Most helpful client reviews
29626 of 29970 people found the following review helpful.
Kindle vs. Nook (updated 6/2/2011)
By Ron Cronovich
When I wrote this review in August 2010, there was only one Nook, which is now called “Nook First Edition.” It proceeds to be available, but there are two new Nooks. The Nook Color was introduced last fall – it’s fundamentally a tablet computer, and runs the Android software that is usual on galore smartphones nowadays. It’s twice as heavy and costs twice as much as a Kindle, but equated to other tablet computers, it is a very good value.
And now (early June 2011), a new e-ink based Nook is coming out. It’s called the “Nook Simple Touch.” It is just now starting to ship, so evidently I don’t have one and can’t tell you anything when it comes to it that you can’t learn by reading online reviews. But the reviews are very favorable, so if you’re taking into account a Kindle, you ought to take a look at the new Nook Simple Touch, too.
But the Kindle is nonetheless still a compelling option. It’s a mature product, very well designed and easy to use, performance is very zippy, it’s competitively priced, and no e-ink based reader has a better, more readable display than the Kindle, not even the new Nook Simple Touch. Also, the Kindle universe is rather extensive: the Kindle store is great and has a heap of thousands of free e-books as well as good deals on most other e-books, and once purchased, you may read your Kindle books on closely any device you own (computer, phone, tablet), not just your Kindle. And there are tons of outstanding cases and other accessaries for the Kindle.
So, while my review compares the Kindle to the older Nook, I’ll leave it here because it has a ton of data regarding the Kindle, a outstanding e-reader that deserves your attention, and because the primary Nook proceeds to be available. That said, I urge you to NOT buy the introductory Nook. It was a respectable e-reader when it came out in 2009, and still had a lot of value when I wrote regarding it in August 2010, but it is without doubt or question inferior by today’s standards.
———— my original review ————–
If you’re attempting to choose amongst a Nook and a Kindle, perchance I may help. My wife and I have owned a Nook (the introductory one), a Kindle 2, and a Kindle DX. When Amazon declared the Kindle 3 this summer, we pre-ordered two Kindle 3′s: the wi-fi only model in graphite, and the wi-fi + 3G model in white. They arrived in late August and we have employed them very steadily since then. For us, Kindle is better than Nook, but Nook is a good device with it is own vantages that I will talk about below. I’ll end this review with a few words regarding the Nook Color.
First, reasons why we prefer the Kindle:
* Speed
In our experience, the Kindle is very zippy equated to the Nook. Page refresh speed (the time it takes a new page to appear after you push the page-turn button) was WAY more quickly on Kindle 2 than on Nook, and it’s quicker yet on Kindle 3. Yet, I read a whole book on the Nook and didn’t find the slower page refresh to be annoying – you get applied to it, and it’s not a problem.
For me, the more important speed divergence worries navigation – moving the cursor around the screen, for example to pick a book from your library, or to jump to a chapter by selecting it in the table of contents. On Kindle, you do this by pushing a 5-way rocker button, and the cursor moves very quickly. On Nook, you do this by activating the color LCD touchscreen (which ordinarily shuts off when not in use, to conserve battery). A “virtual rocker button” appears on the screen, and you touch it to move the cursor. Unfortunately, the Nook cursor moves very sluggishly. This might not be a big deal to you, but it actually got annoying to me, specially since my wife’s Kindle was so quick and responsive.
In November 2010, Nook got a software upgrade that increments page refresh speed and makes navigation more responsive. I returned my Nook months ago, so I can not tell you if the Nook’s performance is now equivalent to the Kindle’s, but Nook owners in the remarks division have convinced me that the software update improves the experience of using the Nook. If performance is a big element in your decision, visit a Best Buy and compare Kindle and Nook side by side.
* Screen contrast
You’ve seen Amazon’s claims that the Kindle 3 e-ink has 50% better contrast than Kindle 2 or other e-ink devices. I have no way of precisely measuring the betterment in contrast, but I may tell you that the Kindle 3 display unquestionably has more contrast than Kindle 2 or Nook. The divergence is noticeable, and important: more screen contrast means less eyestrain when reading in poorly lit rooms.
