Kindle vs. Nook

[Solid Lifters]

My wife will have her birthday coming up soon and I'd like to get her one of those electronic book readers. I don't know much about these things, but I'm learning as I type. I would like your opinion, though on the two that I'm looking at. Or, maybe I should look at something else?

Kindle or Nook?

What I want it to do:

• Download Books
• Download Movies & TV Shows
• Netflix
• Check Email
• Internet Surfing
• WiFi
• Small and Portable (To Fit in a purse or handbag)

Am I asking too much from these things?

I don't care for Amazon, so I'm not sure to get the Kindle. But how is Barnes and Noble in comparison? What's the better service? Again, school me on these things because I know nothing about them. I don't need it for music or games. It's mostly for books, with an occasional movie or TV show thrown in. The email and internet aren't really needed, but nice to have.

 

[Doth1s]

I have a Nook Color, and I enjoy it, though I use it for reading only. My major gripe with it is the same one I have with most things with screens; Sunlight screws with it hardcore. I'm assuming you are going to go for the Nook Tablet or the Kindle Fire correct? Do you want a side by side comparison of them, as there is a Kindle vs. Nook review on cnet.

 

[Danoff]

Bought the nook for none of the reasons you list. I wanted to be able to purchase books in pdf format and be able to view them on other devices. I didn't want to have a library of e-books that could only possibly work on one type of device. Nook offered that (I purchase pdfs from google books).

Suppose you buy a kindle and purchase $100 worth of books. If that kindle breaks, you won't have access to those books unless you buy another kindle. Right now I can read books purchased for my nook on a computer.

 

[Doth1s]

The Kindle reads PDF and TXT files.

 

[Danoff]

The Kindle reads PDF and TXT files.

Last I checked you had to email them to the kindle, and the process seemed sketchy. Have they fixed that?

 

[Doth1s]

The Kindle Fire comes with Adobe PDF Reader installed already.

 

[Azuremen]

The Kindle Fire comes with Adobe PDF Reader installed already.

That wasn't what he asked...

 

[disinfected]

The Kindle Fire has been amazing so far. Bought one for my wife, now I want one for myself.


...And I don't even read.

 

[Northstar]

Last I checked you had to email them to the kindle, and the process seemed sketchy. Have they fixed that?

You only have to email them if you want to have it sent via wireless, I've always been able to directly send them when my Kindle is physically connected to my PC.

I have a Kindle, I love it, the only drawback is that having wireless on really drains the battery power fast.

 

[Doth1s]

That wasn't what he asked...

All right. From what I've gathered, at one time one would have to email the PDF to Amazon so they could convert it to a file that the Kindle could read. He could also convert it himself in Calibre. With the Fire at least, the PDF's can be dragged and dropped onto the Kindle via USB connection or emailed to the Kindle's email address but there is no conversion necessary.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Suppose you buy a kindle and purchase $100 worth of books. If that kindle breaks, you won't have access to those books unless you buy another kindle. Right now I can read books purchased for my nook on a computer.

Wouldn't the kindle cloud reader take care of that?

 

[Pupik]

Bought my wife a Nook last year, and she uses it "once in a while". Just downloaded the software update to it (now 1.4x something), so it can have access to the Nook Store. Haven't really used it much myself, although for 250 bucks, it wasn't a bad deal. She actually enjoys using Pandora on it more than anything else, ironically. She's read a few books on it, but not that many since getting a smartphone.

Depending on how tech-savvy your wife is, Solid, there's a few Android tablets out there that are a little more flexible and they're not really any more confusing to use, for another $100+, depending on how much you want to spend.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Bought the nook for none of the reasons you list. I wanted to be able to purchase books in pdf format and be able to view them on other devices. I didn't want to have a library of e-books that could only possibly work on one type of device. Nook offered that (I purchase pdfs from google books).

Suppose you buy a kindle and purchase $100 worth of books. If that kindle breaks, you won't have access to those books unless you buy another kindle. Right now I can read books purchased for my nook on a computer.

Nice info, thanks. It should help me decide. I was favoring the Nook, and now I can claim it's the winner of the two. The process seems simple, while it's possible to do the same thing with Kindle Fire, it's a lot more complicated. Nook sounds more what I want, and simple to use. I should have listed that before. SIMPLE or EASY to use.

To most of you, thanks so much for posting info I needed and your opinions. I understand both machines can give me what I want, but Nook does them faster, or better, or easier.

