Three readers, one week: today and tomorrow I’ll be featuring reviews of the new Sony Touch, the Kindle 3, and the Nook – the latter by guest reviewer Shannon Stacey. I personally didn’t like the Nook. It was bottom heavy. It’s interface was clunky, poorly responsive, and the LCD at the bottom was hugely annoying.I got the fail flower all the time. I didn’t think it was comfortable. I liked the Kindle better.
But that’s my opinion and I know many, many people who adore their Nooks (HOLY GOATS WHO CAME UP WITH THAT NAME?!) (I promise that’s the last time I’ll mention it) (Ha. I liked. NOOK?! REALLY?! It goes so well with
PubIc
I mean PubIt). So I wanted to allow those who really enjoy their Nooks (*cringe*) to have a chance to speak up about what they like.
I have long maintained that there is no one perfect reader, and much like cell phone advertisements, this isn’t the goddam Highlander where There Can Only Be One. There doesn’t have to be One Digital Reader To Rule Them All And Bind Them To Higher Prices For Books. Different digital readers work for different people, and I know that Shannon Stacey has an interesting story about buying the BN Nook. Thank you, Shannon!
The Barnes & Noble nook was an impulse buy for me. It was a frigid February day, my husband was away snowmobiling and I had money burning a hole in my pocket. Since nothing short of a “free doughnut with every iTunes gift card” sale was going to get me out into the cold, I did a little online shopping.
I had two tabs open on my browser—-one for the nook and one for the Kindle—-and I must have flipped back and forth between those two tabs for an hour. I even made a list of the last ten books I’d bought and compared the prices (pre-agency), but they were close enough to be a non-issue. The nook had the ability to tolerate the dreaded Adobe Digital Editions which, for me, meant books bought directly from eHarlequin and library books, but it was a new product for them and there were rumors of bugs. A lot of bugs. Like a hotel room in New York City kind of bugs. The Kindle had history, stability and ease of use going for it, but no ePub-ability.
In the end, I ordered the nook. Why? Because it was prettier and had rounded edges. Shallow much? Sure. But a Sony 505 had already tried and failed to lure me away from reading on my iPod Touch, and it failed because of its cold, hard metal edges.
I loved the nook…for a while. It felt wonderful in the hand. A little on the heavy side, but the rounded edges and the slightly rubberized backing were a pleasure to hold. The screen is beautiful, the text crisp and I got used to the refresh faster than I anticipated.
On the surface we looked like a perfectly happy couple, but resentment was festering. Perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention to the fine print but one of the important features for me—-syncing between devices, which meant reading on both the nook and the iPod Touch—-was actually “coming soon”. It hasn’t come yet. And there actually two folders on the device, one for Barnes & Noble purchases and one for “sideloaded” books, and none of the gimmicky features like the cover flow and the “coming soon” syncing apply to the sideloaded documents. Since about 95% of the books I read on the nook were sideloaded, those cool features were lost to me.
After a while I found myself “accidentally” buying books for my iPod Touch and returning to it again and again until, eventually, I stopped pretending I was using the nook. It wasn’t really the nook’s fault. I carry a very small purse and no purse at all during winter coat with pockets season, so I never had the nook with me on the go. I had my Touch, though. And I read in bad lighting a lot more often than I read in direct sunlight, which meant I needed a light for the nook, which meant I needed a cover. In the end it was too heavy and bulky for me.
In June, I loaded a book my husband wanted to read onto the nook and handed it to him. My plan was to get him to use it so I could stop feeling guilt about the $270 I flushed down the digital drain. He’s never been much of a reader and he’s even less of a “techie” type person—-let’s just say I still type out and send email for him—-but he was willing to give it a shot.
In the four months since I first handed him the nook, my husband has read more books than he’s read in the last…five years? He keeps bringing it to me and telling me it’s out of books. (With the two different book folders and the airplane mode and less than ideal book-browsing conditions via the device, I’m still the “manager”. I grab books on the Mac and send them over.)
I know from watching him with it what a part of the appeal is. He’s a master electrician and he’s got big, callused working man’s hands so he’s not comfortable with fragile electronics. But the nook’s pretty solid and, wrapped in the Executive cover from M-Edge folded back on itself (which I found too bulky), it feels right in his hands. He’s not afraid to grip it.
