Kindle vs. Nook

Huge difference in cost and size. The small Kindle is very easy to carry.

 

Also, the Kindle is designed to have no glare on the screen...you can read it on the beach or anywhere with no problem. Not true for the iPad.

 

While waiting for them to service my iPhone last week, I played on the Apple store's iPad and I didn't like it. And I wanted to like the iPad. It just felt too big in my hands and I don't really like the iBooks app.

I was pretty much settled on nook, mainly because my B&N friend has talked me into it, but I may have to dig a little deeper and see if the Kindle is a better value.

 

I can't speak for the nook, but I love my kindle. It's been great, the battery life is awesome and the international internet is not a joke. I downloaded a book from a hammock on the beach in Grand Cayman this summer.

 

This is an article from last year comparing the two produts:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gadgets/kindle-vs-nook-an-e-reader-face-off/

 

To each his own, and didn't intend to piss you off. When I did my cost-benefit analysis of e-readers, the iPad graded out way ahead of the other two. One of the tipping points for me was that while I could download books from Kindle or BN on the iPad, I couldn't access iBooks on the others. Love the SI and Entertainment Weekly apps that leap off an iPad screen, and Zinio offers hundreds of magazines. I will disagree with 21's point about glare -- it hasn't been a problem at all with mine (I bought the cheapest Wifi iPad model, $499).

 

Linotype,

You didn't piss me off. For me, a $500 iPad is still overkill and with the recent price drops, that's still $350 more than a wifi Nook or Kindle.

The e-readers have reached a pricepoint for me that I'm willing to take a chance and see how I like it. And if I don't, I'm guessing I can sell it pretty fast on craigslist or eBay.

 

For me, there's just not a lot the IPad does that my mid-size laptop doesn't do better. It seems like a product made to fulfill functions other things are already fulfilling better. But that's an entirely different sort of debate.

I'm sort of in the market for an e-reader now, too, that the prices have dropped. I was tempted to get the Nook just because the Kindle seems more strongly tied to making you use Amazon and Amazon's products, but I don't know if that's a rational concern or not. Or if the Nook is any better with B&N.

 

My friend is selling me hard on the nook. He says another feature that the nook has that Kindle doesn't have is e-pub support. Basically, e-pub is your public library. So, what he told me is that you can "check out" books from your public library and get them sent to your nook.

And he keeps hammering home that the nook is backed by B&N so it has twice as big of a selection of books as Amazon does right now.

I don't know, I'm still kind of torn. I'm leaning towards nook, because I can physically purchase it at the local B&N and I can physically bring it into B&N if it's giving me problems. If I get a Kindle, I have to order it online and any servicing will also have to be done that method.

 

I had a small screen problem after I dropped my kindle and they just sent me a new one.

Can you order and get books via wireless on the Nook? I thought you had to sync up to a computer, maybe not.

 

Nook has two versions, one with wifi ($149) and one with wifi + 3G ($199). Both you can hard-wire to your computer also for updates, etc.

I think the very first one they released didn't have wifi, and that's probably why nook isn't the "household name" for e-readers yet. B&N rushed out the nook in response to the Kindle and they botched it up early on. But it seems like they've fixed the problems and surpassed Kindle, at least as far as features.