I'll still accept opinions, though so don't hesitate to chime in. SAY WHAT's ON YOUR BRAIN! 👍

 

[BobK]

Bought the nook for none of the reasons you list. I wanted to be able to purchase books in pdf format and be able to view them on other devices. I didn't want to have a library of e-books that could only possibly work on one type of device. Nook offered that (I purchase pdfs from google books).

Suppose you buy a kindle and purchase $100 worth of books. If that kindle breaks, you won't have access to those books unless you buy another kindle. Right now I can read books purchased for my nook on a computer.

You can do that with Kindle books, too. There are Kindle apps for both android devices and ipads, a Kindle reader for Windows and mac, and a browser-based Kindle Cloud Reader.

Last I checked you had to email them to the kindle, and the process seemed sketchy. Have they fixed that?

That was back in the days of the first generation 3G-only Kindle. For at least the past year it has been possible to sideload .pdf files to the Kindle, or email them for free provided that you were using wifi and not 3G. Since the Kindle Fire is wifi-only this would not be an issue.

I have a Kindle Keyboard and a Nook Simple. Both of these are pure e-readers, no videos and no web browsing (not technically true on the Kindle, but as a practical matter it is). Obviously, you're considering the Kindle Fire and Nook Color/Nook Tablet which aren't the same as what I have at all. Having said that, one of my biggest gripes with the Nook is that after I've read a book I have to connect the Nook to my computer to delete the book from the device.

In general I find maintaining my library to be much easier with the Kindle than the Nook. I can download any book in my library to any of my Kindle devices (Kindle itself, two Android devices with the Kindle app, and PC) right from the "manage my Kindle" page. As mentioned I can delete books from the device without connecting to a computer first. As far as my Nook management page is concerned, the Nook apps on Android don't exist.

For what it's worth, it's much easier to find a list of free books on Amazon than it is on B&N's website. Also as a general rule books on Amazon are cheaper than the same book on B&N, but the difference is often pennies unless it's the first book of a series.

Overall I'm much happier with the whole Kindle experience than I am with the Nook.

 

[35mm]

What I want it to do:

• Download Movies & TV Shows
• Netflix

Wait a minute... You do not want to watch videos/movies on a e-ink display. I'm not sure it will even work.
On the other hand, you do not want to read a whole book on a LCD.

I think that you first have to define what you really want:

- normal Nook and normal Kindle: e-ink screen (no backlighting), excellent for reading text (very much like paper, great for your eyes, excellent on sunny days), but bad for everything else (well, you can browse the web, but just);
- Nook Color or Kindle Fire: they're basically tablets... LCD screen; great for multimedia, but not good for relaxing and reading a book.

All this to warn you that there's a huge difference between e-ink and LCD.


EDIT:
Just 2 more notes:
- Amazon has indeed a cloud now.
- I have a Kindle, and with .pdf files, you can either just open them normally on it or (better still), very easily convert them to .mobi format and then you'll have the .pdf text all in the Kindle format, which then allows you change font type/size, etc, and makes much better use of the screen.

 

[Solid Lifters]

Wait a minute... You do not want to watch videos/movies on a e-ink display. I'm not sure it will even work.
On the other hand, you do not want to read a whole book on a LCD.

I think that you first have to define what you really want:

- normal Nook and normal Kindle: e-ink screen (no backlighting), excellent for reading text (very much like paper, great for your eyes, excellent on sunny days), but bad for everything else (well, you can browse the web, but just);
- Nook Color or Kindle Fire: they're basically tablets... LCD screen; great for multimedia, but not good for relaxing and reading a book.

All this to warn you that there's a huge difference between e-ink and LCD.


EDIT:
Just 2 more notes:
- Amazon has indeed a cloud now.
- I have a Kindle, and with .pdf files, you can either just open them normally on it or (better still), very easily convert them to .mobi format and then you'll have the .pdf text all in the Kindle format, which then allows you change font type/size, etc, and makes much better use of the screen.

Hmmm, I think she's more interested in reading books. Videos and movies will be a distant second. If it's hard to read, I know her too well, she'll never use it. I don't want that. She reads a lot and I don't want to diminish that with her birthday gift.

I think I'll stick with the basic Kindel. Her freind has one, so I think it's best to get her something similar.

Thanks for the help, dude! 👍