlanta and I am from Southern Minnesota, and it is just fantastic that there is something like this for people to be able to read and keep up with the news.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Great way to read the paper

Really like the nook option, wished it included the funnies and obitaries

Don't try the free trial. They will keep charging your credit ca

Don't try the free trial. They will keep charging your credit card. The newspaper in this format sucks. Not worth your time or money.

StarTrib not good on the Nook

the layout and the navigation on the Nook were awful.

President Obama Fiscial Cliff

Think Obama is doing well

This is he best paper ever

I love minneapolis because of the twins

OK: all news, no ads

I tried the 2 week free subscription, but I didn't think it was very friendly. All the articles were there and no ads, which was nice.

If I didn't want to go through the whole paper article by article, I had to keep going back to the table of contents to pick a new article to read. And all that was on the ToC were titles, no photos, no lead in, no clue what the article was about.

There were often large photos on the paper's front page that went with an article inside (like about the Olympics) but those did not show up on the nook front page.

At $10/month it's cheaper than having the paper delivered to my house, and saves trees, but I hope they do some user testing and make it better before I'll go e-news.

Cancellation Issues

I had to cancel this subscription TWICE as the firs ttime didn't work, after I was charged I tried ONCE again to cancel....we'll see if it worked this time.

The Newspaper is OK, but..

You read it in the same format as their web pages rather than in the format of a newspaper.

And for some reason even though I've canceled my subscription I can't seem to get rid of the listing on any of my Nook devices or my library.

If the presentation was more along the lines of a newspaper, I miht have kept it. As it is, no thanks.

Not recommended

Only good for looking up specific news stories. Browsing stories or the news in general? - forget it. I cancelled after 2 days.

Paper

First time reading star tribune and i loved it keep brocking and rolling