MoD - and others

[nissangirl74]

Question for you:

I am thinking about buying my mother-n-law an e-reader for Mother's Day. The 2 choices I have narrowed down are the Nook and the Kindle. She loves to read newspapers as well as books. I have done some preliminary searches and found that they are very comparable except for a few things. It looks as though there are more titles available through Nook, some of them exclusively. Also, if you need customer service, it is readily available at any B&N in person. Have you had any issues with your Nook? Do you like the screen quality? Is glare an issue? Thanks in advance and anyone else who has personal experience with either, please feel free to chime in.

[szh]

I have looked at both - have also owned a B/W e-ink Kindle gen 2 in the past. My wife has a B/W Kindle gen 3.

But the Nook I have only played with (for some time though) at a Barnes and Noble book store.

As it happens, I am considering get a Kindle Fire soon ... I wish they had a cellular version (like the version I have now), but the WiFi version will be okay too.

My reason for the Kindle is two-fold. I like the size and feel of the Kindle that I have, and I also have a bunch of Kindle books already - including technical books I buy from other sources than Amazon.

By the way, one of the things I really like about the Kindle (don't know if the Nook has it) is that there are many classic available for free at the Amazon web site. I've been re-reading those on occasion!

Z

[numbnuts240]

refurb'd kindle fire on sale for $130 with the standard 1-year warranty today only through amazon. idk s*** about those things, just thought i'd put that out there since you mentioned it as a possibility.

[nissangirl74]

The "base-model" Nooks and Kindles are both on sale this week for $79; i was kind of hoping to stay in the <$100 range. Color vs B/W is not necessarily a determining factor.

[numbnuts240]

in that case, i got my mother a color nook for her b-day last year. she loves it. she reads on it, my niece reads on it, she plays games and busts out the pandora while she cooks/cleans/laundry all the time. idk how many of those features would be absent on the b&w nook, but from my experiences with the color model, it's a pretty decent gadget. if all she wants is something to read on, i don't think you can go wrong with the b&w nook, from my personal experiences and what you listed above.

[nissangirl74]

i think i am going to go to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to play with one. See what they look like in real life. More good news, I just received a coupon in the mail for an additional $20 off the Nook.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I own a Nook Color and a Nook SimpleTouch (the base model).

I love them both.

The SimpleTouch is really quite excellent. The size and form and physical design are absolutely PERFECT. The screen is great, and fairly flicker-free. It has a touchscreen interface while still being e-ink (using an infrared matrix just above the screen). The interface works well despite the animation limitations of the e-ink screen. You can either swipe the screen to turn pages, or use physical buttons behind the front rubberized bezel. It's very comfortable to hold one-handed, and the page buttons fall naturally under your thumb. It's lightweight, so your arms don't get tired quickly from holding up in bed. It also fits in my regular pants pockets or the inner pocket of my jacket comfortably, without being bulky or in the way.

My only real complaint about the SimpleTouch is that the "Home" screen doesn't facilitate eaily switching between multiple current-reads. It displays a large summary (including a cover image) of the book you're "currently" reading (the last one you opened) and, to the right of that, a list of books you've recently PURCHASED (not recently read or opened). The bottom shows an irritating list of recommended purchases based on past purchases. Which is silly. It should be a list of recently read books.

A second minor nitpick is that there's no way to disable the option to turn pages by swiping the touchscreen. That means that setting the device face-down on a soft surface (like bedding) often turns a page. With the page turn buttons on the face, I feel no real need for touchscreen page-turning, so I'd really like to just disable it altogether. But it's still not a huge issue.

Aside from those complaints, though, I really like my SimpleTouch. You can still access your whole library through the Library screen...but you have to scroll to find the book in question. And you can set up custom "shelves" (user-customized collections of books) which simplifies or at least adds logic to finding what you want.
Surprisingly, quite a few Nook Magazines are viewable on the SimpleTouch as well. They look okay, but obviously the Color or Tablet are the ideal viewer for magazines.

