Barnes and Noble eBook Reader - Nook
 

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/

Thoughts?

PDF Support. ^

I'll admit, I didn't know B&N was working on this. This market is starting to get a little overwhelming.

Quick Links:
Nook v. Kindle
Technical Specs
Support/FAQ

Looks quite interesting. Micro SDHC card support so you can add storage, also--something sorely missing on the Kindle.

Has anyone tried this out?
I wonder if it uses the same screen-flash to "flip" pages..

Yes, the e-ink is the same. While the "flash" may seem distracting at first, you really do get used to it quickly.

As for the storage card being "sorely missing," on Kindle, I would disagree, unless you intend to use it heavily for audio books or music. I prefer my iPod for those, and thus, while I have more than 300 full-length books on Kindle and a lot of personal documents as well, I still have over 1.1 gigs of available space. With the ability to redownload anything you've bought from Amazon whenever you like, you can also delete books on the device to free up space if you need to, or just back them up on your own flash or hard drive. So I don't really see how 16 gigs would ever be necessary for me.

Mine arrived via Santa this morning. I chose the Nook to add to Santa's wishlist over the Kindle primarily due to the native PDF support, which I understand the Kindle has now.

Congrats. Please follow up with a review once you've used it a bit.

I had high hopes for the Nook but was discouraged (and amused) by this this New York Times video.

If you download the latest firmware, the Kindle II supports PDFs natively. Amazon rolled out that upgrade about two weeks ago.

IMHO, its pretty unusable for PDFs meant to fill a standard letter size page. Its barely readable when rotated into landscape mode.

Think Amazon paid for that?

No, I think David Pogue's a pretty upstanding guy - not that I know him personally. Did the review seem biased or inaccurate to you?

I have no problem with accuracy but the way he did it sure looks bad for the Nook and it glosses over things like the Mini-SD card allowing you to put a lot more stuff on it.

Unless one is planning on using an ebook reader as a substitute mp3 player or storing loads of PDF files as well, an SD card shouldn't be much of a concern to most people. The native memory on any of the ebook readers can hold hundreds of books (ebook files are amazingly small - my Collected Works of Mark Twain is 8mb). And there's nothing to prevent storing thousands more backed up to other media like computer hard drives, CDs, etc. In addition, Amazon stores any ebooks purchased from them on their site, and I assume that B&N does the same thing.

I was really optimistic that the Nook would be the ebook reader I was looking for since I like the design and feature set but after trying one out at a local BN store I will not be buying one unless future firmware updates make major changes. In my opinion the Nook is just too slow (in terms of both the e-ink screen's refresh time and lag when using the LCD) to be useful.

Thoughts about the Kindle v. Nook (I own a kindle, and played with a nook)

Even:
- The eInk technology is the same. Not backlit, get a "minor" flash

Pro Nook:
- It's got a touchscreen to flip through (but it didn't work very good, and the processor was quite slow)
- Expansion slot
- WiFi

Pro Kindle:
- The navigation is much much easier and straight-forward
- Whispersync is flawless in the US (and $2 flawless International)
- I can use the experimental browser over Whispernet free worldwide (gmail and facebook, yes)
- Better battery life

I wouldn't get the nook because of the touch-screen. It feels weird having a device with two different screen types, and the navigation of the Nook is laggy, especially with the touchpad.

Hopefully, the next steps for the Kindle are:

- Backlight
- Color text
- Zoom for PDFs
- WiFi/expansion slot