But what about the device turned my husband from an occasional reader—-the new Reacher or Davenport books mostly—-into a reader so voracious I’m, for the first time, on the short end of the “shut up, I’m trying to read” stick? I don’t know and he’s not a man of many words. I’ve been poking at him, trying to get him to articulate what he likes about it and he said:
“How the hell should I know? It’s like sex—-it’s either good or it’s bad and men don’t really care why. Now leave me the hell alone. I’m reading.”
But under duress (as in, I swore if he didn’t help me, I wouldn’t put any more books on the nook), he came up with a few things. He thinks it’s light. Besides the fact he has big, tough hands and I have girly hands, I think the disparity in our perception of its weight could also be due to the fact that, pre-digital, I read mostly mass market paperbacks (and a lot of those were shorter category romances) while he reads mostly hardcover thrillers. Even with the case and light, he says the nook’s lighter than a hardcover.
He likes the adjustable font. The one he uses is just a slightly larger than a standard print book’s, but it makes a difference. He also likes the fact there’s neither a bookmark to lose nor pages to crease when he falls asleep reading in his chair. When he goes to sleep, so does the nook. He also says the light (the M-Edge e-Luminator2) doesn’t glare on the e-ink screen like it does off paper or need to be fiddled with when reading two side-by-side pages in a print book..
So to recap, the nook wasn’t a big hit for me, but it wasn’t really the nook’s fault. I thought the grass would be greener on the e-ink side of the fence, but I couldn’t give up my iPod Touch habit. For my husband, however, the nook was nothing short of revolutionary.
I’m not the most tech-savvy woman on the planet—-hell, probably not even on my block—-but I’d be happy to answer any questions about the nook. Except why they didn’t capitalize the name of their product. That I don’t know.
The Nook is available from Barnes & Noble.com for $149 with WiFi and without 3G wireless, and $199 with both 3G and Wifi. You can see the devices at BN stores, or at Best Buy.
Do you have a Nook? Do you like it? What caused you to choose that reading device over the others? Nook fans, and Nook-curious (I can’t take this name any more, I swear), here’s your opportunity: let’s talk Nook.
I ordered the Nook the day it was announced, so I’ve gone through all the growing pains. I am very, very happy with the Nook but I would probably say the same if I had bought a Kindle or a Sony since my main purpose was to stop overloading my bookshelves. The biggest advantage over the Kindle is that I can check out ebooks from my library and read them on the Nook. I don’t have a problem with the weight – seems light enough to me. And thanks to an earlier column here, it has a beautiful Oberon Designs cover.
I got a Nook for my birthday while recovering from gall bladder surgery and don’t regret it for a minute!
First, I do agree with the previous poster that you need an Oberon Design cover – the video sold me on the durability of the cover and yes, they also do covers for the Kindle and iPad!
What really sold me on the Nook was the freebies – I know that a lot of the free books have been public domain, but it’s nice to get the footnotes and introductions to the classic books to help give perspective and references other than just a text file. B&N has been giving out one free ebook every Friday from a variety of genres and I enjoy that.
I’m also a big believer in their connecting the Nook to the brick-and-mortar store. The Nook often has free coffee coupons attached to it, free chocolates or pastries or just a store coupon to buy something IN store. Not to mention the “read-instore” option that allows me to sample new releases without pawing through the fresh copies on the shelves. It may be just me, but I hate people who browse through new releases and damage the books then put them BACK on the shelves for someone else to buy as new. Blech.
I also enjoy being able to talk to a real person when I have a problem, which I haven’t had yet. *fingers crossed* At my local B&N I asked and was told they’re selling 4-5 Nooks per day and I see a variety of ages buying them, from my age group to older to younger. It’s a good way of keeping the print books and ebooks intergrated so I go into the store.
Last… and I’ll admit upfront it’s an emotional thing… I don’t like Amazon. I’ll buy from them if I must for items I can’t get elsewhere, but I’m not keen on feeding that beast. But that’s just me. And I see no reason for the Kindle to have a keyboard there all the time when the Nook keyboard can be called up and then put away.
So… that’s me.
Next?
We went with the Nook for my tween and teen daughters for a couple of reasons – needed a rudimentary browser for them to fact-check and keep up with their homework assignments, and needed access to the ePub format for library books. The Nook pays for itself over and over when they can access library books instead of buying ebooks or making a run to Borders for their assigned reading.
