I read through the introduction, which included a brief overview about differing translations. I didn't worry too much about this because I have an older NLT that I use and haven't had any major concerns about. We own and use many other translations including an older NIV, CEV, KJV, ESV, NKJV, NASB,... well, we have a lot of Bibles. And we read them!
Then, I flipped through and really examined some of the photographs, illustrations, maps, notes & book introductions. I didn't have time to read them all, but the ones I viewed were helpful and made good use of the space available to be informative as well as aesthetically pleasing. In some ways it may seem nice to "break up" the monotony of black text on white pages, but there were a couple times I was reading several chapters in a row intently, and turning the page mid-sentence to see a spread of graphics I had to flip past to resume reading did interrupt the flow of my reading. It's a catch-22, I guess.