In well-lit rooms, the Nook and Kindle 2 have sufficient contrast to concede for comfortable reading. But I oftentimes read in low-light conditions, like in bed at night, or in a poorly lit room. In these situations, reading on Nook or Kindle 2 was a bit uncomfortable and oftentimes gave me a mild headache. When I got the Kindle 3, the extra contrast was without delay noticeable, and made it more comfortable to read under less-than-ideal lighting conditions. (If you go with a Nook, just make sure you have a good reading lamp nearby.)
* Battery life
The Nook’s color LCD touch screen drains it is battery quickly – I could never get more than 5 days out of a charge. The Kindle 2 had longer battery life than the Nook, and Kindle 3 has even longer life: in the 3 months since we received our Kindle 3′s, we distinctively get 3 weeks of battery life amongst charges. (We keep wireless off with regards to half the time to save battery power.)
* Weight
Nook weighs in regards to 3 ounces more than the new Kindle, and you may genuinely feel the difference. Without a case, Nook is still light sufficient to hold in one hand for long reading sessions without fatigue. But in a case, Nook is a heavy sucker. The new Kindle 3 is so light, even in a case, we find it comfortable keeping in one hand for long reading sessions.
Reasons some people might prefer the Nook:
* In-store experience
If you need aid with your nook, you may take it to any barnes and noble and get a real humane to help. You may take your nook into the coffee shop division of your local B&N store and read any book for free for up to one hour per day. When you take your nook to B&N, galore in-store particular deals and the occasional free book pop up on your screen.
* User-replaceable battery
Rechargeable batteries in the long run lose their capacity to hold a charge. Nook’s battery is user-replaceable and comparatively inexpensive. To replace Kindle’s battery, Amazon wants you to ship your Kindle to Amazon, and they will ship you back a DIFFERENT Kindle than the one you sent (it’s the same model, for example if you send a white Kindle 3, you get a white Kindle 3 back, but you get a “refurbished” one, NOT the precise one you sent them). I don’t like this at all.
However, assorted humans have posted remarks here that have eased my concerns. Someone looked up stats on the Kindle’s battery and did a lot of simple calculations to show that it ought to last for 3 or more years. Before that happens, I will surely have upgraded to a newer Kindle model by then. Also, someone found galore companies that trade Kindle batteries at reasonable cost and have how-to videos that demonstrate how we may replace the battery ourselves. Doing this would void the Kindle’s warranty, but the battery will in all probability not fail until long after the warranty expires.
[update June 2011: The batteries in the Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch are not replaceable, but the battery in the basi Nook is.]
* ePub
Nook uses the ePub format, a widely applied open format. Amazon uses a proprietary ebook format. Many libraries will “lend” ebooks in the ePub format, which works with nook but not kindle. However, a free and reputable program called Calibre allows you to translate ebooks from one format to another – it supports galore formats, including ePub and Kindle. The only catch is that it doesn’t work with copy-protected ebooks, so you can’t, for example, buy a Kindle book (which is copy protected) and translate it to ePub so you may read it on a Nook.
* Nook’s color LCD touchscreen
The basi Nook has a little color LCD screen on the bottom for navigation. This could be a pro or con, depending on your preferences. It makes the Nook hipper and less drab than Kindle. Some people receive pleasure from using the color LCD to view their library or navigate. I did, at first. But after two weeks of use, and comparings with my wife’s Kindle, I found the committed buttons of the Kindle requiring little effort and far more quickly to use than the Nook’s color touchscreen. I also found the bright light from the color screen distracting when I was attempting to read a book or newspaper (though when not in use, it shuts off after a minute or so to conserve battery).
* expandable capacity
Nook comes with 2GB of internal memory. If you need more capacity, you may insert a microSD card to add up to 16GB more memory. Kindle comes with 4GB of internal memory – twice as much as Nook – but there’s no way to exaggerate that. Kindle doesn’t receive memory cards of any type. If you mainly use your device to read ebooks and newspapers, this shouldn’t be an issue. I have over 100 books on my Kindle, and I’ve employed only a tiny fraction of the memory. Once Kindle’s memory fills up, just delete books you don’t need prompt access to; you may always restore them later, in seconds, for free.
A few other notes:
Kindle and Nook have other features, such as an MP3 player and a web browser, but I caution you to have low expected values for these features. The MP3 player on the Kindle is like the first-generation iPod shuffle – you can’t see what song is playing, and you can’t navigate to other songs on your device. I don’t like the browser on either device; e-ink is just not a good technology for surfing the web; it’s slower and clunkier than LCD screen technology, so even the browser on an Android phone or iPod touch is more gratifying to use. However, a lot of commenters have more favorable views of either device’s browser, and you might, too.
