Kindle vs Nook

The e-book reader market is pretty well subdivided into two distinct sectors these days. There are the dedicated e-book readers, such as the Kindle, the Nook and the Kobo reader in one sector, and tablet computers, like the Apple iPad in the other.

It's more than a coincidence that the two main players in the dedicated e-book reader sector - Amazon and Barnes and Noble - both have a strong association with books and reading. It seems that customers like to buy their readers from the same companies that they buy their books from.

Up until now, the Nook has trailed a long way behind the Kindle - and it is still in a fairly distant second place. However, it has been recently updated and there are a lot of improvements over the original. It's certainly worth having a look to see how the two devices stack up against each other:

The New Nook vs The Kindle 3

 Kindle vs Nook At A Glance ...

Kindle vs Nook Summary

Touch Screen Display
A lot of the bugs have been addressed with the new Nook. Probably the biggest new feature is the inclusion of a touch screen e-ink technology display. Some people will find this intuitive and easier to use. Others will get fed up with thumb prints and smears on their display.

One definite bonus with touch screen controls is the fact that it makes the QWERTY keypad redundant. With this removed, the Nook can be smaller and lighter - although it's worth noting that it is just a little thicker than the Kindle.

Battery Life
Battery life has been the subject of a bit of a spat between Amazon and Barnes and Noble. A two month battery life is claimed for the new Nook, twice as long as the Kindle. However, Barnes and Noble based that on thirty minutes of reading a day, rather than the one hour that Amazon had previously used. Amazon has now recalculated the battery life of the Kindle based on thirty minutes of reading a day with the Wi-Fi turned off and, lo and behold, both readers are tied with a two month battery life.

Memory
The Nook has half of the onboard memory of the Kindle - which is still enough for somewhere between 1500 and 1700 books. However, you can add an SD memory card to the Nook, up to 32 GB, which would allow you to carry somewhere in the region of 28,000 books around with you. Finding the time to read them would be another matter of course.

Connectivity
The Nook comes as a Wi-Fi reader only. The Kindle has the option of Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi plus 3G. Amazon also offers the Kindle with Special Offers which lets you get a discount, currently $ 25, in return for accepting adverts and special offers on the screen saver pages. As the adverts are only on screen saver pages, and the home menu page near the bottom, they don't interrupt the actual reading process, so you might think that it's a good way to save a few dollars.

Overall Verdict
The Kindle is still the number one e-book reader on the market, but the new Nook is a huge improvement on the previous model and will give it a good run for its money. The touch screen on the Nook will be a big selling point for some, less interesting to others.

The memory and battery life are largely academic. It's quite entertaining to watch big firms like Amazon and Barnes and Noble having a spat - but whether the battery life is a month or two months is largely irrelevant. It's long enough for most people in most cases. As for the memory, there may be some people who need to carry more books around with them than they could ever hope to read in a lifetime, but they are few and far between.

The larger choice of connectivity options, and the possibility of choosing a "Special Offers" model in order to get a discount, will probably be enough to keep the Kindle in the top slot, despite some interesting features in the newer Nook. In any event, the Kindle 4 will be along soon enough, and that will probably slap the Nook back into its rightful second place.