I never thought I’d ever utter these words, but: I have e-Book Reader ENVY!
This past July, my parents were generous enough to buy me the Amazon Kindle for my birthday. Since I have a 45-minute subway commute to work, and I travel a lot for my job, a Kindle was the perfect gift. I read more books on there in 2 months, than I did ALL of last year.
Then, last night, my friend @brooklynbum had to go and spoil my contentment by showing me this story on Gizmodo about the new Barnes & Noble e-Reader, Nook.
←DROOL
Just from everything I’ve read online, here’s what I can gather about these 2 devices.
Of course, the Nook boasts a lot of the SAME standard features the Kindle offers:
- e-Ink Screen
- Sample e-Books
- Free Wi-Fi or 3G to download books
- 2MB of built-in Memory
- Built-in Dictionary
- Page Mark-Up ability
- Kindle & Nooks both have FREE versions for BBs, Handhelds and iPhone
How is the Nook BETTER than the Kindle?
- Touch Screen (sexy!)
- Color Book Cover preview window (extra sexy!)
- Memory Slot Card for expandable memory: you can carry your entire bookshelf on 1 memory card!
- MP3 Music listening capabilities
- No Keyboard (I think this is an advantage, because I don’t often use mine and I’d rather devote the space to an enlarged screen)
- e-Lend Program: Ability to “Lend” a book to a friend for 2-weeks. Very much like an old-school library system. Books can be shared & read on any B&N e-Reader platform: on a PC, Mac, iPhone or Blackberry. Sharing is caring. (extra EXTRA sexy!)
- No International version…yet.
How is the Nook is NOT better than the Kindle?
- Limited Wi-Fi book-browsing: at least for the launch, you can only access the free Wi-Fi and browse books in their entirety AT Barnes & Noble store.
- Limited Title Offering: Amazon will offer a more extensive title offering, so if you are looking for obscure books, you still need to buy an “old-fashioned” paper version.
- e-Book prices are slightly higher on B&N.com than Amazon.com
Honestly, I’m kicking myself a little for copping the Kindle in July. I’m a sucker for all gadgets, shiny & new. I’m sure there will be kinks/bugs that will need to be worked out – as with any new device. But the initial specs look very promising.
Very drool-worthy!
You can place a pre-order for your Nook on the B&N Site. Expected ship date November 2009.
What do you think about the new Nook? Are you going to get one?
It’s drool worthy, that’s for sure.
If only I could actually read it would be worth the money.
Oh, and the Nook can download via 3G anywhere, but if you’re in a BN store and on their WiFi you can ready any book for free.
Very very cool.
I was watching the tweeting live between BNBuzz and eBooksBN yesterday while the press conference was going on…and while they kept saying Nook was live on the BN site, and nook.com work…it wasn’t live yet. lol
)
Either way, the Nook does sound better to me. And personally, I’ve been holing out on buying and eReader for awhile now for the same reason you listed at the end of your post. Bugs.
My cousins is a librarian in Canada and actually HATES Kindle with a passion. She prefers the Sony eReader because she says the Kindle doesn’t work that well outside of the United States.
As for Nook — I’m going to wait and see. If I held out this long, I can hold out a bit longer (even though, my blog is actually available for subscriptions on Kindle — but *shhh* Amazon doesn’t need to know I don’t own one
I just had my bf pre-order mine for xmas. I originally wanted the Kindle because of its expansive library and wi-fi Now I can have all that and color book covers. I’m super excited.
The Nook does sound very pretty but I’m a big fan of paper binded books. I love physically holding a book and reading it. I’m also not a fan of Barnes and Noble. I prefer Borders. Even though the Nook is hot and totally to drool for, I think I’ll stick to binded books or wait till the Kindle becomes touchscreen and color.