I bought a refurb Kindle 2 29 days ago and am a click away from returning it and pre-ordering a Nook. I haven't bought any books on the Kindle yet (I'm working through a copy of Atlas Shrugged I downloaded, a book I own and isn't available in Kindle format), but it struck me that if I had, those books would be completely useless on the new reader and not only that, I can't sell them or give them away.<p>The publishers are going to go through the same process the music industry went through for 7-10 years and hopefully we'll eventually have DRM free books. The difference between books and music is that while someone might want to listen to a particular song out of their thousand song library at any given time, it's much more unlikely that someone would like that kind of random access to their books. I just hope DRM will only be an annoyance and won't sabotage eBook reader adoption.
The responsive color screen has a lot of potential. If one could have a "Cover Flow" style browsing mode, this would make the Nook a 10X better device for browsing reference material and other kinds of not-purely-linear reading. Others on HN have lamented the lack of "flippability" in other e-readers. This could be used to provide exactly that!<p>(The other thing: will B&N allow it to happen?)
compared to the kindle,
pros:
+ native PDF support (how dumb are you, amazon?)
+ micro SD slot
+ ebook lending (probably DRM'd)
+ wifi
+ based on android
cons:
- amazon likely has a larger selection of books than BN.
- no browser -> no free wikipedia, gmail. maybe hacking one on works?
- no keyboard. on screen one maybe? This makes sense from the initial design perspective though, people don't often use keyboards while reading.
- 10 days vs 14 days of power, which is not that big an issue.<p>I think the two separate screens idea is brilliant. I wonder if they'll release the source code for the software like amazon did. Though I still applaud the kindle for good effort, the Kindle 2 / DX should have been as good as this. This looks like a much more well thought out and complete product. They even have different covers and rechargeable batteries for it. Damnit, I was about to get the kindle with the newer reduced price (with international wireless) but now I have to wait and decide. If there is a browser and is usable, I'd go for it without thinking further.
The color screen on the bottom looks ridiculous to me. What's its purpose? Only to show other e-books covers? It feels like they just wanted to make it look different than the Kindle.
The touchscreen on the bottom and the book sharing are huge advantages. This is the first eBook reader that I actually would consider buying because of those two things.<p>I'm not sure why no one's done free book sharing. It's the ultimate way to encourage people to tell their friends about the product.<p>What I'm curious about is the book buying. Based on the video, you have to use that tiny screen at the bottom to buy books. Hope I'm wrong..
To me this whole Nook thing feels like a "shock and awe" campaign from B&N to take steam away from the Kindle and to their credit it seems to be working.<p>Personally, I'm skeptical they will be able to pull it off. They have a feature list a mile long (touch screen, eink display, wireless, wifi, etc) and I'd be shocked if things worked even 1/3 as well as they are advertising in their press releases, but I will reserve judgment for when it is finally released in November.
Definitely a great entrant into the market, and I'm hopeful that Amazon will step it up in response. Two things in particular that I'd like to see from Amazon are integrated access to public domain works (perhaps via a deal with Gutenberg or Google), and the ability to lend books to a friend. What's nice is that neither of these would require anything other than a free over-the-air update.
According to <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/nook-official/" rel="nofollow">http://mashable.com/2009/10/20/nook-official/</a>, wifi only works in B&N stores. If that is the case, it can't compete with Kindle 2 internationally.<p>Can anyone confirm this?
While they've got a really great opportunity to beat Amazon by being more open with their content, something tells me they're going to screw it up royally with DRM.
<i>nook retains important reading rituals like bookmarking, making notes, and highlighting passages. </i><p>Bookmarkings seems easy enough.<p>Even highlighting I can imagine an approach.<p>But note taking? How are they planning to do this? Notes in books are usually in the margins and have a line drawn to where the person is taking notes. I'm really curious to see how this works.<p>Edit: Spelling