I haven’t used it much but they LOVE it. I can’t stand reading on my iPhone – either I put the text small enough so I can get in the flow of the book and end up dying of eye strain or I put the text large enough to read easily and then have to turn the page every second and a half and get no flow – but the Nook really is easy to read on. If I can ever get it away from them I look forward to using it.
My eldest is a sophomore in college (UCF in Orlando – Go Knights). He is a devoted reader and packs ALL of the Twilight books whenever he travels. Do you know how big those suckers are???
I’m thinking of getting him an ereader for Christmas. I’ve got a Sony (PRS 505 – plain Jane), which I love, but I’m not a very techie person. I just need it to read ebooks and it does great. But I’ve been thinking of getting my son a Nook.
I’m concerned because I’ve heard some bad reviews of the Nook and when I Googled it (at least) one person has a “hater’s page” out there for it, but those things do make an impact.
I think my son would like the wi-fi/3G, the Nook (like my Sony) can handle ebooks checked out from the library (I love that; so would he), and I understand that Nook handles Epub. Have you or your hubby ever used the read in store feature? Aren’t they supposed to be able to read anything in B&N free in the store?
The ability to read in store would be great for him; there is a B&N next door to his dorm. He could go in to read any books for research projects, etc. and use them as sources without having to stretch the budget to buy them.
If I don’t go with a Nook, I’d probably get him a Sony. The Kindle’s lack of ability to handle library books would be a pretty big deal to my son – it is to me as well. I wonder if Amazon is planning any system updates to allow the Kindle to handle library books?
Any info on the “read in store” ability would be appreciated.
Thanks for helping a confused Mom!
My Nook story starts with a friend.
F: So you bought a digital book reader yet?
Me: No, not much need of one. I will buy dead tree books till I am old and gray.
F: I got a Nooooook! and it is wonderful!!!
Me: Yeah right.
F: You can lend books with a Nooook: One time to one friend…and you can read library books with it..(said with the sing song manner of cherubic book pusher)
Me: No, no, I shall not buy a machine that will let me purchase books at midnight! It would be…cruel for you to tempt me so! (said like the not so innocent soprano in a bad musical)
So I ended up buying my Nook for library books, freebies, and lend me books…I have purchased no more nook books than I would have if I did have to go to the bookstore at 10am rather than grabbing them whenever I wanted a new series to read.
The machine itself is easy to hold, easy to read, and when I am not reading a book I can use it to listen to music, or play suduko on. And my friend and I can lend each other new authors as we find them. Why I did not go Kindle? I did not like Amazon’s fight with the publishers, or the lack of Library friendliness of their programing. Why didn’t I go Sony or Ipad? Price (I grabbed my Nook when they lowered the price to 149). There are some things that I feel could be tweeked with the Nook, but overall I have been very happy with my purchase.
My NOOK was a Christmas gift from my kids. I’d been on the fence with the whole eReader purchase, reviews of Sony, Kindle, Cybook peaked my interest but the price kept me away. My oldest’s sons roommate was working for B&N when the nook was released and they were all “did you see it? OMG?” and I did my “I’m not buying so I’m not looking”
So they pooled their money and bought it for me, with a pretty red cover and a gift card to put books on it. Could be that I’m partial to my kids… could be that I’ve never used any other type of eReader… but I love my nook.
I love the instant gratification of buying books wherever I am, whenever I want. I love that I am never without reading material and that I can sideload different formats. I love that it works with my bookstore. It fits in my purse, my laptop bag, my backback, wherever – no I don’t find it heavy. The games aren’t key but for quick amusement its nice to have them, as is having some music or the rudimentary web browser. Knock on wood I’ve never had a problem with my nook that wasn’t of my own doing (i.e. running the battery down to critical mode).
A note about those haters – Kindle has haters, Sony has haters, noon has haters – technology choices are personal and subjective, what I like you may not like. I like to form my own opinions and I’m not opposed to using reputable sites for advice, or sites that give impartial comparisons. Haters never did it for me, their responses are usual more personal than educated, and more than one I’ve read I could point out the user error and not the device error.
I’m not afraid to giggle when I ask “i love my nook” <—- all lower case? Why?