Battery life on the SimpleTouch is phenomenal as well. After 2 weeks of 2-5 hours a day of reading without charging, my battery was at 80%. That's pretty impressive, and actually better than B&N claims (they say 8 weeks reading 1 hour a day).

One thing to keep in mind with this base-model Nook, though, is that "enhanced" purchases made for the Tablet or Color won't carry over. I can't read my The Hobbit Enhanced Edition (which features high-res color art and audio clips of Tolkien singing and reciting poems from the book) on the SimpleTouch even WITHOUT the enhanced features. I'd have to buy the non-enhanced version to read the book on both devices. I think the ideal solution is for B&N to offer a non-enhanced version with every "enhanced" purchase you make, but I doubt that'll happen.

Another neat feature is that you can customize the "screensaver" (the art that displays when the unit "sleeps"...it doesn't change while sleeping, since e-ink's boon is that it only draws power when changing what's being displayed) with whatever images you choose. So I've got lots of exploded engines, big sedans, and Bar Refaeli set on mine.

As far as the Nook Color, it's a nice reader and makes taking lots of magazines on the go very simple. It also has a fairly decent web browser (the SimpleTouch has no web browser at all), and the interface is quite slick, with far better multiple-current-title management than the SimpleTouch. And it's hackable. I have mine triple-booting stock Nook Color, Android 2.3, and android 4.0. However, I think the processor and memory are a little below spec for what the interface and web browser need. Because of that, I'd recommend the Tablet over the Color...definitely worth the extra bucks.

There's also a new version of the SimpleTouch with a backlight coming out next week, but it's pulls a $40 premium over the regular SimpleTouch. (!!!!!) So screw that. Reading lights are tedious, sure, but not $40 worth of tedium. And battery life is the point of the SimpleTouch anyway, which isn't going to be helped by running a backlight all the time. The Color and Tablet are backlit and aren't all about battery life, so they make a more sensible nighttime reading solution.

I take my SimpleTouch with my EVERYWHERE, and I love that I don't even notice having it in my pocket, with a HUGE library of books available on a whim.
And I leave my Color plugged in on my nightstand, ready to review choice issues of magazines or listen to J.R.R. Tolkien singing some nonsense about woodsmen.

[Kompresshun]

Walmart had the Kindle for $79.99, with a $30 gift card included yesterday. I'm not sure if the sale is still on.

I still vote for the Kindle, as if you haven't heard me say it enough already

The Kindle interface is better, the screen is better, and I think it has an overall better form factor. My father in law likes the Nook interface, but me and Kristen despise it compared to the Kindle. The Kindle is simpler to use and there are a lot of other options out there for Kindle content. It's all a matter of personal preference, but I know a lot more people that like the Kindle a lot better compared to the Nook when it comes to E-ink.

Now when it comes to tablets, the Nook Tablet is more device for the money compared to the Fire. I tried both though and ended up springing for a real Android tablet instead. Once you hit $200 for a device, you might as well shop for a Android tablet, because there are sales on them all the time for less than $300 on refurb models. Not related I know, but just for reference

[300ZXttZMAN]

My mom has a kindle (not sure the model) and she loves it because she can bring it to the beach and still read it even though the sun is beaming down on it.

It has some type of film over the screen that makes it "glare proof". (for lack of better words)

[Jesda]

I tried them all, liked them a lot, and went back to paper.

[nissangirl74]

Greg and I decided on the Nook color. We went to B&N and spent some time with both of them. We both liked it much better right away so we decided his mom was worth it. I lucked up and received an awesome coupon in the mail the day before, plus I got a discount for being a member of the B&N club. WIN!

[alms24sebring]

I tried them all, liked them a lot, and went back to paper.

Agreed. Ebooks have alot of advantages as well as disadvantages. ^ But congrats, sounds like you made out with a good deal