* ebook lending
If you have a Nook or a Kindle, you may “lend” an ebook you purchased to someone else with the same device for up to two weeks. The Nook has always had this feature. The Kindle just got this feature as of December 2010. Most but not all purchased ebooks are lendable, due to publisher restrictions.
* PDF help
Kindle and Nook both handle PDF files, but in dissimilar ways. When you put a PDF file on your nook, nook converts it into an ebook-like file, then you may adjust the font size, and the text and pagination will adjust just like with any ebook. But you can not see the initial PDF file in the native format in which it was created. Kindle 3 and Kindle DX have native support for PDF files. You may see PDF files just as they would appear on your computer. You may also convert PDF files to an ebook-like format, and then Kindle handles them just the way the Nook handles them – text and pagination adjust when you alter the font size. Unfortunately, a great deal of symbols, equations, and graphics get lost or mangled in the translation – even when looking at PDF files in their native format on the Kindle. Moreover, the little screen size of the Kindle 3 and the Nook is not great for PDF files, most of which are designed for a larger page size. You may zoom and pan, but this is cumbersome and tiresome. Thanks to commenters who suggested looking at PDF files in landscape mode on the Kindle (I don’t recognise if you may do this on Nook); this way, you may see the entire top half of the page without panning, and then scroll down to the bottom half. This works a little better.
SUMMARY:
Nook and Kindle each offer their own advantages. We like the nook’s user-replaceable battery, compatibility with ePub format, and in-store experience. But we strongly prefer Kindle 3 because it is performance is zippier, it is higher-contrast screen is requiring little effort to read, and it’s littler and lighter so it is more portable and more comfortable to hold in one hand for long reading sessions.
* Nook Color
Everything I wrote regarding the Nook in this review applies to the basi Nook (which proceeds to be available), not the new Nook Color. To me, the Nook Color is in a dissimilar product category than the Kindle or primary Nook. Nook Color has an LCD screen, like an iPad or most computer monitors. That’s a huge disfavor for people like me, who get headaches from reading a computer screen for long periods of time. Amazon’s Kindle product page has an informative division on e-ink vs. LCD displays.
But galore persons don’t have difficultnesses reading from computer screens, and the Nook Color is getting glowing reviews in the press and by owners. For the money, it offers a lot of functionality such as a good web browser and the capacity to play games and watch movies. But keep in mind: it costs a lot more than the Kindle, it weighs almost twice as much, it doesn’t come in a 3G version, and (unlike the initial Nook) the Nook Color doesn’t have a user replaceable battery.
10282 of 10502 persons found the following review helpful.
Worth the money. Not perfect, but very very good for begin to finish novels in good light
By Jeffrey Stanley
The Kindle is my original e-ink reader. I own an iPad, an iPhone, and have owned a Windows-based phone in the past that I used as an ereader.
My overall impression of the device is good.
The good:
I’d frankly rather read linear (read from page one to the end, one page at a time) fiction from it than a book, because I can’t always get comfortable with a book. Hardcovers are on occasion a bit heavy, and paperbacks don’t always lie open easily. The Kindle is fantastically light and thin. I may hold it in one hand easily. The page turn buttons are conveniently located. Page-turns aren’t instant, but they’re probably rapidly and without delay than turning a physical page in a printed book (there are just a lot more page-turns unless you choose a little font). The contrast is better than other ereaders I’ve seen. There is zero eye strain in good light. My eyesight isn’t the biggest and I like being capable to increase the font size and read without glasses. I love being competent to browse the Kindle store and read samples before resolving to purchase. The “experimental” browser is breathtakingly usable, but isn’t great. It is utile for browsing wikipedia and blogs. The greatest drawback to the browser is the awkward pointer navigation, using the 5-way pad. It syncs your furthest read page over the internet so you may pick up where you left off using your iPhone or iPad.