Love my Nook after doing major research on which e-reader to buy. I will admit it has a few bumps (been known to freeze up on occasion) but not enough to make me want a Kindle.
One of the main reason the Nook was a better option – REPLACEABLE BATTERY. I have already warn down my battery after a year of use and order a new battery to replace myself. With Kindle, you have to send the whole kindle back and they send you another Kindle.
Also, I have read and heard too many horror stories about Kindle being in disputes with authors and their books being pulled from people’s kindles even though they had paid for them.
I bought my Nook 3 weeks ago and so far I love it. What decided me between a Nook and a Kindle was that with my Nook I can go to the store and talk to a real, live person if I have a question. I was actually in B&N yesterday and got tips for surfing the Internet on my Nook from the salesperson at the Nook display. I also like that while I am at B&N I can read any book in the store for free. This is especially handy to preview a book that I’ve heard about but am on the fence about buying. You all know how buyers remose can set in about page 50. I got the WiFi only model, so I can only download at home or at a hotspot, but I really haven’t gotten a wild hair to download a book in my car during rush hour. I read mine with the cover folded back on itself and find it to be very comfortable. I really love my Nook!
Went with the nook because it handles library books and has wifi and eInk. If any of Sony’s products had all the features I wanted, I might have gone with that. My biggest complaint about it is where the “next” button is placed, it’s too low on the device. I do really like turning the pages with a flick to the touch screen though, especially when reading and bed and I don’t want to annoy my husband with the small noise of pressing the button. I read about half my books on the nook and half are still paper (mostly ARCs or library books), but I wish I could read all of them on the nook.
@Mary Ann
AFAIK and from what I’ve used it for, the ‘read-in-store” option allows you to read *almost* any book in the store for an hour (or a certain number of pages which they figure you can read in an hour). It’s a way of sampling a book without picking it up off the shelf and manhandling it, basically.
I used it to read some of “The Passage” and see if it was to my taste – and B&N does have special essays from authors available to promote their newest work and all.
To me it’s a great way to surf the new releases without going over to the shelves and picking up a copy and dragging it back to the cafe or just plain old manhandling it. And if I like it, it’s stored in the Nook history so that I can buy it right there. Or I can come back the next day and pick up where I left off to read for another hour!
😉
mother effing spammers. I’m going to be deleting this from the back end, but whoever you are – I wish diarrhea upon you. – SBS.
mother effing spammers. I’m going to be deleting this from the back end, but whoever you are – I wish diarrhea upon you. – SBS.
mother effing spammers. I’m going to be deleting this from the back end, but whoever you are – I wish diarrhea upon you. – SBS.
Hubster wants an e-reader for his scientific journals. Problem is most of them are PDF, and he also wants color for things like Scientific American. I want to upgrade from my eBookwise, but so far, I haven’t found anything to lure me away from the nifty backlight feature (I tend to wake up at 2 AM and want to read to get back to sleep. When your eyes are already dark-adapted, a ‘regular’ lightbulb is too much) and the immediate page-turning. I appreciate the reviews here.
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist—of Mystery
I have yet to buy myself an ereader. I’ve been using the Kindle on Mac. ANd I agree on the name Nook—awesome. Kind of like the “light wedge.” You should have heard the jokes I was victim to on account of THAT.
I just got back home from Ohio where I did a demo and show an tell of a nook, a kindle 2, and an ipod touch for a group of librarians.
I like my nook just fine. I have to admit the rounded edges are nice – they don’t dig into my hand during extended reading sessions in the same way as the kindle can. I really like that I can put library books on it, but oh man was figuring all that out and setting it up a huge pain. Mostly the fault of ADE tho not the nook itself.
If it was all I had, I would probably be a nook lover, but….
Compared to my kindle, even with airplane mode on (which takes several clicks to turn on off btw) the battery sucks. The touchscreen makes the thing bottom heavy. I have yet to be convinced that it is awesome – I find it hard to make it turn pages sometimes, and too responsive at other times (like when I’m trying to scroll through the TOC). I have yet to use it to actually buy a book, as I got it to read epubs on that I get as galleys or library books. I don’t like that it seems to arbitrarily assign stuff to one folder or the other and other than that (which I can’t seem to control) it has no organization. And I can’t figure out how to delete stuff from the my documents side (where almost all my books are) without doing it manually when I have it plugged into my computer. Which means sometimes I can’t figure out which book I’ve read and which ones I have still to read based on just the titles. The lack of organization gets to me a lot.
