Kindle vs Nook, Etc.

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MrsSpringsteen

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I'm thinking about getting an e-reader if the price comes down before Christmas (that's a rumor)-or asking for one as a gift. I have a friend who recently got a Nook, I have used it a bit and I like it, but the battery life does seem pretty low. Is the Kindle that much better for battery life and other features? The 3G is convenient but it does seem pretty spotty.

I've seen the Sony reader with the touchscreen and that is pretty cool but I don't know about the Sony book access. It is a bit tricky at first to get used to the way you have to navigate the screen with the menu on the Nook but it's also quite intuitive once you get the hang of it.
 
The main thing is, as with any digital download service, is that you want to choose the device locked into whatever store you would use more frequently.

It's really hard to argue for Barnes & Noble compared to Amazon's selection, to be honest.

Unfortunately, Amazon uses digital right management, meaning that they still have control over every book you buy from them and download to your device, which goes beyond the Orwellian iTunes DRM, even. Amazon has actually deleted a book off of peoples' Kindles before (albeit while issuing a refund), which is pretty worrying.

The Kindle also does not currently support the EPUB format of eBooks, which will have a good shot to become the international standard in a couple of years.

My advice would be if you don't mind being locked into buying stuff exclusively from Amazon, and of course being able to upload your own TXT files and PDFs, then by all means go with the Kindle.

eReaders will really hit their stride in a year or two, though, and you might be better off holding out. I am in this position and frankly books have been working fine for a while now, and I use the Stanza app for iPhone/iPad for my digital reading needs.

I'll pick up an eReader eventually but not this holiday season.
 
I don't think you can go wrong either way. Both are good devices and, at this point, almost identical.

I bought my Nook back in July. I chose the Nook over the Kindle because it was cheaper and was the only one that offered web browsing. Since the new Kindle came out, those two things are no longer true.

I've enjoyed my Nook. It does get a little buggy at times, but it's nothing that a reboot won't fix. The battery life is annoyingly short. It's advertised as lasting for 10 days, but it seems to be closer to five or six.

I also liked the Nook's touchscreen format more than the Kindle's buttons. It just seemed more intuitive to me and made web browsing simpler. But what I really love is the open format. I've been able to get books from a variety of different sources and haven't had ANY problems using them on the Nook. To me that's the biggest issue of all. Battery life, weight, features, etc. don't make a difference if you can't get the books you want to work on the device.

But again, I don't think there's a wrong decision here. Good luck.
 
How about just buying, you know, a book.

I have given away stacks of books the last two years and I still have too many. I don't have enough space. I can carry an e-reader in my purse and not have to worry about paperbacks-some paperbacks are too big for smaller purses and I don't want to carry around a feedbag :)

I'm against the death of books as much as anyone, if that will ever happen. But I do think I'd read more with an e-reader so if that would be the case I need one.
 
IF you happen to also be thinking to get a netbook or tablet or anything like that, I would recommend getting an iPad instead of these stand-alone e-readers.

I was also in the same boat as you a month ago, and I looked at all the options, and I thought with an iPad I can also do my emails, browse the web, listen to music, and do a whole of other things with the apps. Yes, unfortunately it costs about 3x more, BUT with an iPad, you can download all the e-reading apps from Amazon, B&N, Kobo, and of course Apple's own iBooks. I love having the option to pick and choose who I want to buy my ebooks from. Personally I think even though it's more expensive, it's a better investment in the long run.

Kobo's app is pretty decent too. And all these merchants may be competing right now to give you discounts/promotions on ebooks. Each app has its own advantages/disadvantages. iBooks has seamless page turns, Nook and Kobo has the night reading feature that I love to use. They basically switched the background from white to black, and vice versa for the text, so you can read in the dark with very little glare from the screen. With kindle or nook, you can't read in the dark at all... From all the iPad e-reader apps I've downloaded, I'm most disappointed with Amazon's. I think they deliberately spend less time updating their iPad app so that people will buy the kindle hardware instead.

