Kindle vs. Nook

I just got a Kindle for my birthday about a week ago and have really loved reading on it. I think digital books could change how i read and the amount i read in a great way.

I was bummed however, to read of the new Barnes & Noble Nook not because it’s bad but because of what it represents.173939-bn_nook_reader_180

The hardware of the Nook is better: It has expandable storage slot, it has wifi and it has a touch screen instead of a keyboard which means it’s more flexible for future functionality.

I now have library concerns. The Nook can take not only B&N’s eBooks but also Google’s and PDF’s.  While i’m not one to compare book counts, i am worried about my eBook library.  When i buy a book i want to own it forever.  I don’t want it attached to the device i have at that time.  Think of how bad it would be if the music you had was tied to your iPod.  Every time you got a new iPod, you could only put new music on it.   Granted, it’s not a great analogy because you listen to music over and over and you typically read a book only once.  But i think you see my point.

Vinyl vs. Books.  What i think could happen with me is that my book purchasing starts to look like how many music lovers purchase vinyl.  These people consume music digitally, through mp3’s, but for bands they really love they like to have the physical product – thus they purchase the vinyl record.  I could see myself doing this with books.  I read them all digitally and for authors/books that i really like, i’ll actually pay a premium and buy the physical copy.  Ideally i would like to have a format (like mp3) where i could save every book in and keep them all on a harddrive.

The Nook has sharing capabilities.  With the Nook you can send a book to a friend for 14 days.  This is nice but not a big deal for me.  What i want is the ability to share sections of the book to the web.  I want to post passages to my blog and i want to send to Facebook and twitter sentences that i enjoy.  I don’t see anyone allowing this and it’s troubling.  I want to be able to do much more with digital books then i could with the actual book. That’s why the mp3 is so much more powerful than the CD and that’s why the eBook could be much better than the book

Anyone else had similar concerns with their kindle?

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8 thoughts on “Kindle vs. Nook
  1. I read books quickly, and the ones I love I re-read obsessively. The Boss is ALWAYS trying to get me to go the library instead of Amazon (I joke that the DC public library website re-routes me to amazon.com) because of the speed I devour books, but my argument is: what if i love and want to re-read it again and again and again? For this, your vinyl argument makes sense.

    Book sharing might not be a big thing to you, but this would be HUGE for my group of friends. We book swap, and book club is usually full of “Who can read the book first and pass it on to the next person who needs it?” I see this functionality having a lot of applicability to social readers like me.

  2. that's why I'm holding out for the mac tablet 🙂

    Also… I've found that I totally enjoy reading books on the Kindle iPhone app. Thought it would bother me, but I got used to the small screen almost immediately, and it's really nice to have your book with you ALL the time…

  3. that's why I'm holding out for the mac tablet 🙂

    Also… I've found that I totally enjoy reading books on the Kindle iPhone app. Thought it would bother me, but I got used to the small screen almost immediately, and it's really nice to have your book with you ALL the time…

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