Overall the nook mostly seems like the kindle 1 to me, nice but kind of clunky and with a lot of features that still need to grow up.
I’ve had a nook since January so I’ve been through the growing pains—buggy early firmware releases, cracked buttons, etc. These problems appear to have been worked out now. I chose it because it is compatible with pretty much anything non-kindle, Adobe DRM epub which means I can get library books on it, wifi/3G, and the lend me feature. I’ve joined a group for lending books which has been most useful and cost-saving. As a device I’m not sure it’s better than a Kindle or not, but I’m fond of it and it does what I want it to do (i.e. lending of various sorts) without having to strip DRM (which I’m not philosophically opposed to doing as long as I abide by the terms of the loan/sale/whatever, but I regard it as a PITA). I read tons more now that I have a nook than I ever did before, and I was a big reader before…
Another nook owner here!
What sold me on buying the nook at the time was in no small part because Barnes and Noble owned Fictionwise—and I’d been buying a majority of my ebooks from Fictionwise because THEY had the ability to let me download books directly to my computer, which Amazon wasn’t lettting me do then. (I’m a Mac owner, and the Kindle for Mac app didn’t exist yet.) I was also quite cranky at Amazon over the whole AmazonFail debacle. The nook had the ability to read all of the ebooks I already owned. The Kindle didn’t. The choice was pretty simple.
I don’t mind the weight of the device in its cover, in no small part because that cover means the device is a lot more durable to carry around in my backpack than a paperback or trade is. I burn through a LOT of books, and since I do a majority of my reading on the bus during my work commute, those books take a lot of abuse. And unlike many voracious readers, I don’t actually like damaging my physical books. I like to keep their covers as pristine as possible even if they’re books I’ve read half a dozen times.
Since then, what issues I’ve developed with B&N aren’t the nook’s fault per se. I’m not thrilled that the device separates B&N purchases and sideloaded content, but I live with that. I’m crankier that it STILL can’t sync with the nook app on my iPhone, and crankier yet that B&N’s customer service is still pretty poor, especially in regards to Mac owners (we Mac owners still don’t have an updated Mac app capable of reading epub files without crashing).
Also, since I read more SF/F than I do romance, I’ve found that B&N’s selection of SF/F is sometimes kinda random. More than once I’ve noticed that they’ll have all of a series EXCEPT one random book, and it takes forever to get customer service to do something about that missing book. And when a new book comes out that is in theory supposed to have the ebook drop on the same day, B&N often lags behind Amazon in getting the title up on their store.
There’s still plenty of life left in my nook and I don’t intend to buy another reader soon, but I’m tellin’ ya, if the rumblings I’m hearing about Amazon eventually picking up epub bear fruit, I may have to defect. We’ll see. I’m hoping the nook improves in the areas I’m cranky about before then.
Can’t we talk about nookie instead?
Hubby gave me a nook for Christmas. Registering it was onerous – currently I live 200 miles from the nearest big cities and 50 miles from WalMart (mixed blessing, that…) so Wifi and 3G coverage don’t much exist.
Once I got it set up, reading it is fine – but until I was told about the freeware eCalibre program, sideloading was annoying. The webpage is:
http://calibre-ebook.com/
Hope that also helps someone else!
I have a Nook. Well, first I tried using a dell mini as an eReader. Ugh, wrong aspect ratio and the backlighting is hard on my middle aged eyes. Then they dropped the price on the nook and REMORSE: I HAD IT. I convinced my husband he needed my mini and I needed a nook. I got one about a month ago and so far I am quite happy with it.
I keep it in a kindle cover that was on clearance at target. I think the covers are egregiously overpriced.
I have the wifi only because the 3G is from AT&T and their coverage blows goats in my city, and furthermore blows dead goats in my part of the city. It is a good thing I cannot get wireless at work or I would probably have retail therapied myself to death.
I have put quite a few freebies from gutenberg on it, have purchased a couple of books from B&N and elsewhere. I have a lone kindle book, but I am not entirely ready to break the law and strip the drm in order to move it to my nook. I also have been using the nook for library books and KNITTING PATTERNS! I love that I don’t have to carry around all the paper of knitting patterns in my bag, but I haven’t really gotten a smooth way to transfer my notes to the patterns.
