Why I bought a Nook instead of a Kindle.

                                                 

           Kindle 3                           VS                         Nook

A couple of people asked why I chose my Nook from Barnes and Noble over the Kindle from Amazon. I am a long time Amazon customer and love Amazon, so really thought I would end up with a Kindle. But as with all new toys I want to buy, I did some extensive research. One of the best comparisons I found was here. It is very detailed and was of great help in my decision. Since some people might be buying ebook readers for Christmas, I thought I would share.

I will share the main points that won me over on the Nook:

• The Nook has a user replaceable battery. The battery may last for years, but when it dies I can replace it. If/when the Kindle battery dies, you have to send it back to Amazon to be changed.
• The Nook accepts a microSD card if you want to expand the memory. You can also put music on your memory card to listen to on the Nook.
• LIBRARY EBOOKS. This is the big one. Many library have ebooks you can check out...thye are in the ePub format. Kindle doesn't read ePub. (You have to download these to your computer, then move to your Nook using the USB cable...known as sideloading....but they are FREE to read ebooks.)

Those are the top 3 advantages, for me, of the Nook over the Kindle. I have now had my Nook for 2 months and I love, love, love it. I have about 60 books on it and have not paid for one. Oh, did I forget to mention....FREE EBOOKS. I have found multiple sources for free ebooks usuable on the Nook. The Kindle can read books only from Amazon (at this point in time.)

Both come with WiFi and 3G. I did not see any reason to pay an extra $50 for 3G, so I bought the Nook with WiFi only. It is not a web browser, it is an ebook reader.  I load my books via WiFi at home. I don't foresee that I will have a book emergency and need 3G to download a book "right now." Although, if I did, I could just find a WiFi hotspot and download to my hearts content.

There is a Nook color now, but I was not interested as it does not have the eInk feature of the Nook. If I want to look at a glossy, backlit  color screen, I will use my netbook.

Hope this helped anyone looking to purchase an e-reader.