Which Ebook Reader Is Better, Kindle Or The B&n Nook?

Posted on February 6, 2010 - Filed Under Kindle Accessories | 9 Comments

Nook hаѕ ability tο share books wіth friends, access Google assets аnԁ borrow frοm public libraries. Kindle іѕ time tested аnԁ available rіɡht now.

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9 Responses to “Which Ebook Reader Is Better, Kindle Or The B&n Nook?”

Natural on February 7th, 2010 1:18 am

Actually there are quite a lot of places where you can find free ebooks for the Amazon Kindle. Some examples are here (some are available on the Amazon Kindle store as well):http://manybooks.net/http://gutenberg.org/http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…
I’ve compared the Nook and the Kindle, so let me tell you my findings. From the official page of B&N, here is how the Nook compares with the Kindle:http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/compa…
Since Barnes and Noble page is only mentioning the advantage of the Nook over the Kindle, let me try to tell more about the benefit of the Kindle 2 over the Nook:
- There is no internet browser for the Nook. So even with Wi-Fi, you can only use it to purchase book. You cannot do searching in Google, Wikipedia, check email, etc., like what you can do with the Kindle.
- The Amazon Kindle has international free 3G wireless which covers over 100 countries. So even if you’re in places like the UK or Australia, you can access the internet with the Kindle free of charge. The Nook has wireless only within the U.S., and is limited for use of buying books only
- The Kindle is available outside the U.S. (it ships to 176 countries), while the Nook only ship within the U.S. at this moment.
- The Kindle has text-to-speech function, so it can treat an ebook like audio book. This function is not present on the Nook.
- The price of ebooks for the Nook on Barnes and Nobles are more expensive than the ebooks on the Kindle. This can make quite a difference in long term, the price difference adds up as you buy more books.
- Amazon is already doing some change after the Nook is announced (still more than one month for it to be available). They dropped the price of their International Kindle even further. And they are going to release a PC software which can read their Kindle books. They also added native PDF support for their Kindle 2.
One more thing to be aware is that, at first glance you may think the Nook can read ebooks with color touch screen. But indeed the color touch screen is only a small screen beneath the greyscale eink screen, and seems it is only used to browse the cover of ebooks.
In my opinion, it is a tie between the Kindle and the Barnes and Noble. But if you may travel and you enjoy reading during your trip, you should go for the Kindle for sure. Moreover, I trust the Kindle will come up with some strategies very soon, like improving their lending book function. The Kindle is the biggest player in the ereader market right now, and I believe it will put enormous effort to hold its position. Finally, if you’re an avid reader, price of ebooks will also be a big concern, as ebooks on the Nook are more expensive.
I recommend this article as well, it is the best review on ebook readers I’ve ever read:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…
Just check up their homepage to see the latest price of the devices. The price is most up-to-date, and if there is any price change it will be reflected immediately on their homepage. BTW, the Nook seems to be in stock only in Jan 2010, so you’ll not be able to get it in X’mas…
Hope this helps you decide.
☆♫Ŋ¢§♫☆ on February 7th, 2010 7:32 am

I would choose the Kindle. First off, the public libraries/ google books available on the Nook are mostly the public domain books, which are available for a few bucks or free on almost all Ereaders (including both the Kindle and Nook). An advantage that both the Kindle and Nook have over other EReaders like the Sony is that both Amazon and Barnes and Noble are chiefly book sellers, not technology people like Sony, which means that they have more books available and often the books are cheaper.
Since you are trying to decide between the Kindle and the Nook, I would check this blog (in sources). I bought a Kindle at the beginning of summer this year, and was concerned that I’d made the wrong decision when I heard about the Nook. This article helped calm my worries.
I must admit that I am, as a Kindle owner, a little bias to Amazon. However, I will say that the Nook looks pretty cool. I do think that if you decide to get it, though, you should wait until at least a second edition, so that some of the kinks will be worked out. It was the same way with the original Kindle, Sony and basically every other EReader and piece of technology out there.
Jayme on February 7th, 2010 7:48 am

Keep in mind that that lending ability is only for about half of their books, about 1/3 of the NYT best sellers and that you can only the the book ONE time for two weeks. Period. That’s it. If you have multiple kindles on your account (albeit, sharing a credit card) you can share almost all the books up to 6 times.
Kindle can access Google books as well, they just don’t advertise it because honestly most of the Google books are poorly formatted. You’d be better off going to project gutenberg or manybooks.net. Google books are all free public domain books. Amazon could claim these too, but they decided they don’t count for them.
As for the borrowing from public libraries, make sure you check out what’s available at your local public library. Ours doesn’t offer any e-lending and most I’ve heard of have very, very little e-lending available.
The reviews so far have also been that the Nook is unfortunately slow and clunky and has a lot of bugs to work out.
The Kindle has most of the bugs worked out, and excellent customer service on the few problems they do have. It allows you to purchase books overseas (a HUGE issue for anyone who travels). It seems to have a slightly larger book selection with NYT best sellers and older paperbacks and slightly lower prices overall. Right now, I think the Nook looks snazzy but has some issues it really needs to work on to become a true competitor.
Angel on February 7th, 2010 2:40 pm