I’d been looking at e-readers for a while now. bouncing back and forth between Nook and Kindle. I’ll admit that I chose Nook because of the design and because the interface seemed friendlier. It was, it is and I love it! The name makes me cringe the Nook E-reader…say it out loud really fast.
Ahem..right.
The good things are the interface is very easy and the screen is wonderful.
Loading and battery life are good. Though, you don’t ever want it to run all the way down,something that will happen if you just let it sit in the “turned off” mode.
It’s a complicated process bordering on a magic spell to get it back up to charge again. That said the B&N customer service people are really nice and helpful.
All the freebies are nice. And, it came preloaded with Pride and Prejudice!
I chose the Nook because a)Best Buy didn’t sell the Kindle yet and I just can’t bring myself to spend that much on something I haven’t touched; b)I wasn’t crazy about being tied to Amazon; and c)none of the Sony readers impressed me.
I’ve had the nook since January, and I’ve been very happy with it. I’m not at all tech-savvy, though, so take that for what it’s worth. Most of my issues with it have been solved by the various software upgrades. One thing that’s a bit of a problem for me is the placement of the page turn buttons. They’re placed too low for me to press them while holding the nook with one hand. A bigger issue—THE issue, imo—is it’s lack of ability to create folders and organize my books. I have so many books now that it’s become a pain in the ass to find what I’m looking for. I can’t understand why B&N hasn’t included that feature in one of the upgrades. I’m waiting until my warranty runs out, and, if that feature still isn’t offered, I’m softrooting, which I’m loathe to do (again, NOT tech-savvy!).
I have a Nook and I use it alot. That being said, sometimes I want to throw it against the wall. I download from Dreamspinner Press and about one in three don’t format right. If you read them on small font, they are fine. If you read them on medium (which I prefer), the words get all mixed around. Makes me nuts. Like others, I don’t like that my books are stored in two different places. The newest thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes it turns more than one page. Click once, turn two pages. I also hate turning it off and on. Push, wait, push again, wait, push again. It makes me feel incompetent. Is it better than reading on my computer? Yes, most definitely. Is it better than holding a book in my hand? Not so much.
I know it gets no love here in the States (and I don’t know why), but I adore my CyBook Opus.
Much of the bad reviews on nook are dated with pre-update info and complaints – not to say that there might be some valid complaints still, just that a goods number of issues were resolved quickly.
I had’ve my nook since the beginning and I love that my device is the same but the quirks have changed without purchasing something new and improved -that aspect of the android os is fantastic. BN is ever developing the next best feature (which is why I’m not yet freaking out about a lacking folder option with the device) and I certainly don’t feel out in the dark. Plus in-store support is highly important to the company ***full, disclosure: my job is to sell NOOK and I take great pride in ensuring my customers are satisfied with their purchase***
I honestly don’t have any major complaints. I’ve used the library feature more times than I can count, I read books for review on it in addition to what I buy for pleasure, I have so many free books it isn’t funny, and that read in store feature is awesome. Except for the read in store feature (which wasn’t live when I made my purchase) those were the reasons I went with nook over the others. It honestly had nothing to do with the fact BN is my employer – if I’d thought the sony was better, I would’ve gone with it.
Truthfully, most ppl would be happy with one of the big three, and I agree that having more readers in the market is a good thing. I do, however, think NOOK is the best or there so far.
This made me laugh out loud 🙂
I have a NOOK and I LOVE IT!!!! Here’s the reason. I have a job in a call center and as people who work in call centers know I have the MOST boring job in the WORLD so in order to stay awake I read. But a few months back The Powers That Be decided that books distracted us and prevented us from doing out jobs so we aren’t allowed to have books on our desk. This is where the Nook saved my life. I can put it in an out of the way place on my desk where my supervisor can’t see it, I can make the font BIG so I can read it without needing it to be so close to me that it is obvious I am reading. And unlike a book my Nook is easy to hide under a napkin, Cheet-o bag or I can prop my purse so passersby can’t see that I am reading. I have been doing this since I got my nook and so far no one has busted me. (YAY ME!!!) Also, if I finish a book while I am at work I usually have a bazillion more that I impulse bought off the internet and if I am not in the mood for one of those or I am reading a series and just HAVE to read the next book I can go 3G and buy a new book from my desk. My Nook has saved me from hours of tedium at work. I am sure the Kindle or and other e-reader could have done the same thing but I like my Nook. It’s cute and has designer covers from Kate Spade and right now it has a pink neoprene cover to keep the case from cracking in my purse. I like the interface of the nook and that I can control my library from the BN website. I love everything about the Nook. I held off buying an e-reader until the Nook came out…
“shut up, I’m trying to read” made me LOL. Tell him to be nice or you’ll load it all up with Nancy Grace books.