The so-so:
The kindle store could use more categories and sorting options. You can’t sort by “top rated,” and there is no category for “alternate histories,” for example. Finding a very-specific type of fiction relies on keyword searches, which don’t do a outstanding job. The wifi now and then doesn’t connect before it times-out. You seldom need the wifi, but it is annoying if you alter a setting, answer “OK” to the prompt to connect, and the thing tells you it failed to connect two seconds later (the precise moment it gives evidence of that it did at long last connect, then you need to go back to update the setting again). Most settings don’t require a connection, but it is a minor annoyance. Most of your time will be expended reading, and of course your books are stored on the device and a connection is not required. Part of me wishes I’d purchased the 3G model, because the browser is good sufficient that having lifetime free 3G wireless would be worth the extra money. Magazines don’t look very good and are not very easy to navigate. There is minor glare in a lot of lighting conditions, largely when a lamp is positioned behind the reader’s head.
The bad:
The contrast is reasonable to poor in dim light. It is much requiring little effort to read a printed page in dim light. In good light, contrast is on par with a pulp paperback. In dim light it feels almost like reading from an old Palm Pilot (resolution is better than an old Palm, but contrast is bad in dim light). The screen is little sufficient that the frequency of page turns is beauteous high. Even in good light, the light gray background is less pleasant than the eggshell background of a printed page. You will have to tell it to sync before you switch it off, if you suppose the feature permitting you to pick up where you left off using other gimmicks to work correctly. The copy shelter prevents you from using the files on anything other than Kindle software or devices.
Vs iPad:
IPad is a lot better for magazines, reference materials, and illustrated materials. Kindle is worlds better for reading novels. IPad is pretty heavy, making it more difficult to hold in your hand or carry with you everywhere. Kindle is much more portable and requiring little effort to hold. IPad has some amazing children’s books and magazines, which take vantage of it is multimedia features. IPad is unreadable in sunlight and glare is bad in bright light. Kindle is as good as a printed page in bright light. Ipad serves as a originative tool, a computing tool, a gaming tool, and a communicating tool. Kindle is only a novel machine. I don’t regret buying either one of them. An iPad won’t replace books, but a Kindle can, if the book is text-only.
I highly commend this device at it is new low price if you are a ordinary reader of novels. I love my kindle. Just don’t suppose it to be more than it is. Leave the magazines and such to the tablet computers.
1934 of 1971 humans found the following review helpful.
A hesistant buyer rejoices on his choice
By Mr Goodwrench
I researched the buy of a Kindle for a long time. I couldn’t determine whether or not it was worth buying a devoted e-reader. Boy am I glad I made this purchase. The downside to Amazon’s online syndication of Kindle 3 is that the clients don’t get to see it in person. It is much better in person. This may sound stupid, but when I got my new Kindle, I thought there was a stuck-on overlay on the screen containing a diagram of the unit’s buttons, etc. I genuinely tried to peel it off. Doh! The e-ink on this unit is THAT good. I didn’t realize that I was staring at the actual display. I likewise didn’t realize that no power is required until the display changes. (thus the outstanding battery life) I do a lot of reading, but was facing the probability of reading less or buying huge type books because of my variable and deteriorating eyesight. The new Kindle has been a godsend. Now, I may determine the size of type I need depending on my level of fatigue among other things. The weight and ergonomics are very good. For someone, like me, with neuropathy in his hands, it is exceedingly easy to manage and pleasurable to own. To me, it is more comfortable to read than print books. The ease of navigation is outstanding as is the speed. The battery life, so far, has been extraordinary. It effortlessly connected to our home Wi-Fi, which by design does not broadcast an SSID. It downloads books so fast that I almost thought they were not altogether received. I did not buy the 3G version because of the price divergence and the fact that there is no coverage where I live. If you are not constantly traveling, I don’t see the need to spend the extra bucks, but that is a matter of personal choice. For those who have no Wi-Fi at home, do not forget that you may always download the material to your computer and transfer it thru USB. Just today I was watching an consultation with Tony Blair on TV. He was talking regarding his new book, which sounded interesting. I picked up the Kindle and downloaded a free sample before the consultation was over. I have only read the preface so far, but will in all likelihood buy the book. Now THAT is a great way to buy a book! I haven’t applied online browsing extensive yet, but find it reasonable for what the device is. This is principally a book reader, not a laptop or notebook. They are great for what they do, but can’t match the e-ink display, or the light weight. For those of you worrying with regards to the wait for the new Kindle, let me end with, “It is worth the wait” This new Kindle is all regarding the quality of experience. There are a heap of format selections for electronic reading. If you want the best experience, go with the Kindle.
See all 32128 client reviews…