Amazon Kindle 2http://tinyurl.com/ybj5f8n
Review:
As one of the original Kindle’s biggest fans and an owner for over a year, I can speak to the Kindle from two perspectives–the benefits of owning a Kindle, and Kindle 2 improvements (as I’ve now had it for half a day)
The benefits of owning a Kindle (these do not change)
- Absolutely, Jeff Bezos is right that the Kindle ‘disappears’ as you read it…as I read other reviews (and non-user critiques) about the Kindle, this point is often lost. Once you have the Kindle in your hands, you forget everything and become immersed in the content of what you’re reading. Isn’t that really the whole point?
- I read more now that I have my Kindle, 10 years out of college than I did when I was in school, and I really enjoy it. Books look a lot less intimidating when they aren’t sitting on your bookshelf and 3 inches thick. I recently finished Team of Rivals, and I am sure that if I had to read it in book form, I would never have gotten through it because it would have felt so intimidating.
- Heft and weight is a complete non-issue with the Kindle. I like to read in odd positions (in bed, on the couch, on a plane, poolside, shifting around in a lounge chair) and I’ve always had trouble with real books because unless you are in the absolute middle of the book, it always is weighted to one side or another and frankly, my arm and pinkie finger gets tired holding it up. The Kindle is balanced and portable, and entirely usable in any situation.
- I can be in the middle of a lot of different books at once…not much more to say here. You never run out of space on the Kindle, and though it may be a little bit hard to maneuver around a lot of books in your library, it’s still better to have access to all your books at any time.
- I now read newspapers. I always found physical newspapers to be clumsy and take up too much space to actually subscribe to. They are great for short content pieces, but terrible for reading in transit because the pages are so big. I also read some articles on my BlackBerry, but find myself scrolling a lot and waiting a long time for page loads. On the Kindle, you have wireless delivery, easy navigation, no ads, no need to flip to page D17 and find the place where you left off. You also have a searchable/annoted/bookmarked archive of all your newspaper articles if you ever need to find something again.
- All of these things can probably be accomplished with any eBook reader. The difference with the Kindle is that you have wireless delivery of content. This means, literally, that I can be sitting on the plane, start talking about what good books the guy sitting next to me has read recently, look it up on my Kindle, read the reviews and download it before the rest of the passengers have boarded and the plane doors close. This has happened.
- My biggest complaint, which I’m sure will be addressed in due course is that the entire wireless benefit does not exist outside of the US. I have taken my Kindle to Canada, Mexico and China, and I found that I had to (gasp), decide what I wanted to have on my Kindle before I left the US. Foreign language support would also be a plus, but again, I see why this might come later.
Now, onto improvements with the Kindle 2
- There are the obvious ones: sleeker look and feel (it feels solid in your hands), sharper screen, no longer accidentally depressing the next page button by accident and having to find your place in the book again…you can read about these from various sources)
- The 5-way button, though a bit small, allows you to select left and right, and not just up and down like the original version. This is very helpful when you want to select and highlight.
- There are now two layers of interaction…before when you were reading a paper, you could only go back to the previous screen to select the next article. Now, there is an option at the bottom of the screen to skip to the next article when you tire of the current one.
- Page loads are much faster. I can feel that the delay between pages is much less. Only issue is I need to recalibrate now–in general, I try to anticipate how much time it will take the next page to load, and when I’m two lines from the bottom, I would hit the next page button. Now I need to push the button later.
- Text to speech is cloogey, but fun. I’m not sure how useful this will end up being. I tried to have the voice read the user’s manual to me and it paused at commas and periods, but skipped right over hard returns. It also scrolled the page as it was reading, so if you are trying learn English and don’t mind developing a metallic accent, it could really help. You can also choose, male/female and speed. I think this could be a nice feature, though probably won’t be using it all the time.
- Managing your books is much easier. It’s easy to see what is in your archive and re-download onto the Kindle. Also easy to delete and manage your books. That
Cheetuh0 on February 7th, 2010 7:36 pm

I own the Kindle 2, and it is easy for me to say I love it! I think I’ve read over 20 books so far.
I love my Kindle because it has helped me improve a lot on my efficiency and utilize my time. Before I owned the Kindle, waiting time like when I’m waiting for friends or waiting for shuttle bus or some thing like that is simply wasted. Now I just need to bring the Kindle 2 along with me. Another thing I like the most is the text-to-speech function, which means I can “read” books without even holding or looking at the Kindle. Now I like to use this function when I’ve myself busy on some boring things, say when I’m on the step machine or doing some housework…
I like reading and at the beginning I missed a bit on the feeling of reading books. But now I love to hold the Kindle, the e-ink seems to work very well, it is really like reading books… Now I often read with the Kindle for several hours but I don’t feel tired.
Below is where you can purchase your own from amazon.com:
Mike P on February 8th, 2010 1:29 am

The Nook does not have web browser. For me, I’ll go for the Amazon Kindle because internet access is so important. The books on the Kindle is cheaper than the books on the Nook too.
This is a review from a top reviewer and a book lover, see how she says:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…
Hope this helps.
Smarto on February 8th, 2010 3:07 am

I’ll suggest you to get the Kindle instead of the Nook, it is much more mature.
For the free books on Google and Nook, they are just books in the public domain that you can find download for free in many places. Read the article here, it mentioned Barnes and Nobles and other ebook readers by the end of the review:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…
Pauline A on February 8th, 2010 4:41 am

I own the Kindle 2. If you ask me to choose again now, I’ll still go for the Kindle instead of the Nook, because I think the web browsing function is rather important (the Nook does not have a web browser). The free internet (and now it is free international internet) plus the web browser allow me to look for information whenever I’m in need. It is really a cool feature that cannot be missed. And right now it is free for both the U.S. and many other countries, it is just incredible when you bring it to trip.
I like to use the text-to-speech function on the Kindle too, meaning that I can “read” with my hands and eyes free…
And I remember I read this review when I decided to get my Kindle:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?i…http://www.speedreaderxreview.com/kindle…
Hope it helps
The Judge on February 8th, 2010 6:16 am

Wait for Sony ebook reader PRS-900 and see. Though it is a bit costly..Its way better than Kindle or Nook