I LOVE MY NOOK . . .I tried my best friends Kindle for a week and hated it . The keyboard at the bottom bugged me a lot 😛 so when hubster brought home the NOOK I was unsure but I have had nothing but AWESOME and WONDERFUL things to say about it. I love the weight. I love the screens. I love that I can play soduku or chess. I love the customer service I’ve received. I can NOT recommend this any higher than I already do . . .I LOVE MY NOOK 🙂
I have them all. Palm, Sony, Nook, iPad, and as of yesterday, a latest gen Kindle.
I love my Nook for all the previously mentioned reasons – ePub, side loading, library, and the fact that I’m a B&N cafe rat – so I actually do carry my Nook with me to B&N at least 1x per week and use the in store features.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that B&N owns Fictionwise, which owns eReader, which used to be Peanut Press way back when I started reading and collecting books on my US Robotics PalmPilot 5000.
But my #1 most loved Nook feature? Two words: free chocolate.
I’ve yet to get the free chocolate feature with any of my other readers.
PDF file reading and markup are the only things I decidedly cannot do on any of my eInk readers. Most of my PDF reading is technical/educational, and I retain what I learn by scribbling and marking up my books. This quirk turned into my primary use case for the iPad. But the iPad is too heavy for casual reading in bed. It’s also too BRIGHT for reading in the dark unless no other option is available (I find my iPhone to be too bright for reading in the dark, too, FWIW).
So I read eInk before bed and for entertainment, use the iPad during the day, on the go, and when I travel for work.
So why did I get the latest gen. Kindle? I’m a tech. Junky. One of my friends wrote a book that was only released as a Kindle ebook. I have a bunch of Mobipocket books dating back to my Palm days, and I wanted to be sure that I’ve got my ereading possibility bases covered. One more thing – it’s wafer thin and weighs nothing.
The whole weight/size thing is a serious consideration for me. I love my Sony Pocket because of the size, and the new K gets me an eInk screen closer to my eReader size and weight sweet spot.
I would love to carry my Nook with me on travel, but between the laptop and the iPad, and the knee surgery I had last year, I seriously need to limit how much stuff I carry. (I’m still mourning the loss of my backpack to a less convenient wheelie laptop bag.) The size of the new K means I can have my eInk on the road again. (Technically, I could’ve done this with the Sony Pocket, but then I wouldn’t have had the excuse to get the K. I’m going to donate the Sony Pocket to a teen cancer patient, though, so it’s all good.)
The Nook still remains the most feature rich reader in my collection, though. None of the other readers, including the iPad, have the free chocolate feature!
LOL! ok, if i had a B&N anywhere nearby, this might sell me on it.
My husband and I got his-n-her Nooks about six weeks before they did the price drop (cue inordinate sounds of unhappiness). I had a Sony in the past and I LOVE the Nook for the big buttons, the insta-downloads, the sideloading (which is so, so easy) and I’m even used to the touch-screen now.
I think it’s like comparing Apples to Oranges – would I be equally happy if I had started out with the Kindle? Well, sure. This is kind of like the Mac vs PC argument. They’re both computers; it just depends which one you are happier using.
My biggest beef with the Nook is actually the website. They have some great categories like “Free Ebooks” or “Ebooks on MEGA SALE!!” that get me all excited. But every time I go to the BN website to look at Free Ebooks, they’re the same free ones every time. I actually have to look up the authors manually (by researching what is free on the Kindle) to see if they’re equally free on the Nook or not. It’s about a 50/50 ratio so far. The ‘Ebooks on Mega Sale’ category is equally irritating. For me, if you have a $10 ebook you are marking down to $2, *that* is a mega sale and I get interested (I love me a sale). But most of the category is filled with books that are $1 off. Uh, B&N, I love you baby, but that ain’t much of a sale.