The graphics are also more aesthetically pleasing to the eyes on iPad (if you care about that at all). And if you have ebooks in EPUB format, you can basically read them from iBooks (by adding the books to your iTunes library). I still don't know how to add these epub books to the B&N e-reader app or kobo yet. They (and the Amazon app) basically connect to your store's account and access the books that you have bought from their stores online. So you can't read anything that you've bought (or obtained) from other stores.

I'm also a bit of a reluctant convert from regular books to ebooks. I still purchase regular books, but I can't deny that the ebooks give me joy because I can highlight certain things, make notations and bookmarks and can easily refer to them later on. Or I can search the entire book for a phrase with just a click of a button. Right now I'm just worried about how to back them up to make sure I don't lose them... I think it's easier to lose a digital file than a physical book...
 
I recommend Stanza for your non-DRM eBook reading. Best, most customizable eBook app out there, and I've tried em all.
 
^hm, i may try that. how do you get the ebooks loaded so you can read it from the app?
You either download one of the thousands of free, public-domain eBooks available from inside Stanza (it has catalogues from the major public domain book sites like Project Gutenberg - free ebooks online download for iPad, Kindle, Nook, Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony Reader), or in iTunes in your iPod Touch / iPhone's applications tab you can drag and drop eBooks into the application from your PC or Mac's desktop.
 
One day I'll break down and get one, but I'm not quite there yet. I just can't imagine not actually holding the book, but maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised, I don't know. I think what would make me give in would be taking another really long vacation.....just like the iPod kept me from having to schlep 50 CDs with me wherever I traveled, maybe this would keep me from dragging a bunch of books around.

I'm quaint, too, like GAF, I fucking love my books.

Aieeeeeeee.
 
I went to my Barnes & Noble last night after oh about a month of not setting foot in it (I do my book shopping online now) and they had redecorated and now almost half of the space in the front of the store is now dedicated to nook and its accessories. They set up tables with sample nooks that you can play around with just like at the apple store. And there are two employees walking around in awe you have any questions about nook. The shift to ebooks is now apparent too at the brick and mortars... :)
 
An iPad would be nice if I hit the lottery, but that's way out of my budget. I'd rather get use that towards a laptop when and if my home dinosaur Dell desktop dies. Steve Jobs doesn't need my money (debt) anyway.
 
Ugh, that Nook LCD is pretty frumpy-looking, at least from an industrial design pespective. Amazon is by no means amazing at product design but the Kindle has steadily improved into something pretty damn sexy with the latest black hardware.

And really, what's the appeal of a 7-inch LCD tablet that's squished between a lightweight reading-only device (Kindle) and an App Store ready iPad?

I think the appeal of the Kindle and original Nook is really the e-ink screen and in turn the amazing battery life. It does one thing and it does it really, really well.
 
Maybe the price difference is the only appeal? If you can still do enough net stuff on it for your own needs and you don't have to shell out at least 250 more for an iPad. I can't see the iPad price coming down any time soon, unless competition dictates. I think they have a big enough market share that they don't have to worry about that. Even in the midst of the worst recession people were in huge lines for the iPad when it came out.

I was on the Borders site a few days ago and they have one that's 299, I didn't look at it long enough to see all the features. I didn't even know they had readers.
 
I think B&N is moving in the right direction that they're trying to differentiate Nook from Kindle. The new Kindle is definitely dominating the market compared to the Nook, and there have been criticisms that Nook is not as robust or light or sleek as the Kindle.

Different people are looking for different things on their e-readers. Although I was impressed with the e-ink technology and the long battery life on these devices, my reading habit benefits more from an LCD screen. I do a lot of my reading in bed, at night. So the ipad has really been beneficial for me. I can hook it up to charge it for the night and still read from it. If I fall asleep reading on it, I don't have to worry about turning off the lights, the ipad will just turn off by itself. And now the Nook color is a cheaper option for some people with the same reading habit.