I’d love to be able to shop in a way that would let me sort by price. Like I said, someone over here loves a sale. 😉 I counted how many books I’ve bought since April while on the Nook – well over 100, and gotten almost as many free downloads.
My husband actually has not used his at all. He really wanted one for the ease of reading, but had sticker-shock when he saw how expensive the ebooks were. He has EXTREME buyer’s remorse. Heh.
I’d love to get a Kindle, if only for the lazy acquisition of freebies.
Love, love, love my nook. I bought it about 2 months ago, afer the price drop, after all the kinks were worked out. The biggest reason I chose it over the kindle was the ability to sideload content. I don’t want to be tied to one store. I also want to not go broke buying when I can get a lot of books from Overdrive (the library’s ebook service). I feel like I have saved the cost of the entire reader because I have sideloaded so many books from the library. Those would have cost me hundreds alone.
I never thought I’d get an e-reader. What sold me was that the books were cheaper than I could buy even with my B&N or Amazon discount. What sold me on nook was what other people have said; ability to lend, to read epub, sideload books, etc. To me the Kindle is far too restrictive on what you are allowed to read.
Once I got my nook, I discovered free fridays (am reading one of those now!), plus occasional major discounts on other books. The nook FB page is full of the awesome; something new at least a couple of times a week (plus that whole free fridays thing!).
I don’t have any problem with the weight (never even thought about it) and like to read it with the cover bent back. Love the variable font sizes and don’t have any trouble at all with the bottom screen interface. My 84 year old mother just got one and likes hers as well.
I do admit to being confused as to why anyone would want a device that doesn’t work for library books or epubs, but that’s me.
Have had the Nook since Feb. 2010 and had to replace it twice for cracked buttons. Wish I had a Kindle better website, better CS.
I originally bought the Nook purely on friend recommendation. That and the fact that I buy ebooks like crazy from Barnes and Noble alone. It suits its purpose perfectly for me. I do hate how dark the screen is though. I have so many lights on around me in order to read well on it. Besides that, though, I read on it all the time!!
I’m glad someone else noticed the ridiculous name, this webcomic pretty much sums up how I feel about the name
http://www.krrobar.com/mikebookseller/comics/299.html
I bought my nook after a lot of dithering between the Kindle and the nook. It came down to what most others are saying, epub, lending and sideloading. I travel a lot and was almost always carrying 4-5 paperbacks with me. Now it is just my nook. Of course, I have to turn it off and wait until 10,000 feet before being able to read on a plane.
I do like the tie-ins to the brick and morter store; like coffee! I also like having a library that I can archive books to, as well as share on my IPhone.
The freezing of the screen problem is the biggest drawback. I have gotten really good at taking the back panel off to fiddle with the battery. I did get a new battery through customer service because it happened once too often and I blew a gasket. I like being able to turn the pages with the touchscreen. I have gotten good at the button though, clicking when I have 3-4 sentences to go on a page and knowing the next page will be there when I am finished with the previous one.
The whole ereader thing is very dangerous to the pocketbook though. I was traveling and finished one of Joanna Bourne’s books. I know there was another one out there so I looked it up, bought it and then stayed up the whole night reading!
I love my Sony and have no intentions of moving to the Nook. That said, I have friends with the Nook who love it. Perhaps if the Sony didn’t exist and I hadn’t fallen in love with my PRS-500 and, later, my PRS-505, I would’ve considered the Nook.
However I have some problems with it based on what I’ve played with in my local BN (who know me well enough to allow me to test drive within the store). It is bottom heavy and feels clunky in my hands. The covers are outrageously priced (although awfully pretty, wish Sony did something similar). It wasn’t as user friendly to me as I thought it should be. And the BN vs. Other books situation makes me itchy. I don’t like the two folders option. Books are books.
As a die-hard book reader, the last thing I need is instant gratification, so I’m happy NOT having wifi capabilities on my cheaper, but reliable Sony.
Kindle? Not even on my radar. I don’t personally have too much against Amazon, but I resent being told that I can legally only order books from them.
That’s what I love about the Sony. They aren’t in the book business, so they don’t care where you buy them. Plus the Sony recognizes more than just one type of format. That’s all WIN for me!
System99? Oh, yeah, it seems like there will soon be 99 different systems of eReaders out there before much longer.