B&N also said with Nook color they hope to make illustrated books available as e-books and so kids can learn to read on the Nook as well. Personally if I had kids, I would stick with books for them. It's something they can bring everywhere without having to fear that they would break it or lose it or drop in the toilet, etc.

Oh, and I didn't know Borders had their own e-reader device? Unlike Amazon and B&N, I thought they didn't manufacture their own e-reader, but they partnered with someone else, like Sony and Kobo, to market sony & Kobo e-reading devices. They're way behind the game compared to Amazon and B&N in e-reader/e-books market though... Wall Street Journal reports that B&N only has 5% of the e-book market (Amazon has 50% and Apple has 10%) which is really surprising. B&N contends that they have 30% of the market.
 
Yes-it's Kobo (never heard of that) and some other one called Velocity and they also sell the Sony readers.

I can't imagine that Amazon won't be coming out with a new Kindle to compete with the new Nook.
 
Nook--Uuuggh!

My brother and sister-in-law bought my technologically inept mother a Nook for Christmas. Because they are short sighted and somewhat selfish they did not care to see if Mom could figure out how to work the damn thing. Turns out, she couldn't. I was drafted Christmas day to set it up for her.

Waaaaay too much trouble if you ask me.

1. You need a wireless connection to do just about anything on it. I thought that like an ipod, you would be able to plug the Nook into a computer to download books. Nope. If there is a way, I haven't been able to figure it out. My parents don't have a wireless signal; they haven't needed one. Until now.

2. Although the ebooks seems to be cheaper than the Kindle's, the added hassle of setting a a wifi connection is a pain. Also, my mother was wary about providing her credit card number to download a "free" ebook.

I told her to return it and buy a bunch of books with the store credit.
 
1. You need a wireless connection to do just about anything on it. I thought that like an ipod, you would be able to plug the Nook into a computer to download books. Nope. If there is a way, I haven't been able to figure it out. My parents don't have a wireless signal; they haven't needed one. Until now.

I don't get it. Are you saying you can't transfer books from the computer to the nook ?:huh:
 
^ yeah, i'm pretty sure with the wi-fi only version, you have to be connected to wi-fi to access anything.

if she wants to keep it i'd suggest she upgrade to the 3g/wi-fi one so she wouldn't have to rely on wi-fi. but in her position it's probably best to return it, like you suggested to her.
 
My mother got the WiFi version and she returned it for the WiFi/3G (she doesn't have WiFi either). I think she did download some books onto her computer but I'm not sure-she had it back and forth to B&N so many times and they did some of it for her. I think you can do it via the USB cable and I assumed it worked in a similar way to the iPod.

Barnes and Noble has Nook classes- I went to one with my mother and it was kind of amusing, it was all older ladies who didn't know much about the whole thing and they thought I knew so much. But the learning curve seems pretty easy. Of course my mother wanted one so badly but she hardly ever uses it :huh:
 
You can add books via the USB. I do it on mine all the time.

When you connect the Nook, it will appear as a drive on the computer (like an external HD). Then you just drop and drag the book that you downloaded into the "my documents" folder. Eject it, then open the "my library" option on the Nook and it will be located in the "my documents" folder.

I'm not a Nook apologist by any means. There are things I would change about it. But I wouldn't call it complex or confusing by any means. It's on par with an Ipod or any similar technology in that regard.
 
It loads as an external HD just like anything else. That's how you can customize it to make your own wallpapers and screensavers, add music, etc.

As far as using it for storage, the internal memory is pretty small, so I don't see where that would be an asset. You can use a mini-SD card for extended storage, but I don't remember off the top of my head how big you can make it.
 
I believe it runs on a android version. And if the android is running on the same memory, then it's advisable to keep 1 or 2 GB free. Otherwise there are chances of a memory corruption.
 
The software. I read somewhere that it's internal memory is 2GB. But actually only about 1.2 or 1.3 is available for storage. So I think the OS runs from the internal memory itself. And because it has a MP3 player and a few more features, that much memory is not sufficient.

It's too easy to fill it up to the brim, which would lead to major memory corruption issues later on (if the OS uses the same memory)
 
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